ipchains and similar firewalls are indeed far superior. I manage "real" firewalls as part of my responsibilities. However the new microsoft policy will help protect the network from Joe and Jane average who buy a PC from the closest "big box" store and hook it up to their cable modem so they can exchange pictures of the kids with the grandparents in Fla. This is the class of users who botnet builders dream about because these people do not see a computer as a complex system which _requires_ constant maintenance but as a semi-magical device for moving images and text around. Scott C. McGrath On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Greg Maxwell wrote:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Eric A. Hall wrote:
Wouldn't it make more sense to ship with all of the services disabled?
I mean, if the role of the firewall is to block packets to weak services, wouldn't it be simpler to just disable the damn services since they aren't going to be usable anyway?
'Firewall' is more buzzword compliant.
This doesn't even begin to address the fact that the firewalling included in windows is nowhere near as functional as the firewalling in other OSes (such as FreeBSD or Linux).