Why the net is so slow today

From http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/25/1245206&mode=nested&tid=109&threshold=4:

"Since about midnight EST almost every host on the internet has been receiving a 376 byte UDP payload on port ms-sql-m (1434) from a random infected server. Reports of some hosts receiving 10 per minute or more. internetpulse.net is reporting UUNet and Internap are being hit very hard. This is the cause of major connectivity problems being experienced worldwide. It is believed this worm leverages a vulnerability published in June 2002. Several core routers have taken to blocking port 1434 outright. If you run Microsoft SQL Server, make sure the public internet can't access it. If you manage a gateway, consider dropping UDP packets sent to port 1434." bani adds "This has effectively disabled 5 of the 13 root nameservers."

This highlights a few things that I really despise about Microsoft:

• Due to them essentially having a monopoly, when there is a serious bug, MANY hosts get affected and the results can be very bad. If there were more diversity among operating systems, then one nasty bug or worm would affect a much smaller number of them.

• Another thing that drives me nuts about Microsoft is their "computers for everybody" attitude. Nevermind that you can't tell a microchip from a potatochip, just point and click and install this software! The result? Systems being run be people who are woefully incompetent about computers and have no concept of best practices. Things like: reading CERT and Bugtraq, actually monitoring the systems that they have installed, reading the darn logfiles, and taking the time to actually secure the server. (logging in as "sa' is not a good idea, folks...)

  [ Ed: Man, I was pissed when I wrote that. I'd like to clarify a bit, I'm not so much talking about end users as I am talking about sysadmins. Computers are complex devices that are best run by qualified people. Not unlike automobiles, actually. Most people would not dream of working on their own cars, they just take them to a mechanic instead. I have the same opinion with computers, they work best when maintained by knowledgeable people, not some random office employee who was given a Windows CD and told, "set up a server for us". ]

Thanks Bill Gates. Thanks for populating the world with crappy software and clueless sysadmins. I really enjoy having my Internet connectivty suffer even though I don't run any Microsoft software. Grrr...

I propose a new protocol for dealing with clueless Microsoft "admins": Bitchslap-over-IP.