Re: Ok, so now we have a firewall, we're safe, right?

["Dave Piscitello" <dave () corecom com>]

To a great extent, hiding complexity is intentional, and IMO a 
reaction  to the scathing criticisms hurled at vendors time and again 
regarding product and UI complexity. 

Some folks on this list recall configuring ISDN adapters and bridge-
routers, or early V. modems. The survivors from the "your UI bites! 
You can't expect our 10,000 reasonably intelligent users much less a 
consumer to change dipswitch settings and enter command line 
jibberish! We need something *intuitive* and *plug-and-play* or we'll 
take our business elsewhere" era are IMO permanently traumatized into 
believing they can't expose complexity (or they conceded long ago, 
made killings giving the customer what he thought he wanted, and are 
sipping champagne in sunny surrounds while we debate on maillists).

I feel as if we're arguing over the road *not* travelled 
(distinguished from the road *less* travelled). I'm increasingly 
skeptical that it's  possible to go back to the crossroad and make 
"secure" a priority over "easy". Too few people actually care, and 
our culture/society becomes more comfortable each day with solutions 
that absorb and amortize losses rather than mitigate them. Financials 
don't invest in stronger identity theft protection while their costs 
of doing business can tolerate loss. When losses exceed "tolerable" 
they still don't look for something bullet-proof, only something that 
reduces loss to below the magic threshold of "tolerable". 

My experience is that consumers, SMBs, and enterprises don't put even 
this much effort into assessing and mitigating risk. I might be in 
the minority, but the fact that 4 of 5 APs are still run wide open is 
as much an embarrassment to users as vendors.

Our hands have to be placed on hot (regulatory) coals to implement 
security. Even then we procrastinate and lobby to reduce the 
requirements *and* accountability - and ask vendors to automate and 
hide complexity. Automation and security aren't good bedfellows. 

Where security is involved, otherwise rationale adults devolve into 
whining, rebellious, scheming, negotiating adolescents. The critical 
parent (regulatory) social style isn't working. The nurturing parent 
style isn't working. If you've know a way to create adult-adult 
conversations on the topic of network security, I'm eager to hear 
them.



On 7 Jun 2005 at 3:00, R. DuFresne wrote:

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>   [SNIP]
>
> > Good thing I scrolled down to find it!  It's pretty well hidden for
> > a "strong" recommendation.  Took me 15 minutes to find, and that's
> > all I was searching for.
>
> I wrote a few papers on wifi products a few years ago, and mentioned
> that anything at all to do with securing these devices tends to be
> hidden, if covered at all, and only touched on the the briefest sense,
> deep down in the documentation.  So, nothing has changed in recent
> times, cool to note the consistency.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ron DuFresne
> - -- 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>          admin & senior security consultant:  sysinfo.com
>                          http://sysinfo.com
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> ...We waste time looking for the perfect lover
> instead of creating the perfect love.
>
>                  -Tom Robbins <Still Life With Woodpecker>
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