A lot of what Steve talks about is technical and isn't easy reading, but he has posted a summary at: http://grc.com/dos/xpsummary.htm

The whole GRC website is a must-go place on the net. His story of a dDOS attack and his response is fascinating reading for those people interested in how hackers work. Plan on spending at least an hour digesting what he says at:
http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm

Given what is said on Steve's pages, I infer that anyone who buys XP without being fully computer literate is setting themself up for trouble, and anyone who is semi-computer literate and buys XP for anything other than use as a toy may be a fool.

I don't know about XP, but ME seems to have a few neat features. So far, I am quite happy with ME over 98. But I don't think I'll fiddle with XP for quite a while.

Steve, if you have problems with ME, you might have a BIOS issue of some sort that is not set correctly. Insult your MB manual and get the correct settings.

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And as far as I'm concerned, people who own Computers, let alone Windows XP, that aren't computer literate should spend their money elsewhere. Like computer classes! (side note: my parents own a $3000 solitaire machine)

In regard to stability, I believe driver signing/certification, and installing separate DLL and other system files for individual programs will go a long way in providing stability. Also, finally shredding the Win9x platform that 'ME' almost did, will greatly improve stability.

I've been running XP for almost a month now. Not one crash. I don't even know if the built-in error reporting feature works.

As far as alternative operating systems. I'm all for them. I have several partions of this box dedicated to Linux. I think the advances of KDE and GNOME over the last few years have been astounding. However, unless you're in an enclosed business environment, an enthusiast, or such, you're not going to run Linux, BSD, BE, or any other operating system besides Windows and maybe MacOS. The sugar coating make it easier. The popularity of the OS makes application support an almost no-brainer. The chances for interoperability between friends, co-workers, and family isn't going to come close with an alternative OS.

Scott, I think you are being too hard on the man. What Gibson runs up against constantly is the complacency of the big ISPs and Microsoft. He reacts similarly to how we react to TES and others.

A few years back, soon after the release of Win 95, I kept noticing the upload bar on my internet connection graph showing that it was actively transmitting, even though I wasn't doing anything. I contacted tech support at my ISP and didn't get an answer. I searched the net as best I could and didn't find any answer.

Much later, I heard about a leak if Windows networking was installed and I fixed the leak but didn't dare have any network connected to that machine, and I still noticed occasional unexplained activity. Then Gibson came out with Zone Alarm and for the first time I had no ghost activity and I felt relatively safe on the net. I don't have a static IP and anyone trying to hit me is most likely either random or from a web site I might visit. I know a lot of the hits may be nothing to worry about, but there are enough that I am thankful for his firewall, which is better than Black Ice and other commercial firewalls.

If someone thinks they don't need a firewall, here is a segment of the log from this computer showing hits this month:
FWIN,2001/08/02,15:04:40 -5:00 GMT,168.82.56.155:137,63.30.194.195:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/02,18:05:16 -5:00 GMT,206.86.140.22:137,63.30.194.195:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/02,18:05:16 -5:00 GMT,208.176.178.22:137,63.30.194.195:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/02,18:05:16 -5:00 GMT,216.233.64.22:137,63.30.194.195:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/04,22:04:46 -5:00 GMT,63.105.48.75:137,63.30.196.39:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/05,01:55:26 -5:00 GMT,63.242.170.3:137,63.30.196.39:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/09,12:28:34 -5:00 GMT,206.222.97.82:53,63.30.197.254:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/09,12:28:38 -5:00 GMT,206.222.97.50:53,63.30.197.254:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/09,15:58:16 -5:00 GMT,208.255.208.14:137,63.30.197.254:137,UDP
FWIN,2001/08/10,08:50:38 -5:00 GMT,207.71.92.221:137,63.30.195.60:137,UDP

Just this morning I was talking with another software developer and mentioned that he should go to the GRC site. He was confident that his firewall was fine but he went there and found that his firewall was full of holes. Now this is a totally computer literate person who writes some serious code for use in unix systems, so imagine the average Joe with a computer and his possibility of getting hacked. I don't think Gibson is over-reacting at all to the problems out there.

We are fortunate that most of the enemies of the U.S. aren't up to speed with computer literacy. The problems created by a very few hackers are minimal compared to what would happen if there was a country dedicated to funding advanced methods of cyber-terrorism.

Leaving gaping holes, as Microsoft is wont to do, is borderline criminal behavior just as much as opening up an unregulated and uninspected pipeline to Columbia would be.

XP will enable raw sockets support, something every major UNIX OS has and can easily be added to existing Windows OS with wincap.

I'm sure all the publicity may make Steve Gibson famous, but in reality the problem isn't with XP or any OS, it is the fact that most ISP's allow spoofed packets to pass through their networks, something they can easily stop at the source. Instead of all the phantomware he claims to be working on "Spoofarino", "Project X" etc. He should spend more time lobbying ISP's to disable spoofed packet accesss to their networks, thus disabling the ability for 13 year olds to bring his grc.com site down. (If I was a self-proclaimed security expert I would not be bragging about my site being knocked out by hackers)

Greg Borr
Ready Theatre Systems

Basically what it amounts to is Microsoft getting their pound of flesh from each Windows user. They use the ploy of copy protection as a reason for a user to reportedly have to connect to Microsoft's servers to activate your Windows installation just so the machine will work. Microsoft claims this authentication code thingie will be on all of their products by February of 2002.

The real crime in all of this is that Microsoft wants to change from a user-buying-once model for software purchases to making them pay Microsoft a monthly fee --just like your cable bill or something like that. I think this TURD OF AN IDEA will bring the computer industry to its knees.

I damned sure won't buy a new PC with WindowsXP running on it, especially if it has all that Big Brother In My Wallet crap. Few other users will do so either. They'll just continue to hold onto their old machines like they have already been doing (this is the primary reason why the computer industry is struggling so badly). The computer industry is heavily dependent on people upgrading their machines every 2 to 3 years. Many people are just not doing that anymore. And this crap will give them more reason not to upgrade.

Of course if you are into graphic design you'll want a Mac. You gotta buy those in one piece. But buy the RAM separately because Apple charges like $2 per terabyte instead of $1. But if you wanna do more than word processing and running Winamp, then the Mac is the way to go. Unless you are Scott Norwood and need a UNIX based machine. I have seen Scott use his computer and it is hard wired directly into his brain. Amazing

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The error message says: "cannot find C:\Windows\wt\DDCMPatch.exe"

At any rate, back up all your critical data to disc and make sure you have all of your software and driver install discs handy in case the problem is bad enough to warrant a clean install.