wanting to drive their *nix truck through your network security.”

This is one of my annoyances with Windows & Unix/Linux (collectively known as *nix) security.

The annoyance starts with a question/statement.

Can you please enable Plain Text / Clear Text Passwords on my Windows PC?
The *nix guys tell me I need that to connect to their server.

Why do the *nix guys need this?  Well they’d be running Samba, which allows a Windows PC to access files and printers on a *nix box.

And that Samba is so old, it doesn’t support encrypted passwords, or the *nix guys have a later Samba version, and are too lazy to enable encrypted password support..

If your Samba is THAT old, it’s out of support, go get another one.
If your Unix/Linux guys are too lazy; well guys, get with the program.  You *nix guys rabbit on about how “secure” Unix/Linux is compared to Windows, but you then have the nerve to ASK for “Enable Plain Text Passwords” to be enabled.

For the *nix effort challenged, here is some reading on SAMBA passwords:
Microsoft KB: Unencrypted Passwords May Cause SP3 to Fail to Connect to SMB Servers
Group Policy setting: Send unencrypted password to third-party SMB servers
December 1998: Linux Journal – Samba’s Encrypted Password Support
(Samba Mailing List) Windows XP and plain text passwords
Samba.org: Samba Advanced Configuration.  Chapter 24, Winbind: Use of Domain Accounts