10 January 2005

On the PeerCast website there is an FAQ in which they recommend turning off the Windows XP Firewall:

**I got everything right with my broadcast, but no matter what I do, my stream can’t get through. Should I get lost? **You are probably behind a firewall, if it is a personal firewall installed on your local PC, try turning it off. (Windows XP Pro for example..)

No wonder open-source is “more secure”, when they are actively running around telling people to disable the primary safety mechanism provided on Windows.

(to be fair, their blanket statement would apply to Linux firewalls too, but their example is Windows, which leads one to believe they prefer having lots of unprotected Windows machines on the Internet or something…)

Sabotage or just stupid advice?

If open-source people are as smart as they claim, they should be telling people to open only those ports required for the software, not to turn off all defenses and let anything through!!