News from PANUG/BizNix - October 31, 2003 http://panug.org - http://biznix.org SORRY For most of you, this seems to be a duplicate of a message sent earlier today. The earlier message was rejected by many of your mail servers as "unwanted mail", where unwanted mail = the 4 letter word that starts with s, is followed by p, then by a, and finally an m. This is because one of the acticles covered unwanted mail and used words that mail filters didn't like. From now on, any articles that use words that will tend to block the message will be placed on the PANUG or BizNix web site, as we've done below. THE NEWEST AND THE BEST? by Lloyd Betts This article questions how many companies will be able to use Windows Server 2003 given that many of Microsoft's own programs will not work with it: http://panug.org/55 BOSTON UNIVERSITY & MICROSOFT See: http://panug.org/news/adelstein.html MICROSOFT EARNINGS REPORT See: http://panug.org/news/earnings.html BLOCKING UNWANTED MAIL WITH REGULAR EXPRESSIONS See: http://panug.org/news/regex.html BLOCKING NETBIOS & MICROSOFT RPC PORTS by Ed Sawicki - Accelerated Learning Center / Tailored Computers Numerous organizations keep the NETBIOS and Microsoft RPC ports open to the outside world because of Microsoft Exchange and Outlook features they "need". To security- focused IT staff who know these are protocols frequently used for attacks, keeping the ports open to the outside seems like the act of a madman. Heated exchanges between departments often results. User departments usually prevail (You can't run a business without a shared calendar.) One solution is to try to educate upper management. Yesterday, SANS published this link to a document that tries to achieve this as well as proposes an alternative: http://www.sans.org/rr/special/acme.pdf If this works for anyone, please let us know. DISCLAIMER PANUG and BizNix welcome contributions from all members. Member contributions do not necessarily represent the official positions of PANUG or BizNix. The views of members that contribute frequently may appear to be the official position of the group(s). If you contribute, you'll be adding vital diversity of opinion and outlook to these broadcasts.