My DSL service has been really sucking for the past two days. I quickly blamed it on DirecTV DSL which used to be Telocity. The reason I so quickly blamed them is because they announcd on Dec. 18 that they were closing up shop. I think they have a problem and are letting the network slip into oblivion, depsite their statements that they would keep it running until January 16; it may be running, but not running well.

So early this morning I check my router logs and I see lots of attempts to come in through port 137. What’s port 137? It’s NetBios. This is the port that Windows networking uses to do name resolution. It’s an apparently easy exploit to get in this way on unsecure systems. Mine is secure (my router blocks every port but the four or five that I use), but the net result is that my router could get overloaded, thus producing a Denial of Service.

There are also attempts to get in on port 1433 which is the port that Microsoft SQL Server runs on. This exploit hits folks who never setup an admin password when they installed SQL Server. I have to say that someone who installs a database and doesn’t change the admin password almost deserves to get hacked. Of course vendors who ship software that doesn’t force you to even set an admin password should be shot…

I’m seriously bummed about this. I’ve already initiated a switch to SpeakEasy.net to continue my DSL service, but I don’t know how long it will take to get that moved over. I’ve had DSL for about 1.5 years now, and the thought of not having it is something I don’t like to think about…