Re: NYT article on the (ever-more-sophitsticated) bot wars

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

I agree djf

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tom Van Vleck <thvv-post () multicians org>
Date: December 8, 2008 2:06:47 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] NYT article on the (ever-more-sophitsticated) bot wars

John Markoff's article on the "cybersecruity problem" says
"Internet security is broken, and nobody seems to know quite
how to fix it."

We know how to fix it.  We chose not to fix it in the past.
Now the fix will be expensive and require replacement of
things we bought that don't work, and cannot be fixed.
If we can't afford the fix now, it will cost more later.

We would rather rely on magical thinking.  If we ignore the
problems of security maybe the bad guys won't notice us.

We rely on magical thinking when we build insecure systems
using inadequate tools and practices, connect them with
insecure protocols, do not administer them at all, and then
expect that they will do things they are not designed to do.

It's like filling our gas tanks with water and then
complaining that the car doesn't run. And when someone
suggests gasoline, saying, "oh, but this is much cheaper."

Commercial antivirus is magical thinking similar to current
airline security.  If the virus goes through a security
checkpoint, gives its real name, and if that name is on our
list of bad guys, it will be stopped.  Or we can try to
cheat Turing and decide whether a program will do something
bad in the future.

-- VanVleck.SysAdmin





-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com