Keith Watson Keith.Watson@Kewill.com sed:
Although this is about holes in the Windows OS, I'd be interested to know what those members of the list who know a bit about TCP etc. think about this, and if any of it applies to GNU/Linux.
Any host with an internet connection is vulnerable to this kind of attack, it has nothing to do with holes in the operating system itself - no matter how good/secure your OS is, you can't stop the packets from hitting your connection. Dalnet recently suffered a similar kind of attack, btw, and they're primarily BSD based.
If you are asking whether GNU/Linux boxes can be used as drones in this kind of attack, then this thread should be named "Is GNU/Linux more secure than Windows?".
Follow this link to read an absolutely fascinating story about a denial of service attack on an windows internet security expert's web site and what he did about it. http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm
Keith
lewis