Drivers Licenses for Computers?

[Jonathan1]

Heheh. I had a party at my house this weekend and opened up my network for a 4 hour period. OMG! No WEP!!! I’m DOOOOOMED! I was a little bit shocked when someone asked me which access point they should use.
Me: Huh?
Them: WLAN or Cipher?
Me: Cipher but there’s another network out there?
Them: Yep.

I then go around and ask who is connecting to what network. Half the people were connecting to my neighbors Access Point. We got things straightened around but that’s not cool. What’s even less cool is after checking their setup I will have to have a talk with them tonight.
1. No security on the WIFI network.
2. No password on the access point. Admin/[no pass] I’m in.
3. No password on their Administrative password for XP. Basically I could go \\[ipaddress]\c$ and get right in.
4. Ran a LANGUARD scan of their systems. They are missing so many security patches it isn’t even funny. :?

At that point I backed the heck out of their network and took a hot shower. I scrub and I scrub but I can’t get this feeling I’ve been infected or something. ;) I’m thinking I’m going to have to play the nerd neighbor and help them set things up right. I really am starting to think before a person can get a computer they need to get a "drivers license" for using one. This kind of crap just irks me. Am I the only one who thinks a computer is more like a car then a DVD player? You need to take some freaking responsibility with it and driving into oncoming traffic (IMHO what I saw this weekend on this person’s network.) is the rough equivalent.

[Ryan Joseph]

What kind of party did you have where numerous people brought wireless equipment? 8O

Any parties I have I'm always the only one with a computer/PPC let alone wireless equipment. I want to know which crowd you hang with so I can get in on it. :mrgreen:

[wocket]

Well believe it or not we have the European Computer Driving Licence (http://www.ecdl.co.uk/)

[Sven Johannsen]

This is going to be very apparent here shortly when SP2 is pushed to all those folks who have auto-update set to automatically download and install. It is going to befuddle the vaste majority of users when their ports get locked down and process start asking whether they are allowed to access the internet.

It often doesn't occur to folks that having Avantgo, or a Today screen weather app set up requires internet access, much less that the PPC is on a foreign network when connected via AS. Sure the new protection features are going to ask if processes are to be allowed, but how many will know that wcescomm.exe and WCESMgr.exe are Pocket PC related processes and should be allowed. Lots of stuff isn't going to work just because formerly wide open PCs will be protected by default.

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting, and potentially entertaining.

[dean_shan]

No I agree with you Jonathan, people need to learn that computers need regular maintenance and care.

[OSUKid7]

Part of this is the manufactuers' faults. They should ship it with WEP on, and put a huge sticker saying "CHANGE THE DEFAULT PASSWORD BEFORE USING" lol.

[aliensub]

This is going to be very apparent here shortly when SP2 is pushed to all those folks who have auto-update set to automatically download and install. It is going to befuddle the vaste majority of users when their ports get locked down and process start asking whether they are allowed to access the internet.

It often doesn't occur to folks that having Avantgo, or a Today screen weather app set up requires internet access, much less that the PPC is on a foreign network when connected via AS. Sure the new protection features are going to ask if processes are to be allowed, but how many will know that wcescomm.exe and WCESMgr.exe are Pocket PC related processes and should be allowed. Lots of stuff isn't going to work just because formerly wide open PCs will be protected by default.

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting, and potentially entertaining.

Whats going to be even funnier is all those programs getting useless. The list of programs that have issues with SP2 is pretty scary :? http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130

[Janak Parekh]

Whats going to be even funnier is all those programs getting useless. The list of programs that have issues with SP2 is pretty scary :? http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130
Not really... end-users shouldn't be running listening-socket programs most of the time, anyway. And if it's a problem for corporates, they can use group policy or turn the firewall off entirely.

I've installed SP2 on a bunch of machines, and really, any "regular" consumer program does not trigger a firewall popup, since it's only an inbound, not outbound firewall. Microsoft must have done that to avoid the precise scenario Sven outlined. ;) SP2 has been incredibly smooth for me. Kudos to MS, for a change. 8)

--janak

[Sven Johannsen]

I think the anticipated hysteria is probably overblown as well. I do think it is going to cause some interesting issues for those many folks that have the autodownload set to auto-install and don't realize a major change happenned (when it does) and so don't relate the pop-ups and issues they do get to SP2 having been installed. They ever popular, AS worked yesteray and doesn't today, and I didn't do anything.

[Kati Compton]

Do you see all the Microsoft stuff (current!) that has "possible" problems with SP2?

Office XP?? Visual Studio .Net 2003??

[Kati Compton]

Heh - they didn't run a spell checker on the list:

"Comabt Flight Simulator 3"

[mrkablooey]

No I agree with you Jonathan, people need to learn that computers need regular maintenance and care.

and a lot of cuddling.

[mrkablooey]

wow, and all those kazaa users out there... poor things! :wink:

[Janak Parekh]

Office XP?? Visual Studio .Net 2003??
I think the warning is overblown. Office XP, I have no idea why -- seems to run just fine here. As for VS .Net, that's because of things like remote debugging. As long as you don't need that, I'm sure it'll run fine too. I've yet to have any problems other than punching a few holes in the firewall.

--janak

[PetiteFlower]

I'm a little annoyed with the insistence of the firewall in SP2. I just installed it last night and I'm considering uninstalling it. It really doesn't like it when you turn off the firewall. I have a hardware firewall for one thing, and I have zone alarm, I don't need Windows sticking its nose in too. There is such a thing as TOO much protection. I don't need an obnoxious little icon in my system tray telling me that the firewall is off--I KNOW it's off, I TURNED it off! Sheesh.

[Janak Parekh]

I'm a little annoyed with the insistence of the firewall in SP2. I just installed it last night and I'm considering uninstalling it. It really doesn't like it when you turn off the firewall. I have a hardware firewall for one thing, and I have zone alarm, I don't need Windows sticking its nose in too. There is such a thing as TOO much protection. I don't need an obnoxious little icon in my system tray telling me that the firewall is off--I KNOW it's off, I TURNED it off! Sheesh.
In the Security Center, click the link that says "Change the way Security Center alerts me", and you can turn off its nag there. That said, I thought the latest version of ZoneAlarm, which is supposed to be SP2-compatible, would integrate with Security Center. If it doesn't, it will soon.

--janak