Re: Breaking the internet (hotels, guestnet style)

[Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>]

On 12/08/2009 01:21 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
> >   (Aside: my local library blocks everything but 80 and 443 outbound.  I complained to the director; he cited "security".  I tried 
> > explaining that I knew something about Internet security; he told me that the firm that had installed the system had "done most of the libraries 
> > in the county".  I translate that as "most of the libraries in the county have broken security policies".)
>
> Among the many wonderful things Internet has created in the past 2+
> decades, it gave birth
> to a countless number of "Internet Experts" ...
>
> Perhaps a more organized/focused discussion may help kick off an IETF
> WG to identify and
> document the problems/needs/requirements and an informational RFC/BCP
> can be produced,
> then the "experts" will know that for better security and reliability
> they don't need to
> mutilate internet protocols or dismember the Internet.

I'm skeptical to the extreme that IETF can do anything particularly
useful here. It's not like there's a lack of protocols -- AAA, tunneling,
etc -- that could be bastardized to make some sort of client-side
dohickey, or frob on the side something else instead of requiring
html, styles sheets, and human eyeballs.

Were there some sort of groundswell of such bastardized hacks, then maybe.

Mike