ATX motherboards, Win9x Ports, security??

couple Qs and thoughts---

1)i was in class last night and my teacher was talking about ATX style motherboards. because they're never actually "off", and because they are shutdown by software, he said it's possible to shutdown ANY computers using this technology over a network..w/out the IP address!?! i assume he meant you could just use the network name for that machine. anybody EVER heard of this!?

2)he also said that Win9x machines are security risks b/c they have many services (open ports), like ftp, smtp, telnet, etc...when he said this i thought he was talking about LINUX machines, as they run many of these services by default. but he said Win9x too!!! i told him i had NEVER seen nor heard of a 9x machine having such services (ESPECIALLY by default), and didn't get to talk much after that. has ANYONE heard this stuff? i have scanned many computers, many of them being 9x or ME, and the only openings were 139 and on ME 5000 (anybody know what ME 5000 is for). what is he talkking about!?!?

1) It can be done. You have to have a special connecting wire between the motherboard and the network card. How to do it, that I don't know. If its not IP then it must use MAC Level addressing. If this is the case then it time to write your own network drivers!!!

2) don't know

He is pretty much wrong about win9x. There are services you can install
and run, like personal web server and SQL Server/MSDE. These are not
installed by default, however, when you install/setup dialup networking
and have file and print sharing on your local network, it does seem to
default to enabling it on the internet connection too. This bothers me.

I think therefore I am... sometimes right. images/icons/wink.gif

Thinker--that's what i thought so i said i've scanned 9x and never seen that. he then asked what scanner software i was using....like it takes frickin NMAP to recognize FTP or SMTP!! i couldn't tell if he was trying to save face in front of the class or what, but he didn't seem the type...he's got lots, and i mean LOTS of experience; MCSE, CNA, A+; which blows my mind why he'd say that suff!! any way the class is sweet...learning a ton

thanks for the input

I am guessing his MCSE is NT and not 2000. There are around 1000000
NT MCSEs and most of them will not be MCSE at the end of this year when
the cert expires. A+ is fairly lame (although I believe they strengthened
it in the latest version.) If I am remembering what someone told me
CNA is the lowest level of Cisco certification and is not much either. He
may know something we don't, but IP is really not rocket science. If a
computer doesn't respond on a particular port, that pretty much closes
the port (although it doesn't stop DOS attacks, or show exploitable bugs
like dumping a huge bunch of bytes at a port.)

I think therefore I am... sometimes right. images/icons/wink.gif

i just know that he is knowledgeable and said some weird things. about port dumping..well nevermind--don't wanna step on toes, so i'll PM you