RE: XP
Did you intend to mention the issue that Steve Gibson has been talking about...
Per Steve Gibson (at GRC.com) relating to
http://grc.com/dos/xpconference.htm (summary of conference that Microsoft had with Steve Gibson).
It seems that Steve and others are saying that Microsoft seems to be blowing the idea of security off in XP.
Steve's quote is as follows:
"I (Steve Gibson) have NO PROBLEM with RESTRICTED access to the raw socket interface, and no problem with the SYSTEM having access to the interface. That is traditionally what has always been done on Unix, Linux, and similar systems and, as we have seen on Microsoft's own pages, in Windows. But HERE is what has suddenly changed:

Under the Home Edition of Windows XP,
ALL users are Administrators by default.
Microsoft's reasons for doing this are clear, reasonable, and understandable: Many Windows 9x/ME legacy applications would fail to operate within an environment that suddenly imposes security restrictions. Microsoft's solution to this for Windows XP has been to run all users in the system as administrators. I have only one (now famous) concern about Microsoft's decision to default all users to full administrative privilege:

As a result, the deliberately restricted raw socket
interface has become available to ALL system users."
http://grc.com/dos/sockettome.htm



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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/24/7114#7114