Re: Common operational misconceptions

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Feb 15, 2012, at 12:47 PM, John Kristoff wrote:

> Hi friends,
>
> As some of you may know, I occasionally teach networking to college
> students and I frequently encounter misconceptions about some aspect
> of networking that can take a fair amount of effort to correct.
>
> For instance, a topic that has come up on this list before is how the
> inappropriate use of classful terminology is rampant among students,
> books and often other teachers.  Furthermore, the terminology isn't even
> always used correctly in the original context of classful addressing.
>
> I have a handful of common misconceptions that I'd put on a top 10 list,
> but I'd like to solicit from this community what it considers to be the
> most annoying and common operational misconceptions future operators
> often come at you with.
>
> I'd prefer replies off-list and can summarize back to the list if
> there is interest.
>
> John

I think one of the most damaging fundamental misconceptions which is
not only rampant among students, but, also enterprise IT professionals
is the idea that NAT is a security tool and the inability to conceive of the
separation between NAT (header mutilation) and Stateful Inspection
(policy enforcement).

Owen