NANOG 40 agenda posted

Sun May 27 14:44:18 UTC 2007

> Nathan Ward wrote:
> [..]
> >> Isn't the driver going to be scarcity and/or expense of v4 addresses?
> >=20
> > Sure, but it's not as simple as just giving v6 addresses to end users
> > one day, even if your entire network and backend systems support it.
> 
> Why not? If folks are still using Windows 98 by then I surely hope
> they can't have any connectivity to the Internet. The word "SpamDrone"
> comes to mind for those old versions.

That's just ridiculous.

As far as vulnerabilities go, Win98 is a lot *less* risky than WinXP,
when used properly (i.e. you don't use IE and OE, have it behind a
reasonable firewall, etc).  The main problem with 98 is that it is no
longer supported, as of a few months ago.  There are a lot of threats
targetted at Windows, and a lot of threats targetted at Windows XP.
There are exceedingly few targetted at Windows 98.  So XP ends up
being vulnerable to the general Windows threats and the Windows XP
threats (two major classes), while 98 ends up being vulnerable to
the general Windows threats (one major class, and largely IE/OE stuff,
which you can minimize the risk of).

The term "major risk of SpamDrone" comes to mind for pretty much any 
XP install where a user has used Internet Explorer for doing anything
more than going to Mozilla or Opera's website to download a real 
browser and keep it up to date.  Bonus points for the 1% of all users
who have then used their system as a nonprivileged user (I forget the
actual percentage, but it is something depressing like that).

I may hate Microsoft too, but come on, you could at least be realistic
about the risks.  Win98 is certainly on its way out, as is 95, and
that may be accelerated by an IPv6 transition.

> As Windows XP is already out for
> the last couple of years and has fully working IPv6 support, Vista is
> there also with fully working IPv6 support, the OS should definitely
> not be a problem anymore. For folks without money, all the Open
> Sourcish OS's also do IPv6 perfectly fine, some even already from the
> installer.

The vast majority of people are going to continue to use their PC's the
way that they've always used them.  They got their PC with whatever was
loaded on it.  If it was 98, then it's probably something in the range
of a Pentium 233-500 with 64 or 128MB of memory, and it works fine for 
their needs.  The local computer shop will tell Grandma that it isn't
fast enough to run XP or Vista (probably true) and Grandma isn't going
to have any clue how to install Ubuntu on it and save years of pictures
from the grandkids, and Grandma probably isn't going to see any value
(correctly!) in spending money to buy a new PC.

If anyone thinks that they are going to successfully disenfranchise 
Grandma of her Internet access, well, heh, it won't happen.  If you
try, your competitors will thank you for the new business.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.