On 11/07/2012 2:48 PM, Russell Coker wrote:
If you use Windows (particularly the older versions) this is a problem.
Modern Linux distributions tend to have almost nothing listening for inbound connections by default so this shouldn't be an issue.
It's important to remain factual. All current desktop versions of Windows in use today (XP SP2+, Vista, Win 7) include the Windows Firewall, enabled by default, which filters all services unless you explicitly unblock them. [0] -- [0] A server process that opens a listening socket will trigger a Windows Firewall dialog asking the user whether to "Unblock" the application. As a result, most users would have a very large firewall exception list after a short period of using the computer. This doesn't devalue the fact that it is firewalled by default, however.