Raw Sockets are not a Security Risk: Chris Wysopal responds to the New York Times article about Steve Gibson's unfounded and hyped concern about Windows XP containing raw socket functionality.
The “powerful Internet-connection capabilities” which is hyped in this article is merely the ability to write raw IP packets. This capability, which this article states is so dangerous to the internet, is already available practically everywhere.
“The hype and hyperbole is astounding. From reading this article you'd think a deluge of DDoS attacks was building up just waiting to be released once Microsoft releases the all powerful new API. Nothing could be further from the truth. When XP arrives it will receive a collective yawn from DDoS attackers who would much rather have their win32 DDoS clients run on every version of windows using the already available add on libraries.”