Megapowerful virus alert, please read at least until the links: Microsoft really blew it this time. Always with user friendliness in mind, they managed to devise a backdoor so large that we Windows users can be infected with a virus just by doing absolutely nothing while being connected to the internet. Forget about opening dangerous Outlook attachments, visiting malicious URLs or downloading infected warez off Kazaa. Just sit tight, do not move, and you'll get infected. You probably already are. I did. A couple of days ago XP reported an error and gave me sixty seconds to save any open files until reboot. I did try to get to a Vice City save point but didn't managed. The computer rebooted. On restart I got suspicious on what was going on. Visited a couple of websites and found out about the MSBlast worm that is infecting almost all Windows computers. I Ctrl-Alt-Deleted and saw its process running. I killed it, deleted the file. Then with a quick check I found out the bloody thing had a startup registry key. Deleted that. Blessed MSBlast it is just a proof-of-concept worm designed to coordinate an attack against Microsoft Windows Update servers. Think of the destructive potential of the thing if it just disrupted you hard drive on execution. Then I dug deeper. Downloaded and installed the patch which plugs the hole, so Microsoft tells us, then headed for the Gibson Research website, my usual source of security paranoia, that also provides some tests and apps to plug a few other holes. Apparentely the problem is that Microsoft made a lot of backdoors into Windows. Just run the command prompt and type 'netstat -a' to find out a lot of useless ports open. And the problem in this particular case is port 135, the gate that the virus uses to come though. So, why the fuck is it open? It seems it is useless for 99,9% of Windows users and programs, so why is it on by default? XP has its stupid little firewall which even interferes with Microsoft's own apps such as Messenger, but I put it in place until I get a better and smarter one, so that this closes outside access to port 135. And that because you cannot close the port, even though it is not needed. And so, Windows is ridden in vulnerabilities because shit no one uses is turned on by default, and among that shit there are some big turds you cannot turn off, even though you don't need it. So I'm pissed. Wouldn't be smarter if everything came turned off, and whoever was feeling suicidal could then turn them on? I prefer working with Windows than any other system, but this kind of things make me wish Windows Holocaust comes soon while I got my computer turned off (unless Microsoft also manages to make virus writers able to infect computers that are turned off - everything is possible nowdays), Microsoft gets sued to oblivion, senior Windows networking designers are hanged upside down in Madison Square Garden to be stoned by a crowd of appaled users, and Windows finally gets it source open and all this filth is stripped out. ¶