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Every Vista Computer Gets Its Own Domain Name 388

Posted by kdawson from the roadblocks-to-rollout dept.
c_forq writes, "According to APC magazine, every new Windows Vista computer will be given its own domain name to access files remotely. There is a catch though: to use it one must be using IPv6. Is the push for Vista also going to be the push finally to switch everything from IPv4 to IPv6?" Microsoft, meanwhile, is trying to convince businesses to adopt both Vista and Office 2007 at once. An analyst is quoted: 'In all likelihood, enterprises will tie deployment of both Vista and Office 2007 with a hardware upgrade cycle.' His reasoning is that it will be easier for companies to handle one disruption to IT systems than two. Or three.
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Every Vista Computer Gets Its Own Domain Name More

Every Vista Computer Gets Its Own Domain Name

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  • I have been waiting this... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @06:58PM (#16759593)
    This makes my botnet administration much easier.

  • Both at the same time, eh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaveM753 ( 844913 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @06:59PM (#16759617)
    > "it will be easier for companies to handle one disruption to its IT systems than two. Or three."

    I couldn't agree more: switch to BOTH Linux and OpenOffice.org 2.0 at the same time.
    • Except then, when they decide they don't like OOo (just because it is unfamiliar), they'll decide that it is Linux's fault. So, they should switch to Linux but keep using MS office. Oh wait...

      • Re:Both at the same time, eh? (Score:5, Informative)

        by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @08:37PM (#16761045)
        Except then, when they decide they don't like OOo (just because it is unfamiliar), they'll decide that it is Linux's fault. So, they should switch to Linux but keep using MS office.


        From the screenshots I've seen of Office 2007, OOo 2.0 will probably be more immediately familiar to most Office 2003 (and previous) users than Office 2007.

  • IPv6 adoption. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdot@spamgoe ... minus herbivore> on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:01PM (#16759641) Homepage
    Anything that gets IPv6 in use.
    When is Slashdot going to drag itself into the 21st century, out of interest? It's not that hard. And you can use a tunnel broker if your ISP don't supply native v6.
    • Or use the anycast gate, 192.88.99.1.

    • Re:IPv6 adoption. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:07PM (#16759759)
      When is Slashdot going to drag itself into the 21st century, out of interest? It's not that hard. And you can use a tunnel broker if your ISP don't supply native v6.

      Mmm, using IPv6 via a broker to read Slashdot which will be linking to hosts on IPv4 anyway. Nothing like waiting even longer than normal (300+ ms ping times) to realize that a page is Slashdotted.

      I used IPv6 years ago to do the only thing it was useful for: make vanity hostnames on IRC. Other than that there was absolutely no reason to use IPv6.

      Currently, I still don't see any reason to switch either. Like Slashdot will make a huge difference?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caluml ( 551744 )
        Why be so conservative? Get a jump on all the people that will have to scramble to get v6 experience to put on their CVs once it hits in a big way.

        But mainly - why not?

  • Office2007 (Score:5, Funny)

    by ElephanTS ( 624421 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:01PM (#16759645)
    I've heard you can type much faster in Word2007. If that's not a reason to upgrade I don't know what is.
    • D'ya reckon you can type /. comments faster too?

    • Re:Office2007 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:12PM (#16759829) Homepage
      Liu kang ripe vedder width thee boys re-cog nation soft where ink clue dead width Vista!!!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Larry Lightbulb ( 781175 )
      But the reader needs to upgrade as well, otherwise there won't be any speed gained.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by no_pets ( 881013 )
      Upgrade for Clippy 2007!
    • I heard it will finally support my FPU! Goodbye, Matlab.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      I've heard you can type much faster in Word2007. If that's not a reason to upgrade I don't know what is.

      Heh! From time to time I relate this story, and someday I hope somebody can produce an original copy of the ad, but...

      In a very early issue of PC Magazine -- or PC World, or one of the others -- circa 1984, I saw an ad for this amazing new word processing program, called WordPerfect. The selling point of the program was that it, unlike other word processors of the time, was able to keep up with a 90

  • Naysayers, post here (Score:4, Funny)

    by Schraegstrichpunkt ( 931443 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:02PM (#16759663) Homepage
    Anyone who wants to post comments claiming that IPv6 is never going to be deployed, please do so in this thread.

  • domain names (Score:5, Funny)

    by daeg ( 828071 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:02PM (#16759667)
    Future domain names attached to Microsoft's name

    microsoft-eats-children.share.live.com
    nochildpornhere.share.live.com
    microsoftupdate.com.share.live.com
    update.paypal.com.share.live.com
    freexxxdonkiesandmidgetsgonewild.share.live.com

  • Upgrade cycles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fohat ( 168135 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:02PM (#16759669) Homepage
    I don't think it is all that wise to upgrade both an OS and a full Office suite at the same time. It's really best to roll out one thing at a time, and make sure it all works. The UI changes alone are going to freak users out. I know of places that are just now rolling out XP, and they are doing it one section at a time. The more testing you do, the safer you are.

  • Who knew? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zptao ( 979069 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:02PM (#16759673)
    Vista will actually be useful... 1) Fueling hardware upgrades 2) Encouraging, on a huge scale, migration to IPv6 3) Fixing a great deal of the holes in WinXP 4) Allowing hardware changes without requiring new installations of Vista 5) etc...

  • We're not ready for IPv6 yet. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:02PM (#16759679)
    Most of the spam blocking systems depend upon IP addresses.

    With IPv6, there are (effectively) an unlimited number of IP addresses available for spammers. "Effectively" because no one is going to run a database big enough to track them as fast as the spammers change them. Every message could come from its own IP address on a cracked system.

    And the other article ... no way is it easier to upgrade the hardware, the OS and the apps at the same time. You'll waste too much time trying to find out if the problem is a bad motherboard or driver or ... anything.

    • Re:We're not ready for IPv6 yet. (Score:4, Informative)

      by zptao ( 979069 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:06PM (#16759741)
      The benefits outweigh the risks. In every great change, there will always be downsides and dissenters. It's an inevitable outcome of progress.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by syousef ( 465911 )
        The benefits outweigh the risks. In every great change, there will always be downsides and dissenters. It's an inevitable outcome of progress.

        Risks:
        - Inherent and unknown risk of new unproven OS.
        - Inability to do business due to hosed OS.
        - Interoperability (incompatible older files)
        - Incompatible software, particularly custom software will need to be upgraded or replaced.
        - Underestimation of hardware required to run new hungry OS
        - Increased costs takes away from business spending to allocate new hardware, s
      • What benefits outweigh an exponential increase in spam?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jandrese ( 485 )
          How about making it effectively impossible for Worms to spread by IP scanning? Without botnets deployed by worms the spammers will have a much more difficult time getting up and running.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kensai ( 139597 )

      Most of the spam blocking systems depend upon IP addresses.

      They'll just have to come up with a better way to block spam (anything is better than that braindead scheme) or fall by the wayside.

    • I have a perfect alfgorithm to fight spam I can tell you... But you'll need to ditch IPv4 too.

    • IPV4 has been fine so far...

      Can someone remind me again why we didn't go OSI instead? Rather than re-inventing the wheel again, that is. Oh yeah, design by committee...

      IPV6 has been defined by a working group, not a committee... That's ok then...

      C'mon, give me a reason to upgrade. What do I get out of it?

       
      • Encryption available on all protocols without having to implement special for it (i.e. not in the transport layer not the application layer). https would be obsolete
    • There are not fully effective black list either. So lets burn all computers. ;)

    • So track subnets. How is this hard?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by complete loony ( 663508 )
      IP4 blacklisting is often done at a subnet level, preventing many home DSL accounts from running their own mail servers if the ISP doesn't deal with spammers effectively.
      IP6 wont change that, since the ISP will still be assigning one subnet per user, and probably have one subnet for all their DSL accounts.

      I'd even go as far as saying the migration to IP6 would make it *easier* to block spammers and botnets because of the far more structured approach used to allocate addresses.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )
      With IPv4 there's also a virtually unlimited number. The difference is that with IPv4 you tend to block an entire /16 subnet in which maybe only 1% of the users are causing problems, because the IPs are dynamic.

    • Re:We're not ready for IPv6 yet. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:58PM (#16760523) Homepage Journal
      Most of the spam blocking systems depend upon IP addresses.

      Sounds like a good a time as any to update their systems. Quite honestly I would these system get updated before IPv6 starts to get widely used, rather than after.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by asuffield ( 111848 )

      With IPv6, there are (effectively) an unlimited number of IP addresses available for spammers.

      Nonsense. You cannot just make up an IP address to use on the internet, if you expect it to work. You have to use the addresses allocated to you by your provider. No provider is going to assign you an effectively unlimited number of addresses to work with. Most of the IPv6 addresses are going to remain unallocated for a long time.

      There will be approximately as many (same order of magnitude) allocated IPv6 addresses

  • Why upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Carrot007 ( 37198 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:03PM (#16759683)
    Please try to convince my company to upgrade!

    Every day I use such great microsoft products as NT 4, Office 97 (with outlook upgraded with the free 98 (about a year ago, OL 97 before that), IE 5.5, or is it 5.0? I forget.

    Simple truth is most companies have no reason to upgrade. It aint gonna make them more money.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Threni ( 635302 )
      > Simple truth is most companies have no reason to upgrade. It aint gonna make them more money.

      Large companies can afford it, no problem. Staff don't usually like having out of date skills; there are security issues with older software. You'll get no support, and when things go wrong and time/money IS lost, you'll have a hard job justifying it to those above you.
      • I wish that were true, we have 9500 employees acording to wiki. I've also previously worked for banks still using nt 3.51.

        In my experience the bigger companies keep with what they have and never upgrade.

        • I've also previously worked for banks still using nt 3.51.
          Who? I want to bank there. Seriously NT3.51 was the last secure version of NT.
          -nB
        • In my experience the bigger companies keep with what they have and never upgrade.

          And the reason for that, in my experience, is that the bigger companies have more time and expertise invested in their existing systems.

          Changing a server OS & app when you have 10 people using it is far different than when you have 10,000 people using it.
      • there are security issues with older software

        Whew. It's a good thing there won't be security issues with any software released from this day forward.

  • 1) Good 2) understandable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:05PM (#16759713) Journal
    Firstly the idea of each user having their own remote space is good in theory. This is actually something useful which comes with Vista... although there could be serious problems with it; how safe is it? I wouldn't be at all amazed if this was hacked about 3 seconds after the first user puts any files on this because people will refuse to use good passwords. But in principle its good. The T&Cs might change that. Everyone will have to move to IPv6 anyway at some time I think so we shouldn't be too worried about that

    As for them pushing the update to Office 2007 - well, that's what they're in business for... I'm not amazed and I'm not disapointed.

  • Sales guy's wet dream (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:05PM (#16759715) Journal
    Vista and Office at the same time? Someone in the sales dept. is smoking crack and dreaming of an annual bonus. Hell, why not upgrade all the servers to 2003, Exchange, etc.!

    How about changing one thing at a time and seeing how it works, first?

    • My sysadmin side says, you're absolutely right, of course, but my marketing side says I've no idea what you're talking about? Works?

  • Admit it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:05PM (#16759717) Journal
    If Linux were introducing something like this, you'd be saying it's the bestestest thing ever...

  • the push finally to switch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:06PM (#16759737)
    ...going to be the push finally to switch everything from IPv4 to IPv6..

    Yea, right. My ISP and may others are out there port blocking so that I can't share any files on my Windows boxes across the Internet with normal Windows file sharing techniques, and somehow we are expected to believe that with Vista will come a drastic change in mindset, rather than going out of their way to block ports to stop us from doing something, ISPs will suddenly expend effort to make connectivity better? Yea, sure, I believe that as much as I believe anything Microsoft says.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )
      ISPs will suddenly expend effort to make the flood of complaints go away.

      There aren't many ISPs out there with a bigger PR department than MS.

  • uh (Score:2)

    by inKubus ( 199753 )
    ICN and PNRP seem like a good idea but it's just like DNS writ large with a million levels rather than 3 or 4. It's basically the equivalent of everyone running their own DNS server on their computer that randomly accepts entries from other computers on the net and no root servers or authority at all. The "secured" name makes sure that when (if) you finally find your computer by randomly traversing the P2P network of PNRP servers, the client can compare the name with the hash address of the computer.

    They

  • Misleading Headline (Score:5, Informative)

    by jonadab ( 583620 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:18PM (#16759929) Homepage Journal
    The headline doesn't actually say DNS, but it implies it. But the article makes it clear that it's not actually an internet domain that is being offered, but a "Windows Internet Computing Name", which is resolved using a protocol other than DNS (specifically, PNRP, whatever that is).

  • IPv6 or IPv6[TM}? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @07:23PM (#16759999) Homepage Journal
    One obvious question: Will Vista really use IPv6, or an "extended" IPv6-like protocol with patented MS extensions? Anyone know? Is there any chance that we could end up in court if we interoperate with it?

  • Since I work on a Help Desk, I will find out early next year how much job security I will have when Vista/Office and hardware upgrades is rolled out. Of course, job security doesn't translate into good health. Got to pay the piper somewhere.

  • 'In all likelihood, enterprises will tie deployment of both Vista and Office 2007 with a hardware upgrade cycle.' His reasoning is that it will be easier for companies to handle one disruption to its IT systems than two.

    Of course. The Chinese used this reasoning when developing torture techniques. Would you rather die with a single gunshot to the brain, or millions of tiny paper cuts?

    IT systems to Microsoft: "Please, just get it over with."

  • First off, I've never deployed anything on IPv6 so maybe it is a totally different system where security is concerned... Seems to me though, ok so all these Vista boxes are going to be out there on the net with a new name resolution system to allow hackers to scan through them, and as I understand it IPv6 doesn't have NAT or anything (the idea being IPv6 will let you put things directly on the net). So... how on earth are we trusting MS to secure the plague they are about to lose on the world?

    Sure MS has t
  • I'd install Vista on a new computer if it came with Vista (I do not trust default loadouts. I -always- re-install, or at the minimum, print the drive from a ghosted image)

    Office 2007, I'd do across the whole company. We had a procedure to upgrade people. Now mind you we had 120 employees, so our problems/solutions may not match yours. We had a requirement where -EVERY- user had to come to the IT room for the upgrade, and we checked off the whiteboard who got what. After $time, anyone who didn't, got loc
  • Those handcuffs Microsoft are selling will look pretty good. The price will be right so no one will notice.

    But then, as the handcuffs start to tighten when MS demands more and more in license costs then what? Where do enterprises go in 3-5 years?

    You won't be able to switch to linux because MS will have Embraced/Extended/Extinguished it. (as mentioned here: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/07/ 1435204 [slashdot.org])

    If you value your freedom, then you will switch OS's. Now. Mac/BSD/Linux are three to consi
  • just resembles the times when the hardware industry (mobo manufacturers, graphics card manufacturers and cpu manufacturers) 'invent' or 'reinvent' some technology and switch to it, making the mobo, graphics cards and cpu you bought 1 year ago due to 'upgradability', obsolete. so they force you to change all stuff in your box and force sales.

    this very much resembles it. 'its better if you change them all' or implyingly, 'you have to change them all'. which is definitely something that came out of 'marketi

  • PNRP vs. zeroconf? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by *SECADM ( 223955 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @08:34PM (#16761011)
    I am curious as to how PNRP works with Zeroconf. Does it 1)implement zeroconf, 2)interoperate with zeroconf, or 3)is completely incompatible with zeroconf? AFAIK zeroconf already does p2p name resolution and is an open standard. Is PNRP gonna be a standard?

    .

    • Re:PNRP vs. zeroconf? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by symbolset ( 646467 ) on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @12:51AM (#16763403) Journal

      PNRP is Microsoft's attempt to replace DNS with their own P2P naming system under IPV6. It's patented, so of course making stuff compatible with it outside of the Microsoft domain will be illegal, hazardous to your IP, or require a small percentage of your immortal soul.

      Shortly after it's common, people are going to discover a number of things:

      • A node can publish as many names as it wants. Billions of semi-randomly generated names per bot node could be fun.
      • Frist psot: It sure makes it easier to manage a botnet.
      • Millions of bots competetively and cooperatively poisoning the namespace will not be helpful.
      • The implementation will have bugs that cause failures of the service or the whole computer.
      • The implementation will have vulnerabilities. Some of the vulnerabilities will have exploits. Some of the exploits will have patches. Some of the patches will cause failures of the service or the whole computer. Some of the exploits will never be published or patched, so there will be more bots. It's the One Microsoft Way.
      • Names are not unique -- so the label Natalie-Portman-hot-grits, "My Printer" and "office secret pr0n share" shall occur millions of times.

      The whole replacing-DNS thing seems unlikely to work out. Yet another toxic service to turn off, it should set back IPv6 adoption three years or more.

  • *shakes head* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by scdeimos ( 632778 ) on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @10:59PM (#16762477)
    It's always nice to see that Technical Writers for IT magazines are savy enough to know the difference between a Domain Name and a Host Name.

  • hey (Score:3, Funny)

    by tonycheese ( 921278 ) on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @01:03AM (#16763503)
    "According to a Microsoft spokeswoman, Microsoft recently placed an order for 500,000 CD labels, CD sleeves, and packaging boxes labeled "Windows Server 2007", but has also ordered an equal number of small "8" stickers, "just in case.""

  • Added Value (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Raven ( 30575 ) on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @01:06AM (#16763527) Homepage
    Honestly, this seems like a perfectly valid move to me. The proper way to combat piracy is to add value for legitimate purchasers via services... services are a dozen times harder to 'steal' than just bits. A MS operated DNS (even if it is ipv6 only) is a perfectly reasonable service to convince the medium-skill techies (who can format a machine, but not setup a DNS service) to buy rather than copy. These mid-level windows users are the most common casual copiers of the MS OS... they know enough to copy Windows and install a machine, but not enough to delve into Linux.

    So, all in all, I think this is a move in the right direction. Added value to the legit buyers, rather than bullshit like 'Genuine Advantage' that only benefits MS.

  • Microsoft DNS .. (Score:3, Informative)

    by rs232 ( 849320 ) on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @07:38AM (#16765529)
    It isn't IPV6 exactly but a combination of PNRP (Peer Name Resolution Protocol) and FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). See here where PNRP v2 is already incompatible [microsoft.com] with PNRP. According to this it's a combination [microsoft.com] of IPv4 and IPv6 called the Next Generation TCP/IP Stack and overcomes shortcomings in the DNS system. I find that article quite difficult to follow. Who would have thought name resolution would have been so complex. Is this one of those propriatry protocols that any third party has to pay MS royaltes to access. One of the protocols MS is being fined by the EU for not publicising. Some source code and API calls not being acceptable.

  • Way to invalidate IPv6's advantage. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @09:56AM (#16766611) Homepage
    So far, I supported IPv6 mainly because it will provide so vast an address space that it will be impractical for worms to bruteforce (nowadays you can ping an IP address and it will probably reply). Now, Microsoft invalidates this advantage by adding hostnames for every machine. A 5 letter word is easier to brute force than an IPv4 address, and you KNOW there's someone running something vulnerable there. At least I hope to God it's not by default, using your network name or something (which is, thankfully, unlikely).

  • So what exactly is this useful for? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by biglig2 ( 89374 ) on Wednesday November 08, 2006 @10:19AM (#16766991) Homepage Journal
    You know, in the real world. I mean, getting a permanent internet name for your machine without you having to do anything sounds good until you think about it.

    But, first off, that name is going to be biglig-p.p4562b4628ac54782dda52789038476237e7c7263 .pnrp.net so you're not going to tell your granny about it over the phone so she can browse to your holiday photos.

    Secondly, if someone is connecting to your machine, that means you've got to have a service listening to it, right? So you have to configure the service, and your firewall. So why not spend another 5 minutes registering a DDNS name that doesn't look like you spilt coke on your numeric keypad?

    Thirdly, what sort of service do you need to run on your PC? Web page to host your photos? Er.. Flickr. Web page of your diary? Er... Blogger. Video? Er... YourTube. Share your documents? Er... Writely. etc. etc. Only one I can think of is remote control so your granny can connect to your PC and fix it.

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