🚀 go-pugleaf

[POSTED TO comp.dcom.modems.cable; PLEASE REPLY THERE]

In <MPG.15025e0e6c102bf598a00d@207.126.101.100>,
See_email_@ddress_below.This_one_is.invalid (Philip J. Koenig) wrote:

>I regularly take Microsoft to task for implying that their
>various OS's and apps are secure when they aren't.  But 
>there's a reason we license car drivers -- the community 
>wants assurance they know what they're doing behind the 
>wheel.  There is no such test for internet users.

Licensing of drivers is due in part to the need for society to protect
itself.  I think a better analogy might be certification of SCUBA divers
-- the principal risk is to the diver, not others.

>In the rush to sell PCs and OS's and internet service and
>applications, the vendors downplay the security issue.

That's part of it, but I personally think the lack of liability exposure
is a bigger part of the problem.  If ISP's could be held legally liable
for downplaying the security issue (as you put it) then I think they
would be doing a much better job.  Hence I think the core problem is
that we have let them shield themselves from most of the consequences of
their irresponsible behavior.  It's a curious anomaly in our society --
SCUBA diving shops enjoy no such protections.

>But 
>that isn't an excuse for clueless users to blame everyone 
>but themselves when they get hacked.

I don't think it's unreasonable for users to expect to be warned by
their providers.  It's very hard to appreciate the risks without real
expertise.  Case in point: a supposedly knowledgeable user that recently
bragged how a hardware firewall made him completely secure, even though
a firewall won't protect him from exploits against services running
through that firewall.  (Hence the DMZ concept.  Reminding me again of
the vendor that outrageously misuses the term DMZ to refer to default
port forwarding.)

>(I also happen to think that the internet community, or 
>even local governments, should start taking a dim view of 
>opportunists like "ShareSniffer", Scour before them, and 
>all the other twits that think that the internet is their 
>personal sandbox waiting to be exploited.)

Amen.

-- 
Best regards,
John Navas     <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/>
     CABLE MODEM/DSL GUIDE:  <http://Cable-DSL.home.att.net/>