BIND 9 windows XP builds

[G.W. Haywood]

Hi there,

On Tue, 18 Apr 2017, Evan Hunt wrote:

> ... I wanted to find out whether there's a reason for so many people
> to still be doing this -- even if it wasn't a very good reason --
> before I cut them off.

Personally I'm more than a bit surprised, and even a little offended
that ISC still provides an XP build.  Running an XP machine connected
to the Internet is like driving around town in an uninsured vehicle
with no roadworthiness certificate.  It's irresponsible.  Those of us
who manage mailservers and who take any kind of interest in the threat
landscape will attest to the number of XP botnets still plying their
obnoxious trade, especially (sorted by greatest volume in my mailserver
logs first) from China, Vietnam, India and the USA.

Cut them off.  If, by being one more provider which drops support for
a sociopathic menace, you tend to reduce the threat from it, then you
will at least have the warm appreciation of hard-pressed and generally
ill-appreciated mail administrators the world over.

If you don't already run 'p0f', then you might want to consider it to
give you an idea of what's connecting to your servers.  I'd guess it
will be more informative than any feedback you get from real users.
It wouldn't surprise me if most of the downloaders of XP builds that
you're seeing are themselves bots.

-- 

73,
Ged.