XP SP2 Connection Limits

Windows XP SP2 will bring TCP connection limits that may cause issues with busy software. A blurb on Warp2Search.net reveals that P2P software resulted in an Event Log message about too many connection attempts. When asked, a Microsoft rep of some sort replied with the following:

“Thanks very much for responding. This new feature is one of the stack’s
’springboards,’ security features designed to proactively reduce the
future threat from attacks like blaster and Sasser that typically spread
by opening connections to random addresses. In fact, if this feature had
already been deployed, Sasser would have taken much longer to spread.

“It’s not likely to help stop the spread of spam unless spammers are
trying to reach open e-mail relays in the same way, by opening
connections on SMTP ports of random IP addresses.
This is new with XP SP2 and we’re trying to get it right so that it does
not interfere with normal system operation or performance of normal,
legitimate applications, but does slow the spread of viral code. New
connection attempts over the limit for half-open connections get queued
and worked off at a certain (limited rate).” [Furo]