🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <nevin-1008950941110001@mac-nevin.cs.arizona.edu>,
Nevin ":-]" Liber <nevin@CS.Arizona.EDU> wrote:
>In article <40d488$16h@datamagic.com>, kanefsky@datamagic.com (Steve
>Kanefsky) wrote:
>
>> But it's better to assume the worst 
>> when it comes to computer security and then prove that it's not true than 
>> to assume that nothing is wrong.
>
>Then don't put yourself on a network.  Period.

Well there are more choices than just the extreme ones.  At least with 
TCP/IP you can put most of your network behind a firewall with a good
set of packet-filtering rules.  Nothing is perfect, but that doesn't
mean we just give up and consider everything to be equally insecure.

...

>Read Ken Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Turing award lecture,
>and hopefully you'll figure out that you really are trusting a whole lot
>of stuff out there, whether you explicitly acknowledge it or not.

You're right.  I guess everyone should just completely stop worrying about
security.  As long as there's a possibility someone might target you
specifically and try to decipher the EM emissions from your home, you
shouldn't even consider the possibilities for abuse when a single company
controls all your software and your network.


>>I'll stick with a more open system that's 
>> easier to scrutinize.
>
>The real question is:  have you bothered to scrutinize everything (from
>the tools on up), or are you trusting someone else to do it?

Some of both, but mostly trust.  Nothing is 100%, but when it comes to a 
choice between a system that's free and open and has had a lot of scrutiny by 
many thousands of people and one that's completely hidden and proprietary
and controlled by a company that has a history of unethical (IMHO) 
anti-competitive behavior, I think I'll take the open system, and 
recommend that course of action to others as well.

--
Steve Kanefsky