-----Original Message----- From: David Bowles [mailto:dbowles@educationsupport.fsnet.co.uk]
Recently I read in one of the PC mags that by default Win2K and Win-XP both disable low-level Ethernet packet decoding / processing in hardware on the network card. MS have set this to be handled in software by the PC's CPU instead (sorry I can't remember which mag - PC-Pro, Pc-Plus or PCW - I'm moving house so I can't easily lay my hands on this mag right now).
There is a rather hysterical discussion of a similar / the same topic on Steve Gibson's website, so look down this page http://grc.com/default.htm for stuff on XP raw sockets. This implies that in XP, a clever programmer could easily strip data from the network card and access info promiscuously. Now wait a minute ... hasn't Linux been able to do that for years :-) But as root. -- ******************************************************************************** All mail sent and received may be examined to prevent transmission of unacceptable material. Wellington College does not accept responsibility for email contents. Problems to postmaster@wellington-college.berks.sch.uk. Website: http://www.wellington-college.berks.sch.uk ********************************************************************************