Virtual Private Networking in Windows XP Pro. and in Windows 98 SE

<long post and you were warned -- grin and bear it if you will>

I wanted to add this post because when the APS network was hacked in 2007

and then my home computer was hacked it was really disturbing but now in

reflecting back on the experience it was profoundly interesting as well. The

hacker(s)? stole all my personnel information and my identity and it was my

own stupidity that thought that I was so clever and I have now realized that

pride goes before the fall.

Anyway, Windows 98 Second Edition got hit with an error but apparently

because of the internal safety of the operating system via the lack of

services resulting in a smaller surface area as well as the machine not

having the potential vulnerabilities of RPC

(please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_procedure_call

for further information)

and the NT source codes lack of a maintenance operating system like DOS

(please see

http://cquirke.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C7DAB1E724AB8C23!336.entry )

for further details about what Windows Vista is lacking and also see a book

I read about Windows History where early Microsoft Systems Engineers joked

about NT being the Not There operating system because it lacked the internal

safety structure of the underlying maintenance operating system compared to

9x operating system which was grounded on the strength of DOS.

It could be also a lack of skill on the hacker(s)? part as well but please

see the secunia website and search Windows 98 Second Edition and also search

Windows XP Professional and you will be surprised to find which operating

system has more current vulnerabilities.

I am not including extras in my argument like Internet Explorer which I feel

was sadly tied to the operating system back in 1998 and causes many of the

problems users face today.

I currently mainly use Mozilla Firefox because of the 256 bit cipher

strength it uses even in Windows 98 Second Edition if the site has that high

a cipher strength which apparently is sadly only available today with

Microsoft Operating System "Windows Vista" and perhaps other Microsoft

operating systems that are later than Windows XP Professional.

This example is sadly being copied by Apple with its tying of Itunes with

Quicktime and Itunes breaking if you remove Quicktime because of

vulnerabilities. Apple is currently guilty of other bad software practices

like pushing its weak Safari browser on users of Windows Computers as well as

having software stealthily installed without a user consent. I noticed this

on my computer with Bonjour being installed and I thought "okay what is this"

and discovered with the help of Google that it is part of Apple software.

This operating system is currently Windows XP Professional which I use as

well as Windows 98 Second Edition in a dual boot on one machine as well as an

oem copy of Windows Vista Home Premium in 32 bit on a Toshiba laptop/notebook

computer.

You can all laugh if you like but I have used computers since about 1984

when I first played King's Quest 1 by Sierra On Line on a 5.25 inch floppy

drive on the IBM PCjr which my dad, Ivan still owns and it still works and is

currently in storage and used every few years when I long for the good and

easy workings of a computer that had BASIC which you loaded via a BASIC

cartridge and from there I enjoyed simply programming and made my screen

flash different colors and play different sounds with the help of my dad and

a large book about BASIC.

Anyway, I now realize it was my own fault and stupidity for connecting to a

network that was as weak as the APS Network and the person or people broke

through the network in the summer while I was away working at another job.

The thing is that I brought that school's network from being crap to being

fully functional within one school year and then within 3 months while I was

away, some hacker(s)? took all the trouble that I had gone through with the

help of the network administrator and flushed all that work done the tubes

because of weak protocols set by the school as well as letting too many

computers have administrative accounts as well as not listening to me about

saving some Windows 98 Second Edition computers as well as my own which the

school provided me but then stupidly decided we need to phase out all the

older Windows 98 computers and I warned them but why would they want to

listen to a single user when they thought they knew it all.

Anyway, thanks for letting me explain and discuss and also to warn users to

fully read up on material before using VPN with your home pc and if you are

not required then it is just better to be safe and not accept that risk into

your home pc. I was not required but too naive and too stupid because I did

not realize that I was putting my computer at risk by asking for this

permission from Ken the Director of Technology. I did get the permission but

it was my thoughtlessness, excitement of learning new things that made me

blaze a trail ahead without fully stopping, thinking and counting the

consequences.

Anyway, the Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 which was fully patched

was hacked and information was stolen and deleted and copied before I was

fully aware of the attack. This shows us how since the external security of

Windows XP Professional failed, then the internal safety of Windows 98 Second

Edition prevailed and it only suffered from Rundll errors instead of the PC

being fully compromised. I still have the data from the Windows 98 Second

Edition PC if anyone in the newsgroup cares to analyze the data. The XP

Professional side has been fully formatted and a clean install performed so

all data there is just plain gone. Thanks for listening and I welcome all

the positive and constructive comments that I know will be forthcoming. If

you just want to be negative then don't be surprised, if I just ignore your

post and/or post back some smart alec response.

Please see for securing your older Windows 98 and NT computers from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/msim_win98