RE: Crack Office XP

[BRAD GRIFFIN <b.griffin () cqu edu au>]

(I was going to avoid this, but...)

No matter what folks think of Steve Gibson's motives or his writing style,
he has probably, in two articles, made more newbies and average computer
users aware of security issues (and the possibility of them hosting DDOS
code in their boxes) than a thousand posts in a thousand technically
orientated mailing lists ever would. 

In regards to the moderator note quoted below, yes, the articles are written
for Internet newbies. That is patently obvious by the style.

Now hows about killing the Gibson debate and getting back to vuln-dev issues

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thierry [mailto:Thierry () purge-it com]
> Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 9:56 PM
> To: ricardo_x; vuln-dev () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: Crack Office XP
>
>
>
> ====================================================================
> ... just wanted to add my 2 cents:
>
> folks,
> regardless whether any progy/os is crackable or not (btw please add
> office-xp to the list)
> what I find incredible and a true issue to this newsgroup is 
> micro$oft's
> intention to 100% implement
> the raw sockets specification. (see more info at Steve Gibson'
> http://grc.com/dos/winxp.htm)
> welcome to the jungle,
> ====================================================================
>
> Here are what I consider my 2 cents to above message :
>
> This was Posted to nmap mailing list (The moderater note is not 
> from a securityfocus moderator but from Fyodor):
>
> Steve Gibson is a media slut and should be treated as such.  
> If you look
> at how he writes up things on his own web site, you can see 
> they're made
> to look just like how they might in print.  In my surveying 
> of what he's
> done, he's done...well...nothing very exciting.  His "nanoprobes" were
> really lame (a different spin on what nmap does) and if people would
> just start ignoring him, we'd be much better off.
>
> [ Moderator note: I agree 100% with Darren & Andy.  Gibson is a
>   charlatan whose "research" is written for clueless media reporters
>   (for press attention) and the teeming masses of internet newbies (to
>   whom he sells various products).  His "findings" are not new, are
>   always filled with massive hyperbole, and are frequently completely
>   false.  Instead of presenting evidence to prove his points, he tends
>   to just state them using goofy blue or green fonts as if that
>   somehow adds credibility.  We recommend avoiding this guy!
>
>   -Fyodor ]
>
> ====================================================================
> ACK.