Re: Question for the group

[Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu>]

--On February 11, 2006 10:13:16 PM -0800 Blue Boar <BlueBoar () thievco com> 
wrote:

> Paul Schmehl wrote:
> > Recently we discovered that some message boards in China were posting
> > the urls for web proxies at various universities, along with "login
> > credentials".  In our case that meant the url and a sixteen digit number
> > that represented our "Comet Card" IDs, smart cards that we issue to
> > every student, staff and faculty member when they arrive.
> <snip>
> > Is this something new?  And why the hell do they want to grab books and
> > periodicals?  Can they sell them?
>
> But, you haven't told us what having an ID lets one do.  Does it give you
> proxy access to the Internet?  Or does it just let you access library
> resources, like you imply?
It gives you proxy access to vendors' sites, such as Lexis-Nexis, the 
American Chemical Society, etc., so you can do research, read journals, 
search the Congressional directory, that sort of thing from anywhere in the 
world.  You cannot use it to get to the Internet in general.

> Thought about playing honeypot?  Maybe if you catch something brute
> forcing, you make it look like it gets a hit, and then you later
> blacklist any IPs that use that "hit".
Not really.  My approach to security is to try to solve the problem rather 
than catch the bad guys.  I wish I had the time, but I don't.

Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/
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