Readers may remember
a story we linked to a little over a week ago wherein Steve
Gibson (of GRC.com) detailed a denial of service attack on his site
and explained how the implementation of full Unix sockets support
in Windows XP will bring about a script kiddie apocalypse. The
Register follows up here with a report on Mr. Gibson’s
“spoofarino,” a tool designed to ferret out ISP’s that permit
spoofed packets from customer machines. The Reg is less forgiving
than many of our readers were when this story first ran, going so
far as to suggest that Mr. Gibson’s new tool may encourage
development of malicious variations.
“…After being packeted into submission last month by
a thirteen-year-old computer enthusiast called “Wicked”, he’s
become obsessed with the mission of dissuading Microsoft from
outfitting ‘XP with the same capabilities as most of its
competitors.He’s written thousands of words on his Web site, denouncing
Microsoft for putting something like real power into a consumer
operating system. He’s written memos to the company; he’s warned
all his site’s visitors; but he’s still not satisfied. The “XP
Christmas of Death” is coming, he warns, immediately after which
all the little s’kiddies will gleefully baptize us with fire.… Unfortunately, not enough of the right people are listening
to him with the proper degree of attentiveness. So he’s decided to
show the bastards: Gibson is developing a free tool which he calls
‘Spoofarino’.”