Microsoft adds NAP for Linux and Mac

Yes, cold hard cash, that whatever this NAP thing is, it isn't something that real people want:

Quoting: But Mayfield declined to give any further specifics as to the exact audit functionality available in these products, except to say that they would be doing things like checking to make sure certain services were on or off, and making sure that certain ports were locked down."

Linux and Unix admins have nice, not-sneaky tools like cfengine and Puppet to perform these sorts of tasks. Nice friendly little utilities that do a good job honestly and well. Which is not something that you can ever say about our good friends in Redmond. So let me guess- the additional unmentioned audits are license and DRM audits, don't you think? So come on, who wishes to be brave and daring and disagree with this?

Something tells me I would lose if I took this bet...

Quoting:Something tells me I would lose if I took this bet...

Probably correct. Would even go further by suggesting that NAP will be pushed onto heterogeneous MS-Windows/Linux/Mac environments. WHETHER SYSADMINS WANT THESE OR NOT!!

This "policy-enforcement" in MS terms stands for Kick Linux Out!

Does anyone remember Frank Zappa and the whispering voice of the "Central Scruuuutinizer"? This reminds me of that song.

Quoting:So come on, who wishes to be brave and daring and disagree with this?

I think dinotrac is still sleeping.

From the article:

Quoting:"Our servers then have policies that evaluate what rights those identities have and whether what is being reported in terms of compliance is indeed in line with company policies."

Has to be Disabling Restriction Malware (DRM)!

@hkwint: NAP is mostly targetted/punted as allowing./denying access to computers based on things like having up-to-date AV, OS patch level, firewall enabled, etcetera. But, this being MS, you can (a) be sure that it also doubles as a licensing server and (b) that it probably checks a whole lot more than you really want to.

It's just another attempt to build their own network protocol. They have tried before and they have failed. And they will fail again. The only thing different this time is that they layered it on top of TCP/IP instead of trying to replace it. Instead, they try to replace everything on top of it, like DHCP, managed switching, etcetera. Interesting when you combine this with the knowledge that this ships with Vista, the same OS that forces Software Assurance, licensing servers and all that crap on businesses. If you put these two together you basically give up your entire internal network to Redmond.

I just watched a demonstration of Cisco's equivalent (forget what they called it) last week. I found it interesting that theirs supports Windows and Linux, but not Mac.

Ultimately, the whole concept is somewhat humorous to me. Just like the way we all joke about anti-virus/spyware/grayware. This is more of the same. It's like...

customer: Help! My submarine came equipped with a screen door. salesman: Oh, you need our new screen door waterproofing kit which keeps your screen door from rotting, and our screen door surround bubble which keeps water from flowing though your screen door. customer: Why not replace the screen door with a proper hatch? salesman: Are you crazy? Do you want to miss out on all these great security features?

Quoting:salesman: Are you crazy? Do you want to miss out on all these great security features?

Very funny, that really cracked me up. :-)

Stupid users, they don't know what is good for them! Typical MS attitude.

Well, if this NAP is disabling access to computers because of me not having a decent recent anti-virusscanner and firewall, it still qualifies as restriction malware - speaking in broader terms, not? It will not be long before I will be denied access to Microsoft - services because I don't have a virus-scanner I'm afraid; so no more Samba for me anymore (yes, exaggerating, but you get the point).