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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 21:43:10 +0200
From: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Warning message when running wallet
    in Windows XP (or drop support?)
To: Wladimir <laanwj@gmail.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Message-ID: <20140416194310.GA11552@netbook.cypherspace.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

Not to get snarky or OS elitist but as I understand it windows security,
even during its support period has been measured in low digit number of days
in the year when is NOT an outstanding known remote root compromise or
combination of remote user compromise + priviledge escalation.  Add in
phishing, watering holes, malware and the average windows computer is
probably compromised a dozen times over.  Apparently for sometime it was not
easily possible to secure it install boot - install OS, connect to network
to download security updates, IP range scanned and compromised faster than
you can patch it.

Adam
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Right.

The trick was to install off line, add your own (free or commercial s/w firewall) then
connect, behind a router that had no port forwarding, etc.  Hell before cheap
routers I ran one Win95B as I remember, using ICS to a hub that feed my LAN and in front
was a dialup and a cable modem.  Atguard was the S/W firewall, worked great and
never was penetrated.

And if one used IE for anything, or any form of Outlook one was and still is a fool.
There are still fools who think that their Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1 is safe because
MS updates it days, weeks or longer after an exploit is found/exposed/known... And
they feel that they can install and run anything anyone says is OK?  No firewall can protect
against shall we say digital naivety.

Ah what fools these mortals be.  Then there are others that have never used IE,
never installed/enabled Outlook, never enabled UPNP &/or, DCOM; never executed
"unknown" s/w, and always had their own s/w firewall on, long before MS even
thought of "Windows Firewall".  Does anyone (other than zone alarm) check for
data leaving one's computer "unexpectedely"?  Those machines could run Win95B,
Win98SE, NT4, Win2K, XP pro long past MS's "cut off date" and barely notice
anything. The show stopper is usually the browser (FF) or Adobe flash or pdf
demanding more OS functions, usually so that they can perform more functions
more poorly, I'm sorry to say.

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