Re: are firewalls limited to only protecting ehternet connections?

["R. DuFresne" <dufresne () sysinfo com>]

On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> In message <000001bdf148$b1086a60$0b6fe2a5 () Pent266 BITCOMM com>, "KirkAdams" wr
>
> > One reason I see this as important is for the impending "streaming video"
> > market that will be implemented. Basically the new "BlockBusters". Some
> > video servers claim 20,000 concurrent 1 Meg video streams capability. So ...
> > where do the switches come from to handle that. I've heard quotes of
> > blah,blah gig backplanes, since I was checking on this myself and I raised
> > the security question, (without any answers I might add). Since these
> > services are likely to be prime targets of BOTH the super hacks and the
> > existing cable thieves a good firewall would be REALLY important.
> >
> > OK, guys. That's the market potential. Any suggestions on something that'll
> > handle it?
>
> Yah -- no firewall at all.
>
> I'm perfectly serious.  Why should a video server need a firewall?
> You install firewalls to protect services -- ports -- that can't protect
> themselves.  Video servers are not general-purpose computers.  They
> don't need to run sendmail, they don't have regular users who pick
> guessable passwords, etc.  Taken to the limit, such a beast needs to
> listen on exactly two ports, and talk on one -- it needs to hear requests
> (probably from the Web server the customer is talking to), and it needs
> an administrative access port.  It's no trick to design those services to
> (a) use cryptographic authentication, and/or (b) to be on a physically
> different wire than the video output.

Ahh, but still, this presumes that the video server is *only* a video
server, and such is not the trend on the net.  The trend is to toss in
everything, perhaps distribute it to a number of machines dedicated to a
speciafic service or two, yet, clump all services from the ISP/net serving
the users.  And pipes are getting larger...

Thanks,



Ron Dufresne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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