Re: upgrade from 98 to XP

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

"Steve Hudson" 
> 
> a) I am more than willing to privately post my IP for a test hack
attempt, I
> have faith in XP. Not 2k pro, it was broken. It would be interesting as
this
> is fairly vanilla. I did one quick tour of my settings, don't think much
> needed tweaking to my satisfaction.

Sure! Would you like your harddrive formatted or just some random files
deleted? 

Having faith in a Windows product is dangerous - and I am a Windows user. 

) Again, I am no major level 4/5/6 OSI buff, so I am obviously totally
> missing the point of subnets here. I thought they were to used to help
> isolate command chains. Lets say we use subnet 1.* and 2.*.
> 
> A 1.* command cannot operate, by protocol definition, on subnet 2.*.
This is
> the whole point of assigning my internal network a separate subnet.
H4xx0r
> commands from the external subnet have no authority over my internal
> network.

Sort of. The whole idea behind subnets is to break down large networks
into smaller peices. Routers then use the subnet mask to determine if an
address is "local" to the subnet or "remote" to another subnet. If the
address is local, then your PC would send the packets directly to the
host. If it is remote then your PC sends the packets to the default
gateway (router) for routing. 

A router also can perform NAT (network address translation). Behind the
router is one group of IP addresses. On the other side is another set
(such as the entire Internet). As packets are recieved by the router from
one network, it "repackages them" and sends them to the other network. In
a sense, it "translates" addresses such that the outside world can't see
in, and internal clients are not directly exposed to the Internet. 

> c) As re the 192.168.0.1, well, I can sure understand the point that
that is
> the first place anyone will look who does get in. That's because it IS a
std
> (the RFC you mention). I won't mention just what % of banks and other
major
> financial institutions that I have had anything to do with use it. I
keep it
> that way to make trubble shooting simpler.

192.169.x.x is merely an adress range that is open for private use. As is
10.x.x.x and 172.x.x.x. 

> d) AFAIK, WinXp has its own built-in firewalling which is why I have no
need
> for a firewall anymore. I did ensure this was so before I upgraded.

The WinXP firewall is extremely pathetic. Its just a port/IP blocker. You
still have to leave ports open to do things like share files, surf the web
etc. The real problem is not just merely blocking ports (that's easy), its
who is coming into the machine and what are they doing....for that you
need an IDS, like BlackICE. 

Andrew Plato 

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