Microsoft responds to Nmap (and a survey update)

[Fyodor <fyodor () insecure org>]

First let me say thanks to the 848 people who have taken the Nmap
survey so far.  But that still leaves us 652 away from our goal.  I
hope to close the survey in a day or two, and it will be really sad if
we end up with less than the 1,222 responses of the 2000 survey!  If
you haven't taken it yet, here is a quick link:

http://www.insecure.org/nmap/survey2003.html

It should take less than 5 minutes and will be very helpful in guiding
Nmap development going forward.  All questions are optional.

In other news, it seems that Microsoft has finally taken notice of
Nmap!  But instead of trying to squash us like a bug or sending an
army of lawyers, they are actually recommending it.

Nmap is among 7 MS recommended security tools: http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/security/tools.asp

And MS recommends that Nmap be run "daily": http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/columns/isp_security.asp

Good for MS.  This is a much better approach then them trying to build
Nmap into Windows as described at http://www.counterhack.net/base_clippy_image.html .
Nmap must be one of the few tools to win Linux Journal tool of the
year _and_ be recommended by MS :).

Oh, and it looks like the Microsoft "Trustworthy Computing" initiative has
made progress!  They now have the toughest password requirements in
the industry:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q276304

Cheers,
-Fyodor

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