RE: bloomberg on supermicro: sky is falling

["Naslund, Steve" <SNaslund () medline com>]

Mr Herrin, you are asking us to believe one or all of the following :

1.  You believe that it is good security policy to NOT have a default DENY ALL policy in place on firewalls for DoD and 
Intelligence systems handling sensitive data.

2.  You managed to convince DoD personnel of that fact and actually got them to approve an Authorization to Operate 
such a system based on cost savings.

3.  You are just trolling to start a discussion.

The reason I asked what system it is would be to question the authorities at DoD on who and why this was approved.  If 
you don't want to disclose that then you are either trolling or don't want anyone to look into it.  It won't be hard to 
determine if you actually had any government contracts since that is public data.  There are very few systems whose 
EXISTENCE is actually classified, but you were the one that cited it as an example supporting your policy.  If you 
cannot name the system then it doesn't support your argument very well does it.  Completely unverifiable.

In any case I believe the smart people here on NANOG can accept or reject your security advice based on the factors 
above.  I'm done talking about this one.

Steven Naslund


> > Want to tell us what system this is?

> Yes, I want to give you explicit information about a government system
> in this public forum and you should encourage me to do so. I thought
> you said you had some skill in the security field?
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin