begin quoting Paul G. Allen as of Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 09:37:53AM -0700: > OK, here's something interesting, and I wonder if XP does the same > thing. I remember back in my days at Akamai I found (by sniffing my > network connection) that W2K would phone home before the login screen > even popped up, but this is a little twist on that I think. > > I booted my W2K PC this morning with the LAN connection disabled. Now I > realize that in a networking environment, the system has to connect to > the domain controller in order to authenticate the user. However, when > the OS came online, Windows Update reported that a new security update > was available. > > It's nice to know that Windows phones home without me telling it that it > can. I'm curious to know how often newer versions of Windows phone home.
...and what they send. > I also find it interesting that it seems the only way to disable the > network connection completely (once you've configured it), is to unplug > the cable or un-configure it. Firewalls can worth in both directions. And probably should do so more ofen. > It makes one appreciate Linux that much more. OS X has a per-application outgoing firewall application available for it (Lil' Snitch) ... does linux have this functionality yet? -- It's sometimes useful to run tcpdum/iptraf/wireshark and just watch. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
