Posted: 6/11/2004 9:19:55 AM EDT
I attended a MS Secuirty Summit  this week and they were passing out SP2. So far so good. The biggest change is in security.There's now a real (sort of) firewall that you can configure a bit and lock down individual ports if you want. There's now a pop-up blocker in IE but since I haven't used IE in a long time I haven't had a pop-up problem. The Security Center is suppose to interface with your anti-virus software but since I use Norton AV it's not able to determine if the virus signatures are up-to-date or not . Norton is the number one AV retailer and they don't hook with them?Nothing to really agrivate me yet. |
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There's also Microsoft Update rather than Microsoft Windows Update - this new site scans for all Microsoft applications and updates them all. There's also an active content notification where if there's active content on a web page - a new and expanding attack vector - there is a second program bar that pops up under the primary window top bar. Clicking on this bar warns you and lets you run the code anyway. |
You forgot to add: Content companies America Online Inc., The Disney Co. and OD2. Service providers CinemaNow Inc., Movielink LLC, MusicNow LLC, Napster LLC, VirginMega France and Yacast. Consumer electronic device manufacturers Archos SA, Creative, Dell Inc., Digital 5 Inc., iRiver International, PRISMIQ Inc., PURE Digital, Rio, Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., SimpleDevices Inc. and 2Wire Inc. Chip makers BridgeCo AG, Equator Technologies Inc., Imagination Technologies, Micronas, Motorola Inc., Sigma Designs Inc. and SigmaTel Inc. to your list of Microsoft. I just turn the DRM off with a mouse click.
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Digital Rights Management - unique ID numbers to track your use of music and movies. Programs like McAfee Anti-spam will remove the number which is in software now. Media Player, Music Match and some others can assign a "fingerprint" to you machine to prevent you from "accidently" sharing your media withothers - and can track such stuff back to you in theory. There was a HUGE stink about Intel putting a unique ID number into each CPU but not a peep about the unique number encoded into each Network Interface Card (NIC) since the dawn of time. |
Yes DRM has rendered my Sony NetMD Minidisc player Recorder useless. I can no longer put mp3's that I make onto my minidiscs player even with the Sony supplied software. Great stuff huh?!?!?! 
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So far, I am impressed with SP2-RC2... I did take the time to build a Slipstreamed Administrative Installation Point and I am glad I did - the disk space saved was incredible. MS has included a new wireless networking setup wizard which includes some nice security features, but they still have yet to turn on the multi-user interface (which I for one, REALLY want). All of the embedded drivers I have seen so far are unchanged from the 2001 XP Gold Release. It is worth noting that SASSER and BLASTER are completely ineffective at compromising an SP2 system. Most Virus/Worm attacks that rely on a Buffer or Stack overflow will be stopped cold, and that is a good thing. The bad part about it is that some 3rd. party applications that are not 100%-compliant with Windows APIs may not run. Another good thing is that we should see a "joint" version of Java from Microsoft and Sun that should be very secure and that will better integrate with Windows. As far as all this loose talk on DRM goes... I suggest you read up on it. Yes, there are some issues with it, but most 3rd. Party applications have the ability to shut off DRM quite easily. DRM integrated into the CPU will not change much of anything, it will also have to be shut off for people like content/media creators... so don't sweat it. Make no mistake, Media Distribution Companies are losing... big time. Sooner or later they will have to change... but for 100+ years they were in the business of controlling distribution: that no longer is really the case. It will take them time to figure this out, before or after Chapter 11, is up to them. In the meantime, be educated and know the system. (Visa Vi Gun Control: Sound Familiar?) |
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Big time warning: If you're use to using a third party software firewall (and you really ought to) SP2 RC2's firewall and it might not get along! Microsoft's firewall is on by default with SP2 RC2 and will warn of not running two firewalls back-to-back ... got me as I run Symantic's stateful inspection firewall. |
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DOH! I guess that's why they call it a Release Candidate.  I run a Smoothwall, so I don't really worry too much about firewalling a single /24 network from within; a small webserver run on a DMZ segment, does run the stock M$ RC-2 firewall (just for giggles), and truth be told, it really isn't half bad. Regarding the protected segment: I ruthlessly administer  my Wife and Kid's machines to prevent installation of malware. |
| I use zone alarm pro's firewall along with SP2 RC2 and have NO problems running both at the same time. However, it still does not recognize that NAV is up to date. Microsoft really does need to work out that bug, but so far I'm impressed. SP2 RC2 is fairly unobtrusive, but does increase security. You can download it right off Microsoft's website. |
The MAC address? Easyly spoofed by your average computer savvy person from 14 y.o. and up. Not only that, but it's not visible past the first router hop, or the Internet for that matter. Every router hop replaces the source MAC address. When's SP2 supposed to be out anyway? |
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You can download it from: www.microsoft.com/TechNet/ProdTechnol/WinXPpro/sp2preview.mspx It's pretty cool. |
Actually, it does MAC (Media Access Controler, not Macintosh) addresses (the unique ID number assigned to every NIC) are neccicary for the operation of the network, without unique IDs there would be no way to route traffic... Oh, and they're not that unique, as most modern NICs let you enter the MAC addy you want it to use into FLASH.... There is NO REASON to tag CPUs, operating systems, etc with a serial number, except to use it as a bug... |
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MS says SP2 isn't quite ready for release yet. I can confirm this myself. Some sites cause a BSOD when I visit them. After a video driver update they still crash the OS when I go there. I *never* got a BSOD before. Ever. SP2 doesn't speak AVG Anti Virus either. The popup blocker sure works well. |