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Openness and Security on Campus

djeaux writes "The April issue of Syllabus includes an interview with Jeff Schiller, Network Manager at MIT, about openness and security in academic computing. Schiller has some interesting things to say about product liability for software, including an out for open source software and boils security down to a simple maxim: You must install patches. He also says that what makes security hard is that it's a 'negative deliverable.'"

145 comments

  1. Campuses need more openness by SnappingTurtle · · Score: 5, Funny

    For beginners, streaking has totally gotta come back in style.

    --
    I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
    1. Re:Campuses need more openness by secolactico · · Score: 1

      For beginners, streaking has totally gotta come back in style.

      Do you really want to see the average MIT geek running naked around campus?

      --
      No sig
    2. Re:Campuses need more openness by KevinDumpsCore · · Score: 1

      > For beginners, streaking has totally gotta come back in style.

      Streaking is what happens when you don't clean your Windows properly.

    3. Re:Campuses need more openness by wthynot · · Score: 1


      Just pray that it's not /.ers who revive this trend.

  2. Simpler than that by stanmann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Security is simpler than that. Security requires fences, in the electronic world just as in the physical world.

    those fences can be visible or invisible, incorporated or separated, But they will NEVER stop dis-honest people. No fence will categorically keep out all burglars. No computer security(short of pulling all the plugs) will keep everyone off your computer. Openness and security can co-exist ONLY when everyone is trustworthy.

    --
    Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    1. Re:Simpler than that by stecoop · · Score: 1

      pull the plug on the computer

      Secuirty Starts with physical security - If I have physical access I can walk in, take the Hard Drive and do what ever.

    2. Re:Simpler than that by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Openness and security are mutually exclusive (if I'm understanding your use of 'openness' correctly).

      You don't need security if everyone is trustworthy, and you can't have openness is everyone is not.

      Just quibbling.

    3. Re:Simpler than that by Neil+Blender · · Score: 2, Funny

      Openness and security are mutually exclusive

      Shhhhhh. Don't let the OSS community hear that, it may discourage them.

    4. Re:Simpler than that by stanmann · · Score: 1

      You understood openness correctly, but mis-understood security. A safe is secure, even if 500 people know the combo... as long as those people are trustworthy.

      Governments tend to have a firm grasp of security and trust... and even occassionally security without trust.

      If you can trust the gatekeeper then you MAY not need to trust all who walk through the gate.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    5. Re:Simpler than that by Rikus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Openness and security can co-exist ONLY when everyone is trustworthy.
      I'm not entirely certain what you mean by that, but I don't think any "open" security details short of handing out keys and passwords should automatically destroy the security. It might make it a lot harder to keep everything going safely, but there are plenty of benefits too. I don't think security requires a "fence" if the thing behind the fence is safe. In the physical world, an invasion involves someone physically entering an area. In the electronic world, someone has to find some way to get the thing behind the fence to do something it wasn't intended to do.
      1) If the thing behind the fence is extremely well-designed, it won't allow something like this.
      2) If security is "closed", it's only secure because nobody understands it or because nobody has a chance to touch it.
      That sounds a lot like locking yourself in a secret underground bomb shelter and calling yourself "secure".

    6. Re:Simpler than that by ColonelPanic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't need security if everyone is trustworthy, and you can't have openness is everyone is not.

      The sad truth is that you can't have openness if anyone is untrustworthy.

      --
      "Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
    7. Re:Simpler than that by ron_ivi · · Score: 1

      Which is why you should use an encrypted home directory.

    8. Re:Simpler than that by stanmann · · Score: 1

      I thought from the context I gave that physical security(such as it is) was implied in my premise.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    9. Re:Simpler than that by stanmann · · Score: 1

      In the electronic world, just as in the real world you can always go over or through the fence.

      BUT you have the added dis-advantage of not being able to(YET?) categorically determine that joe is joe. Sue might be joe. or joe might be jake.

      In meatspace there are ways to with certainty say Joe is Joe.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    10. Re:Simpler than that by no+longer+myself · · Score: 3, Funny
      Security requires fences

      You forgot the razor wire, the minefield, the 18 foot tall concrete wall, and the ant-aircraft guns. Oh, and don't forget about the B-1 Bomber fleet with a heaping pile of MOAB's... While we're at it, let's throw in some propaganda and tactical nukes and some chemical and biological--

      Oh wait... This is just getting plain silly.

      Firewalls, patches, and frequent monitoring for suspicious activities... yep... Along with a prayer, that's about the best you can do.

    11. Re:Simpler than that by johnalex · · Score: 1

      I find your lack of faith in humanity... disturbing.

      --
      JA
      http://www.johnalex.org/
    12. Re:Simpler than that by secolactico · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In meatspace there are ways to with certainty say Joe is Joe

      Actually, in meatspace there are ways to impersonate someone. If you are holding something to be delivered only to Joe, Jake can get ahold of fake ids and a convincing story and make you believe he is Joe (unless you personally know Joe, that is).

      --
      No sig
    13. Re:Simpler than that by Rikus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...you can always go over or through the fence

      I emphasize: if the thing behind the [nonexistent] fence is very safe, no "fence" should be necessary. I define the fence as the thing that prevents people from having a chance to interact with the fenced item. In the real world, someone can use their strength to break through a fence or break through a wall within the fence. In the electronic world, there needs to be an actual mistake or problem before a similar thing can happen.

      ...not being able to(YET?) categorically determine that joe is joe.

      That's done with signatures/public-key cryptography and symmetric cryptography. If that's not sufficient to determine that Joe is Joe, then Joe might need to be a bit more careful Someone installed a keystroke-logger and stole his secret key? Someone is holding a gun to Joe's head? Those are the dangers of the physical world.

    14. Re:Simpler than that by chris_mahan · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or re-plug in the server. Then go back to your car and download everything out of it before anyone knows.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    15. Re:Simpler than that by chris_mahan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Speaking of stolen items: there's a reason people call them "fenced".

      Anyway, there's a way to have openness and seurity.

      You put a table in a field and put a log of nice candy on it. (the goodies, no fence)

      Then you put an east-german martial arts instructor in a soviet-era uniform with an AK-74 and a german shepherd on a short leash next to the table. (security)

      Anyone can come and browse, but I guarantee you they won't take any candy without leaving a few dimes in the jar.

      Security should be obvious, and punishment should be swift and brutal.

      Then you can have openness and security.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    16. Re:Simpler than that by stecoop · · Score: 1

      You did but I was just trying to point out Man In the Middle attacks are the most difficult to resolve.

    17. Re:Simpler than that by xenoandroid · · Score: 1

      Disturbing because we all know that all humans are good and incapable of evil, right?

    18. Re:Simpler than that by stanmann · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You don't want or need bank/military security unless you are a bank or military.


      Banks and military installations are hard targets for a reason and yet are still penetrated occasionally... WHY?

      because there is added value to penetrating those systems. The average person isn't in any direct danger from the people who rob banks or break into military bases.. and a bank isn't in any danger from someone who busts out a car window and steals a radio.

      OTOH if you put up that sort of security around your house you may attract the attention of that sort of person. and unless you have the resources of a bank, you will be penetrated.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
  3. Defeating security by munging URLs by tcopeland · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the interview:

    S:Are there any other weaknesses to keep in mind, particularly when accessing data on the Web?
    JS: This gets into engineering implementations. The devil is in the details. Let me give you an example. There's a Web site out there--I won't identify them--that offers survey services. You can set up surveys and revisit them to see the data collected or to edit them. But if you look closely at the actual URL in the little bar at the top of your browser, you will see some long number.

    A few of us wanted to know, "Well, wonder what happens if we go into that title bar there where the URL is and just add one to that number?" And we did so, and all of a sudden we were looking
    at somebody else's survey, and seeing their answers. The devil is in the details.
    Yup. Each HTTP request needs to be checked separately for privilege violations. Not doing so is like opening your internal API to anyone who wants to call it... next thing you know, someone is injecting SQL and your database is executing a "DROP TABLE users". Yikes.
  4. Patches? by Swamii · · Score: 5, Funny

    I read in a magazine recently that a Microsoft exec said Windows users would be "much safer" if we all would just download software patches from Windows Update. According to the article, no one took him seriously.

    --
    Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
    1. Re:Patches? by sphealey · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I read in a magazine recently that a Microsoft exec said Windows users would be "much safer" if we all would just download software patches from Windows Update. According to the article, no one took him seriously.
      Well, there's that little problem where Microsoft patches tend to break other applications, particularly competitor's applications. Which makes automatic patching a bit of a concern when mission-critical apps get broken.

      sPh

    2. Re:Patches? by kfg · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wanna have some fun? Just walk up quitely behind your sysadmin and say, in a mild voice, "Windows patch."

      Don't expect any work from him for the rest of the day though. Just let him gibber quietly in the corner. It'll go away.

      KFG

    3. Re:Patches? by Vancorps · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I would seriously home no one uses Windows update to patch a mission-critical server. In such environments you have an onsight SUS server. You apply the patch to your testing server and if its successful you use SUS to push the patch out.

      Windows update does break stuff, but it is not the only option for automatic or manual updates from Microsoft. They even offer a corporate version which doesn't rewrite policy everytime you update which is why most apps break when they do

    4. Re:Patches? by Vancorps · · Score: 1
      home=hope

      Damn I need to read more carefully

    5. Re:Patches? by harvardian · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know, I've read this argument a couple of times here on Slashdot, and I've never in my life heard of this happening to anybody I know. Can somebody provide an example?

      And why do you say the patches "particularly [break] competitor's applications"? All this means to me is that Microsoft tests the patches thoroughly with their own software. I certainly wouldn't expect them to release patches that break their own software (that they know and can test) more than their competitors' software.

    6. Re:Patches? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hehe, over at our place if someone has been foolish, we make him/her visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/ with a 'read-2-articles-minimum' penalty.

      Apart from the ever-shrinking costs of de-programming the accursed, smooth sailing!

    7. Re:Patches? by MMaestro · · Score: 1
      Well, there's that little problem where Microsoft patches tend to break other applications, particularly competitor's applications. Which makes automatic patching a bit of a concern when mission-critical apps get broken.

      True, but in the long run whats better? Switching over to Linux and have no one to sue if your server gets hacked due to a security flaw? Or stay with Windows and have someone to take the heat when your server crashes from an update?

      Linux is great and all, but if you don't have someone, who knows what their doing, updating it and monitoring it regularly; you might as well switch back to Windows. The mass public doesn't have the patience or knowledge to switch to a non-mainstream system just because a bunch of no-name hackers/programmers/nerds on the internet 'claim' its more effective.

    8. Re:Patches? by sphealey · · Score: 4, Informative

      The canonical example is Windows NT Service Pack 6, which broke Lotus Notes (both server and client). Note (ha ha) that Notes had at that time both the largest market share and by far the largest installed base of any corporate e-mail system. Microsoft denied the problem for about 6 weeks, then suddenly released SP6a with no explanation.

      That's the worst I know of (since it was marked a security release, and since it affected so many sites), but I have certainly run across others.

      And while I agree Microsoft can't test _every_ 3rd party app out there, I do think that given their 96% desktop market share (at that time; closer to 99% today) that they have a responsibility to test the leading apps of the leading functions, whether or not they are Microsoft's. Novell certainly used to do that.

      sPh

    9. Re:Patches? by sphealey · · Score: 2, Insightful
      True, but in the long run whats better? Switching over to Linux and have no one to sue if your server gets hacked due to a security flaw?
      OK, now its my turn ;-)

      Please name the last time any organization of any size successfully sued Microsoft over a product liability issue. I'll even take FOAF references to orgs getting under-the-table reimbursments if that's all you have.

      sPh

    10. Re:Patches? by Alan+Hicks · · Score: 1
      Can somebody provide an example?

      Ever run a proprietary application you or another company wrote to interface with an MS SQL Server?

      --
      Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
    11. Re:Patches? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      //Ever run a proprietary application you or another company wrote to interface with an MS SQL Server?//

      Yup. One we wrote in ASP.NET.

      I've applied dozens of "Windows Update" patches to the production server running this custom-built application, accessing a distributed failover cluster running MS SQL Server 2000.

      Not one problem.

      Ever.

      Try again.

    12. Re:Patches? by el-spectre · · Score: 1

      There was a service pack coupla years back (I forget if it was XP or 2000) that effectively disabled use of a proxy server... so those machines couldn't get out to get the fixed SP a couple of days later.

      --
      "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
    13. Re:Patches? by Bozdune · · Score: 1

      I can't totally prove it, because I can't tell which of about 3 different MS patches did the dirty deed, and I'm not particularly interested in de-installing them to hunt down the issue, but over the course of about six weeks my HP printer (officejet v40) driver software rotted and died. Re-installing the driver software didn't help at all, same symptoms. I don't use the device that much, so it's impossible to pinpoint exactly when the driver got hosed up. I do know that I didn't install anything else during that time.

      I had to de-install the HP software, and I'm now running with the default MS drivers, which are actually better than the HP drivers (only downside, if you can call it a downside, is that The Gimp is now my scanner interface).

      So, yeah, I'd say these updates definitely break stuff. I always cross my fingers and pray they don't break anything important. Sooner or later, though, I know I'll be screwed in some important way, it's just a matter of when.

    14. Re:Patches? by jo42 · · Score: 1


      Just recently one of the people here decided to visit windowsblowupyermachineupdate. It told them there was an updated version of the network card driver available. So they downloaded it, and the various other updates, the system rebooted and they no longer had network access. I had to download the real driver from the manufacturers web site, clean out the microsoft lump'a'doodoo and install the proper one. Wasted about half an hour on this.

  5. Nada by TechnologyX · · Score: 1

    It's only a 'negative deliverable' if it's on the company's negative agenda. Security isn't hard, TOTAL security, now that's a neg-a-tive.

    --
    Slashdot sucks
  6. Negative Deliverable by re-Verse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People have to accept security as a regular part of life. There are LOTS of negative deliverables we subscribe to in our lives, and pay quite handsomly for. Off of the top of my head, I think of auto insurance. I mean - yeah we see nothing making it better.... but we know very well the hell that may arise if we don't have it.

    1. Re:Negative Deliverable by PerpetualMotion · · Score: 1

      Frivlious claims drop by 80%?

    2. Re:Negative Deliverable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wanna guess how many people drive without it, though? And how many people only have it because the law requires you to have liability insurance before you can drive?

      aQazaQa

  7. One thing that gives me pause... by Sheetrock · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Anybody that can give an answer about the cryptographic algorithms one should use that quickly without reflecting on the different strengths and weaknesses inherent worries me a bit. Sure, most of the focus should be on making access simpler and easier in practical situations, but who's to say offhand that Triple-DES or AES are better than Blowfish or plain DES?

    Nor would I applaud Automatic Update as a triumph for the end-user -- it delivers more than security fixes and can affect the stability of a machine. But the point about firewalls only being as good as the policy on employee laptops is a good one.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




    1. Re:One thing that gives me pause... by Ckwop+Johnson · · Score: 3, Interesting

      quote
      [
      but who's to say offhand that Triple-DES or
      AES are better than Blowfish or plain DES
      ]

      No-one does. There is no proof that for any algorithms we've thought up yet that there isn't a way to recover the encrypted text faster than brute force.

      It is possible DES is more secure than AES or Blowfish.. we just don't know..

      So like most things business, it's a risk management issue. The chances are that encryption is your strongest link. You need to insure you've got your weaker links covered: namely, the two primary points being the users and the OS.

      Computer security sucks.. yes.. but that's a risk of doing business.. and most of us have our jobs because that risk pays off :)

      Simon.

  8. Software liability by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    JS:Now, the problem is that if you decide to put liability upon software authors, you destroy open source--because those people can't tolerate any liability. So, if I were king, I would rule that if you're selling software then you bear a certain liability; but if you're giving it away in open source, then you don't.

    But, I fear that the commercial interests in this game, if they felt that Congress was backing them into a situation where they would have to accept liability, my guess is they would strenuously lobby that liability applies to everything, including open source, in an attempt to kill off open source. So that's the conundrum.

    That was a very insightful quotes regarding the worry I've been having off late. Given their way, lawyers, lobbyists, anti-opensource corporations and their political puppets will all rally to impose liability for software on the end-developer.

    If such a development happens, we could very well see software developers forced to buy "malpractice insurance" like doctors/medical professionals - that alone will be enough to kill opensource software, not to mention the plethora of lawsuits and ugly frivoulous lawsuits which've plagued the US medical system and escalated medical costs.

    And ust to play devil's advocate to his suggestion that free software developers not be held liable - since they're "giving away" their stuff: somebody could turn my anology around and make outrageous claims like "exempting voluntary software developers from liability is like encouraging quacks to pursue their medical endeavours".

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
    1. Re:Software liability by mcrbids · · Score: 1

      If such a development happens, we could very well see software developers forced to buy "malpractice insurance" like doctors/medical professionals - that alone will be enough to kill opensource software, not to mention the plethora of lawsuits and ugly frivoulous lawsuits which've plagued the US medical system and escalated medical costs.

      Except that it doesn't quite work like that. Liability is generally based on causality - if you make something happen, especially knowingly, you assume liability for the consequences of that action.

      Open Source software puts all the causality on the end user. You have the source code, you are in control. You can do damn well whatever you like. If you run OSS, you are, in part, assuming liability for its use.

      However, with closed-source solutions, you cannot change the behavior of the software, thus the author of the software is ultimately responsible for what it does.

      Look at it like this: If I commercially manufacture a car and sell it to you, with known defects that cause you injury, I likely will hold some liability for your woes. However, if I make plans for a car, call it a "concept", and give you (for free) the plans for it, and you make a car that then injures you, how much liability would I assume?

      Very little. (IHMO, IANAL, etc)

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    2. Re:Software liability by kbradl1 · · Score: 1

      Software liability won't hurt Open Source Developers because almost every open source license specifically says they offer no warranty, use at your own risk. If anything it would hurt non-open source, like MS, since they would require the insurance but an individual developer working on Open Source in Norway/Austrailia/Russia certainly doesn't. In Open source no one really owns the product so you don't know who to who would be liable. Ultimately this shouldn't be something politicians should have to get involved in. We should be requesting liability from software vendors as we do with car dealers through license agreements. Manufacturers are liable for your car if it breaks down in two months because that is the deal you sign with the dealer. Most dealers have an X number of year warranty. So why don't we sign these with our software vendors? Well it makes the software cheaper for one. If you request liability be added to the license agreement they will ask for more money and more time. We would already have software liability if it weren't for the fact that MS is a monopoly, so you have to agree to their terms not yours.

    3. Re:Software liability by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Without weighing in on the larger debate, you actually believe this?:

      However, if I make plans for a car, call it a "concept", and give you (for free) the plans for it, and you make a car that then injures you, how much liability would I assume? Very little.

      You actually think you wouldn't get sued by at least one person that tried to build the car? And remember, once that lawsuit starts you've already lost regardless of outcome if you aren't insured. Don't let the way you want the world to be cloud your view of how the world actually is.

    4. Re:Software liability by jadavis · · Score: 1

      I also assume that many ways of getting OSS don't even qualify as a contract because the end user provides no compensation.

      Does that mean that it would be harder to hold an OSS author liable?

      Of course, that still leaves Red Hat and the like out in the cold.

      --
      Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
    5. Re:Software liability by sploxx · · Score: 1

      Well said. IMHO this is the biggest threat to FOSS nowadays.

    6. Re:Software liability by jadavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One interesting point about the liability issue is that proprietary software developers would benefit greatly from liability laws, and consumers would probably suffer.

      It's natural to assume that placing barriers or restrictions would hurt the vendors. Intuitively, anti-drug laws would hurt drug dealers, but in reality they drive the price up, and therefore the dealers' profits.

      It's the same with software vendors. It would take more time to develop a quality product, and so it would eliminate most of the smaller developers. In effect, it would drive the price of software up across the board. Most consumers don't care about security or stability, they really don't. And developers would shy away from some of the most useful features for fear it could be considered a security problem. So the consumers are getting no real benefit, but paying a huge cost.

      In the case of doctors, a patient's body would qualify, in computer terms, as "mission critical", meaning one problem is too many. So the patient loses if they see a quack. But, if a consumer gets bad software they reboot a few times a week, and maybe re-download some mp3s.

      A better solution is if the vendors who actually do provide mission-critical software would provide guarantees. You can get a lot better guarantee from IBM or Oracle than MS, and enterprises recognize that.

      --
      Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
    7. Re:Software liability by mcrbids · · Score: 1

      You actually think you wouldn't get sued by at least one person that tried to build the car? ... from plans they obtained for free?

      I think not.

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  9. well, duh! by evenprime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of *course* you have to install patches. There is a bored 11 year old out there somewhere who thinks can prove he's "133t" by downloading a sploit off of packetstorm and owning your box.

    It doesn't matter that he has no knowledge of how to code a similar sploit himself, or that he could not admin your university WAN. It doesn't matter that university cut-backs mean you don't have enough money for a test LAN to make sure the latest buggy patches won't break business critical software/services or bring your servers to their knees. All that matters is that he can go on IRC and tell everyone how "k-rad 133t" he is.

    Stupidity wants to be free! :(

    --

    "Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
    I think that goes for OS's too
    1. Re:well, duh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of *course* you have to install patches.

      Of course you don't. My primary internet machine is ten years old (Gateway P5-60). It still runs Windows 95. It has never been patched. It has never had realtime virus scanning. And it has never -- never -- been compromised. It has logged well over five thousand hours online, throughout every virus outbreak you have ever heard of. Once a year or so I run a one-shot scan from a clean bootdisk just to be sure, but it's not necessary. There is never a problem.

      How is this possible? Very simple. I do not use Outlook and I do not use IE. There is no active content in my mail client (Eudora, which is set to render all email as plain text) and no active content in my browser (Opera, which is set not to run plugins or java applets). Add a simple software firewall (Kerio) and some common sense (e.g., delete the occasional PIF and VBS attachments) and you're set.

      So simple. So effective. So maintenance-free. Why does the rest of the world struggle so?

  10. All in One Box by Wedge1212 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It would be perfect to have an operating system that was secure out of the box (due to features built-in) like the worlds greatest personal firewall. However I just dont see this as being a likely solution. I think an operating system should have a basic firewall like XP or any linux distro. But to ask a software developer to focus a ton of time on making me a bullet proof firewall instead of making the OS more stable just doesnt make sense. As stated in the article there's only so much development time and then you have to get your product out the door or you're going to have some pissed off users. I would want (in the case of OSes) the comapny to spend the majority of their time making the OS stable and a little bit of firewall is nice. But i would much rather use another means of securing my network instead of using 2,000 personal firewalls.

    --
    See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
    1. Re:All in One Box by blair1q · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The answer is to simplify.

      Firewalls work because they enforce a single point of entry with a single method of entry: none.

      However, once you start asking for "features" like password-based logins, tunnelling, VPN, port forwarding, etc., then you increase the complexity, and therefore the likelihood that a human being will make a mistake and leave invisible door open, or at least un-double-bolted.

      There are three kinds of mistakes that can be made:
      1. Forgetting to secure something in the long list of things that need to be remembered to be secured when opening that first wormhole into the firewall.
      2. Never knowing to secure it (this mistake is called "ignorance" and is essentially a fraud perpetrated on the person who hired the security team).
      3. Thinking it's okay to leave an invisible door open. (Comes in two flavors: being a dupe for security through obscurity, and, being a crook).

      So you can either simplify by eliminating all forms of entry, or by reducing the unpoliced forms of entry to a known list of known secured features.

      I'll send y'all a bill.

    2. Re:All in One Box by SCHecklerX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      'personal firewalls' are the wrong solution. The proper solution is to not run unnecessary services out of the box in the first place. Really, NONE. If a user needs to run a particular service, then they should know how to enable it and how to secure it. But to run things as part of a default install is silly. It's bad enough in the windows world that netbios is always-on (RPC vulns anybody?).

    3. Re:All in One Box by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      Personal firewalls do provide an important service that most don't appreciate, a personal level of egress filtering, based on applications rather than packets or ports.

      This sort of thing would be valuable even on more secure OS's like Linux or BSD. I'm not sure if any are available, but I know of none installed or enabled by default.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  11. Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Security is not really a negative deliverable but more of a thing that is not really noticable whether you have it or don't have it. That's more of a positive undeliverable if you ask me.

  12. Give them a reason to patch by sdjunky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He also says that what makes security hard is that it's a 'negative deliverable.'"

    I'm certain there are countless flaws in this idea. But hey, you don't post to slashdot without some risk of being shown what a moron you are right?

    How about having DSL/Cable companies give an incentive to customers whose computers do not become infected during the blitz of mass email worms and trojans. Something like a few bucks off of your ISP bill to free software. Some kind of incentive for NOT getting infected besides the fact that you don't have anything on your computer.

    It would benefit them in that it lowers their costs and increases their reliability if hundreds to thousands of their customers aren't sending DOS, etc.

    Of course, there are issues such as privacy implications (how would they know you're infected or not) to hardware costs for the ISP.

    1. Re:Give them a reason to patch by Rikus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How about having DSL/Cable companies give an incentive to customers whose computers do not become infected during the blitz of mass email worms and trojans.

      Or how about making the ones who _do_ get infected pay an extra fee? After all, it's more fun to punish the people who cause damage than to reward those who don't.

      It would benefit them in that it lowers their costs and increases their reliability if hundreds to thousands of their customers aren't sending DOS, etc.

      Well, if it's against their ToS, they might as well just temporarily cut off the service of those infected customers, or at least send them a letter.

      Of course, there are issuses such as privacy implications

      Maybe monitoring all traffic isn't the solution (uh, to this.. I guess it's already the solution to everything else), but if they receive complaints per-IP-address, then they could keep an eye out for highly suspicious traffic coming from those addresses. I'm sure they already do to a degree.

    2. Re:Give them a reason to patch by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      how about Cable and DLS providers simply give away a $29.00 SMC barricade with every connection and avoid 90% of the network crippling viruses and then give away one of the free virus scan programs?? it's a tiny step that would cost almost nothing to them and make a huge difference to their network manageability.

      problem is that many times the "software" that comes with your DSL and Cable modem is riddled with spyware... (comcast's certianly is)

      the cost of a HARDWARE front line NAT box that has all incoming ports closed would be almost nothing to them.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Give them a reason to patch by Joe5678 · · Score: 1

      Or how about making the ones who _do_ get infected pay an extra fee? After all, it's more fun to punish the people who cause damage than to reward those who don't.

      Only problem with punishing is that you loose customers, by rewarding the good ones you'll gain customers.

    4. Re:Give them a reason to patch by Graphyx · · Score: 1

      Or how about making the ones who _do_ get infected pay an extra fee? After all, it's more fun to punish the people who cause damage than to reward those who don't.

      Or they can kinda do what Comcast does with their cable internet/cable tv. Give a $10 credit for use of both.
      Just charge $15 extra each month and give it back for those who don't get a virus.

    5. Re:Give them a reason to patch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think you are misinterpreting his comment. In the artice he states

      "One of the fundamental problems is that security is very hard. And what makes it hard is that it's a negative deliverable. You really don't know when you have it. You only find out belatedly when you've lost it."

      He wasn't stating, as you are suggesting, that there isn't any benifit to come from good security. But r

  13. Play by campus rules by SkiddyRowe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My stance is that you're essentially playing baseball in your heighbors yard. He won't change the way you play the game, or change the rules necessarily, but he sure is going to limit how far you can hit the ball. Like the green monster at Fenway.

  14. I only agree somewhat with this article. by BlueQuark · · Score: 1, Informative

    I think firewall's more precisely NATs have their place in addition to patching your system.

    I think it would be irresponsible of a network/system administrator to NOT keep their systems up to date with the latest patches and fixes, along with using SSH and similiar tools.

    But at the same time I believe in having a firewall, though I do agree it will not solve all of your problems.

    I don't believe in just patching your systems. I work at a top west coast university, and the academic computing department's attitude it to make the entire network open, and just secure the boxes. Well that's nice in fantasy land, but the truth is, is that this is an administrative nightmare. I work in the administrative computing and we see the result of NOT having a firewall and patching only.

    From experience, that doesn't work either. You need a comprehensive approach that uses both firealls and patches.

    1. Re:I only agree somewhat with this article. by psycho_tinman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In my experience, there are basically two things that are *MOST* commonly seen in academic networks; one is either internal or external parties trying to take advantage (and misuse) the massive bandwidth that campuses have available, or someone trying to discover and manipulate potentially sensitive documents (such as grades).

      I think firewalls have their place, you're right. But being at the receiving end of a rather draconian installation/firewalling policy for no apparent reason other than just reducing work for the systems operators (and increasing work for students, supervisors in general); I'm thinking that there should at least be a set of carefully monitored, but open machines for people to just mess around with. It's a campus, a seat of learning. Sometimes, when you're trying to learn something, things break. Do you want to be too worried about breaking a piece of "mandated" software and having a risk of getting your ass chewed, instead of experimenting ?

      Campuses have different security requirements and needs from commercial outfits, IMHO. Sometimes, administrators just don't understand that and try to implement the same policies willy nilly. Security isn't just about procedures and blanket firewalling.

    2. Re:I only agree somewhat with this article. by Entropius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mod parent up. Most of the networking people who now implement policies that reduce their workload but cripple students' ability to explore gained their skills from similar exploration years ago.

    3. Re:I only agree somewhat with this article. by BlueQuark · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well I probably should of been more specific in what I wrote. In a hurry to eat lunch, free Chinese food from the Windows server admins.

      I believe in an open academic network for the students, faculty and researchers.

      But for the administrative computing, where I work, which does all the data processing, there is no reason for an open network.

      The funny thing is is that the major research projects we have on campus, have erected firewalls to protect themselves. And basicaly have told academic computing to go screw themselves and their patch only policy. And these firewalls are being mandated by the 'personalities' and Nobel laureates that we have here. Actually we have more Nobel laureates than MIT has ;-)

    4. Re:I only agree somewhat with this article. by bcrowell · · Score: 1
      Schiller does a good job of explaining that a lot of the stuff he's talking about is particular to his campus, which is, after all, atypical.

      I teach at a community college, which is different from MIT in many ways :-) One big difference is that we have a lot less funding. A result of this is that we have some security problems that happen simply because there aren't enough tech people to manage the number of machines we have. The figure I've heard bandied about is that if we were a major corporation, the ratio of technicians to computers would be greater by about a factor of 5 or 10. So for instance, in the classroom where I teach most of my physics classes, we have 6 Windows machines on the lab benches, and we need them in order to do some of the labs. Well, twice within the last six months, they've gotten infected with worms or viruses, and became impossible to use for a week or so, causing me not to be able to do some labs. Yes, if we had the level of staff that MIT does, we probably would have been more up to date on security patches, and the infection would probably have been eradicated more quickly. Since we're an underfunded community college, we work with what we've got. At least I convinced them to take Outbreak off of those machines -- I guess it had just been installed by default as part of Office.

      Schiller is also on the mark about pointing to lazy end-users as the key. I was annoyed that the system used for entering grades required me to use nothing but digits -- no alphanumerics or punctuation. To me, this seemed like a typical PHB decision. But actually, it kind of makes sense when you consider the most common security risk with passwords, which is that people choose a dictionary word. (But it was kind of amusing to find out that when I registered as a student in order to take a music class, the password on my faculty account was set to my birthday -- they're the same account.)

      Another thing that amazes me is the amount of money my school was willing to pay for the world's bigged P.O.S. web-based system for running admissions and records: $5,000,000 per year for something that smells like your average slashdotter could have written it in a weekend using mySQL and Perl. OTOH, it replaced an archaic mainframe-based system that was just as expensive, and even more of a P.O.S.

  15. most patches aren't trustworthy by foosballhound · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >> You must install patches.

    in the "real world", when there is a security
    threat, such as a gas leak, you call the repair
    person, who fixes it.

    This is the equivalent of "install patches"

    Note that there is a level of confidence in
    calling the repair person, that they won't
    paste adds all over your living room, or install
    a wire-tap on your phone line, or a spycam
    in your bedroom.

    unfortunately, in the computer world, all too
    often the "patches" are used as trojans.

    they change user settings, put in spyware,
    brake working code, etc

    so, ppl are hesitant to apply patches, with
    good reason.

    1. Re:most patches aren't trustworthy by Entropius · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think anyone objects to installing patches. What I, and others, object to is being railroaded into other things while I install them. If I own a house with a natural gas system, I don't want to sign a contract that says "you must call our technicians to fix any problems with your gas"--especially if I happen to know how to fix such things myself, or know someone else who does.

      This is why the OSS model works better for security. I *can* run urpmi --update and trust that the results will be what I want. I can also look under the hood at exactly what gets updated and how. Or, I can download individual packages... or download things and compile them from source... or, if I want and have the skill and time, I can fix things myself.

      Now, simply because there are alternatives, there is competitive pressure on the people who make autoupdaters to make them efficient, effective, and transparent--because, otherwise, people will stop using them.

  16. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  17. A Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay, so I get it, I must install patches. But can I still keep getting all my software from Kazaa,Warez sites, and unsolicited emails with exe attachments?

  18. Patches work both ways... by SphericalCrusher · · Score: 1

    Yes, installing patches does help security, but what also creates more bugs and holes? Patches. I think the key here is that you want your patch to make less holes than your code orignally had. At least this way, no one knows where they are right off the bat.

    --
    "Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
    1. Re:Patches work both ways... by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      More imporant what happens when the patch servers are violated? Attacking those serevers directly or performing man in the middle attacks vs them would become extreamly usefull. If everybody is allowing there computers to automaticaly install said updates it gets ugly. Auto Updates do make things better but they are not a panecea by any means and provide a method of infection. Granted security in an open college setting is very much different than the server world I'm used ot setting up (where we have charts of what machines need ot talk to what other machines and only allow those packets on the switch)

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    2. Re:Patches work both ways... by karlm · · Score: 1
      More imporant what happens when the patch servers are violated? Attacking those serevers directly or performing man in the middle attacks vs them would become extreamly usefull. If everybody is allowing there computers to automaticaly install said updates it gets ugly.

      If your autoupdater checks package signatures and the private signature keys are kept on machines that are only connected to the outside world via SneakerNet, MitM and server compromises only directly act as DoS attacks. Now, maybe an attacker could set up the machine to try the exploit on whichever machines ask for the patched packages, but presumably it's more efficient to write a worm that just spreads as rapidly as possible by vulnerability scanning the entire internet in a distributed fassion (a la Worhol worm). Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Everyone's checking their patch signatures anyway, right? ... right? ... right? ... anyone? We're doomed!

      Autoupdaters are a great thing as long as signatures are handled properly. If you need to test patches in your own test environment, then you're more than capable of setting up a local mirror of only the patches you have verified and pointing all of your boxes at that mirror.

      --
      Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
    3. Re:Patches work both ways... by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      The problem with the signature is it dosent change and has high value to comprimise. Granted I agree that test boxes and a local patch server are the only way to go in production. I would disagree at the patch servers not being as an effective target as a worm. Worms are noisy people know about them they set off all sorts of security apparatus. Now with a patch server you could even be selective as to who gets the trojans. By definition it would be "wanted" traffic so the allarms wont go off. Even with a test server assuming the trojan goes into some sort of stealth mode people may well test it as good and deploy to production high value targets. Rememebr that script kiddies just want to claim boxes infected the black hat hackers want things like your data. There are ways to make this safer people just arent interested enough to make them happen.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    4. Re:Patches work both ways... by karlm · · Score: 1
      But my point was that the trojans won't get installed because the signatures won't validate. The private keys are a high value target... that's why you never even put a NIC in the box holding the private keys. Sure, it's a pain in the butt to move packages around via sneakernet, but it forces someone to have physical access to the machine in order to compromise the private keys.

      --
      Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
    5. Re:Patches work both ways... by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      Your missing the point those private keys are high value making brute foring them worthwile as they dont change. You can play at sneakernet to the high holy signing box all you want but it dosent stop the fact that you can remake a private key given computing power and time since everybody knows the public key. Yes auto update is usefull but it's not that panecea that people think it is.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    6. Re:Patches work both ways... by karlm · · Score: 1
      Umm... private keys do change... it's idoitic not to set expiration dates on private keys. Package updates can change the public key used to verify packages on a regular basis.

      Also, there isn't enough energy in the known universe to perform 2**2048 electron transitions or spin flips, so how do you propose an attacker keep track of state while bruit forcing a 4096-bit RSA key?

      Now, there are known attacks that are much much much more efficient than bruit forcing, but it will still take you millions of years with all of the world's current computing power to break a 4096-bit RSA key, a 4096-bit El Gamal key over Z*_p, a 4096-bit DSA key over Z*_p, a 512-bit El Gamal key on an eliptic curve, or a 512-bit DSA key on an eliptic curve.

      You just need to change private keys substancially faster than the best known attacks.

      Now, you might argue that there are attacks out there that are much better than publically known attack methods. However, that's why you change keys litterally millions of times more often than dictated by the best known attacks.

      --
      Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
  19. From the Article by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ``JS: The reason it doesn't crash all that often is because system software developers took some time and effort to make that the case. If they would take the time and effort to make it be secure, it would be secure.''

    No. More secure, but not secure. For one thing, things will be overlooked. For another, there will always be things that were not known to be security holes at the time, but that will later turn out to be such.

    ``JS: I think Linux is much more secure than a lot of the other stuff that's out there, because so many people look at the source code--not everyone looks at it, but enough people do, so that problems get fixed earlier, rather than later.''

    Many people look at the sources, but do they find the vulnerabilities? See also above.

    In short, nothing is going to give you guaranteed security. Having said that, crackers will only go so far to break a system, so absolute security isn't even required. This makes any security measure useful, including firewalls (which JS argues against).

    As a closing remark, despite these minor points, I found the article a very good read; JS seems to have his heart in the right place. Heh, it makes me frown every time people say "security" and mean "restrictions" (see also MicroSoft and Trusted Computing).

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  20. I just HOPE by Prince+Vegeta+SSJ4 · · Score: 3, Funny

    they make the Girls Dorm open source

    1. Re:I just HOPE by GPLDAN · · Score: 1

      I went to the University of Michigan, where the girls were so ugly, an open dorm would be called "open horse....face"

    2. Re:I just HOPE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They got girls at MIT?!?

  21. My campus is all security, no openness. by Entropius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I attend the University of Alabama in Huntsville, an engineering/research institution with enrollment around 15k. The Network Services people around here aren't really concerned about the value of openness to academia; in fact, most of their security is directed inward, against the students who have to use the machines.

    For instance, the "start" button on every lab computer has been disabled--people only have access to the icons on the desktop. Furthermore, right-click context menus have been disabled.

    On some public computers, even access to the address bar in IE is disabled--all you can do is follow the links from the homepage in IE.

    When I took a Mathematica class in the physics lab, we used a heavily neutered version of Windows NT, with file permissions set unusably tight. Browsers would crash on startup because they didn't have write access to their cache files, virtual memory was disabled (!), and the like.

    Network Services also has banned the use of BitTorrent on campus, causing consternation among people wanting to download contraband like, uh, Mandrake images.

    This is the same campus where average packet loss on ResNet is 20-30%. Students play games over dialup because it's faster and more stable than ResNet.

    1. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by PlatinumInitiate · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I attend the University of Alabama in Huntsville, an engineering/research institution with enrollment around 15k. The Network Services people around here aren't really concerned about the value of openness to academia; in fact, most of their security is directed inward, against the students who have to use the machines.

      Wow, sounds exactly the opposite to UNLV. I remember one department had a few NT lab machines that students often remotely accessed and filled the Desktop folders with shortcuts... made a complete mess of the desktops... the networking guys weren't impressed. To be fair, though, they did fix it (added profiles/policies), and most of the network was actually pretty secure.

    2. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by SpaFF · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I attend the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It's funny that two campuses in the same University system would take different approaches to security.

      Here at UA, everyone gets a real IP address: there is no NAT. There is a "traffic shaper" on resnet which limits upload speeds and blocks incoming connections on some of the lower service ports (80, 25, etc). Central computing blocks incoming connections to port 25 except for mailservers, but that is just to prevent open-relay spam. Other than that, there is no firewall.

      Each college has it's own labs. The arts and sciences labs are locked down one way, the engineering another way, c&ba another way, etc. In most cases students can't copy files to the hard drive or fiddle with the control panel, but other than that there is no real "lock down".

      I work for one of the colleges on campus and we have been trying to get a firewall for our labs and faculty for years, but central computing won't allow it. They won't the network to be open, not for academics sake, but so that they can keep tabs on what everyone is doing. They think that if we put up a firewall it will keep THEM out too.

      --
      -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT d? s: a-- C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E- W++ N o-- K- w--- O- M+ V PS+ P
    3. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by stanmann · · Score: 1

      That is all well and good, BUT bypassing that security is possible. There is an optimal security level and IMO it is lower than that. The optimal security level for an academic or personal system should be the electronic equivalent of a no trespassing sign and an 8 foot chain or wood fence.

      ie enough to keep honest people honest and make it difficult enough for the average criminal to move on the the next house.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    4. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair, what is your worst problem, users, or hackers? In my 7 years exp, USERS ARE the main prob, so locking systems down so users can't mess them up, and saving tons of time for admin to do other things then fix their mistakes, IMHO, is a good thing.

    5. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In York University (Toronto) they have the boxes locked down a bit (no start button)

      However, you can install apps , save files to almost anywhere; but there's a catch....

      There's a daemon that runs on the startup of the computer which remove anything that is not in the base image.

      It makes decent public access workstations.

    6. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by stanmann · · Score: 1

      Yes, on public access systems a "ghost on logout/reboot" policy will tend to maximize the user experience and minimize management/supervision. sure, you can install bonzi-buddy but he won't be there when you log back in.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    7. Re:My campus is all security, no openness. by paranoidsim · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but did anybody else read these with a southern accent?

  22. OpenNess??? by YoDave · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    When I first read the title I wondered what the heck OpenNess was. I almost went to sourceforge and searched for it.

  23. Negative deliverables are not that hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just ask the Duke Nukem: Forever people. They could teach us a thing or two in this area.

  24. More From the Article by bangular · · Score: 1

    >A lot of software, particularly on PCs, was designed in the days before networks.
    hrmm... Windows comes to mind

  25. I'm probably stupid... by Flamingcheeze · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ... but what would be wrong with using a security flaw to send a virus or worm that fixes said flaw? It would be extremely cheap to implement, and nearly transparent to the end user.

    I'd just suggest that the users computer serves the white-hat worm for a day or two (kind of like a Bit Torrent), and then automatically deletes it.

    Is that a bad idea?

    --
    The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
    1. Re:I'm probably stupid... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that a bad idea?

      Yes.

    2. Re:I'm probably stupid... by Merlinium · · Score: 1

      thats already been done, and the press had a field day with it, saying how bad it was that a virus could go in and repair a link that was created by another virus then delete itself, the end result is that it dies out faster because it deletes itself, if it were to spread itself repeatedly, and stay in action to constantly repair whatever it is that keeps getting changed via other maleware/virus/end user, then it might be a good thing, but wheres the percentage in this, if it stays, you get some yahoo who wants to sue said person for making it and that it is violating some law or something about invading a computer even though it is only invading it to repair the stupidity factor of most end users.

      --
      If firefighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime, what do Freedom fighters fight?
    3. Re:I'm probably stupid... by Flamingcheeze · · Score: 1
      Okay, so then have a setting on the client's computer -> ON or OFF. When the user actively sets it to "ON," he grants permission for the white-hat worms to come in and do their work.

      I'd sign up.

      --
      The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
    4. Re:I'm probably stupid... by Merlinium · · Score: 1

      yeah that will work, sheesh we can't even get most of the people to set the autoupdate feature of a antivirus software, what makes you think they will set this option to on?

      --
      If firefighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime, what do Freedom fighters fight?
    5. Re:I'm probably stupid... by Flamingcheeze · · Score: 1
      Why do you hate me?!? ;-)

      Really, though, it seems a lot easier than having to download a patch for every security flaw that's discovered. Think of how much easier it would be to just have a pres release circulated that says,"remember to turn on your White Hat Worm Hole!"

      Heh... I like the sound of that.

      --
      The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
  26. Soo not true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    "In meatspace there are ways to with certainty say Joe is Joe."
    Simon: Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet your captain, Captain Oveur.
    Clarence Oveur: Gentlemen, welcome aboard.
    Simon: Captain, your navigator, Mr. Unger, and your first officer, Mr. Dunn.
    Clarence Oveur: Unger.
    Unger: Oveur.
    Dunn: Oveur.
    Clarence Oveur: Dunn. Gentlemen, let's get to work.
    Simon: Unger, didn't you serve under Oveur in the Air Force?
    Unger: Not directly. Technically, Dunn was under Oveur and I was under Dunn.
    Dunn: Yep.
    Simon: So, Dunn, you were under Oveur and over Unger.
    Unger: Yep.
    Clarence Oveur: That's right. Dunn was over Unger and I was over Dunn.
    Unger: So, you see, both Dunn and I were under Oveur, even though I was under Dunn.
    Clarence Oveur: Dunn was over Unger, and I was over Dunn.

    (Airplane II: The Sequel)

  27. It's the same old saw by ChiralSoftware · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "Security is about patches." That statement implies the belief that security flaws are inevitable, an inherent part of having software. This simply isn't true. We should not accept such thinking. If a product doesn't have security holes the day it is released, it still won't have security holes a thousand years from now, patches or not. The question is, how do we ship products without holes? The reasons we have security holes in products are not because developers are stupid or careless, or because the business side of the company wants to ship the product now. No, the reason we have holes is because we're still using horrible software development tools which make security problems almost inevitable. Humans just can't think like C compilers and if we write a long enough program in plain old C, we end up with buffer overflows and lack of bounds checking on things. If we used safer tools like Java, which don't have buffers and which store data in structures which know their own size (collections), the vast majority of vulnerabilities would never even be created. If a user sends malicious input to a Java process, we know that no matter how broken the Java is, that malicious input can't stomp on memory and be executed, no matter what, because the JVM and the bytecode verifier don't allow it to. That is the kind of assurance that software should have.

    It is always possible to make security problems at the design level, like forgetting to check an account balance before allowing a withdrawal in bank software, but humans are very good at thinking in those ways, and those kinds of problems are rare.

    ---------
    Create a WAP server

  28. Too Much Reliance On Patches... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Security is just about "effort vs reward".

    You put as many "locked doors" as possible in the way of a potential intruder so that each time the intruder is faced with a new "door", he or she may simply decide your system is no longer worth the effort and give up trying to get in.

    Patches are the "last locked door" - in other words, once you've definitely decided that you need to run a specific application on the Internet, you make sure that it's updated to the latest version.

    However, prior to that, you've already ensured the application is configured correctly, that the box it's running on has security permissions locked down, that the box is behind a firewall and probably a NAT box also for good measure.

    Not to mention some good system logging and alarming going on so you have the best chance of shutting the box down when someone does get in.

    In security, only the paranoid survive...

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  29. and the resons behind a portable hotspot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the article a few weeks ago about building a backpack hotspot are becoming more important today...

    what a great way to share all your files easily to friends and others while avoiding the IT cops and Mind police....

  30. But MS has a solution for this by Omega1045 · · Score: 1

    As long as you set up your active directory forest correctly, you can leave certain areas open and secure others. I cannot believe they didn't immediately think of an MS solution to a security problem.

    --

    Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

  31. Re:GENIUS! by sakshale · · Score: 1

    He states that the patches are not done, that they don't have a firewall, that the users are too important (stuck up?) to follow his lead --- and does not tell us how he deals with those issues! The interviewer really failed to ask the correct questions.

    I want to know how they are dealing with those issues! How can you "protect" a wide open environment with a large number of unpatched systems? What tools does he use? Or, has he simply written off the whole thing?

    --
    For every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious and wrong.
  32. American culture. by PlatinumInitiate · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You understood openness correctly, but mis-understood security. A safe is secure, even if 500 people know the combo... as long as those people are trustworthy.

    Interesting point.

    But using the same example, what if an outsider pretended to be someone that one of those 50 people knew, found out details from that person, and used it to trick one of the other 50 people, etc...

    One thing that struck me about American culture in general is that people seem to be a lot more trusting, and despite what a lot of Americans think, it IS a lot more of an open society than (probably most) other parts of the world.

    Coming from South Africa to study in the US (between 1999 and 2001) was an eye-opening experience. I don't know how much things have changed since the 9-11 incident and so on, but back then I was amazed at how open and helpful people were, for example, getting student visas, a social security number, a driver's license at the DMV...all very smooth, despite the fact that I was a complete forgeiner. In South Africa, it is often more difficult to get basic things like licenses and so forth processed as a citizen than it was to get them done as a forgein student in the USA! I don't know if it's just a different outlook people in the USA have, but dealing with South African bureaucracy has become even more painful since I returned to South Africa, remembering how comparitively smooth everything was in the US.

    The same with campus security. I'm fairly sure that if someone wanted to be underhanded, they could fairly easily socially engineer situations to break security systems.

    1. Re:American culture. by xenoandroid · · Score: 1

      You can't get into legal trouble for certain things that other countries would kill you for, but many American citizens are more close minded than the citizens of other countries, therefore instead of being killed by the police for something you get killed by your neighbor.

      America is more open than a lot of other countries but it's still not the most open/'free' place in the world, then again nothing can beat the freedom of an uninhabited island.

    2. Re:American culture. by treke · · Score: 1

      I think one of the reasons behind this is that being a foreigner isn't that unusual in the US. Here in California for example, a major portion of or population is recent immigrants, legal and other wise. When that's the case it's just natural to not think much of whether or not someone is a citizen.

    3. Re:American culture. by handslikesnakes · · Score: 1

      I won't deny that people in the USA are probably more trusting than South Africa, but South Africa doesn't rate very high on my list of open countries, y'know?

  33. Welchia worm by bdigit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It has been done and it was done so poorly that it caused a bigger problem because the damn thing was spreading so quickly that it was taking up all the bandwidth and causing the machines it patched to essentially not be able to get online because of all the damn packets it was sending out.

    At my university we require students to run an antivirus software (we provide if they dont have) and to keep their machine patched and secured and if they dont well they will quickly be taken off the network once their machine gets infected with a worm or is hacked and we recieve an outside complaint. They then get all mad that we took them offline and we have to go through expplaining to them that they agreed when signing up for our resnet service they would do the following and they violated the agreement. We charge them a 25 dollar reconnect fee which includes us taking their machine in, or going out there, and cleaning it up and securing it , as well as educating them on how to keep their machine secure.

    The other day at work I had a kid yelling at me that we cant just take him off the network without warning. The reason we had taken him off was because his machine was sending spam to aol address and recently aol has been blocking all email from our domain because of it. I said to him because of you everyone on this campus can now no longer send emails to their friends at aol and we have to contact aol once we are done with your machine and get off their blacklist. That shut him up.

  34. My Campus by kcdoodle · · Score: 1

    I used to teach in the School of Business at Florida State University, my wife taught in Education at FSU.

    The School of Education had their lab computers locked down so hard, you had to login as a certain user to use the scanner, then logoff and login as a different user to use Photoshop. This is the way it was for almost every application. The lab assistant had to do the login for you. Many things were broken as in the above posting. This was all to keep the lab assistant from having to fix so many "broken" lab computers.

    The School of Business on the other hand, had a generic image of the lab computers and very little security. When a lab computer got fouled up, they simply boot from a floppy and start the copy down of the network image and walk away. Takes them about 3 minutes of their time to redo a computer.

    Who actually had less maintenance?

    --

    - I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
  35. words of wisdom by therealcaf · · Score: 1

    JS: There is one good technique, and it's the only one that's effective. No firewall, no port blocking--none of that will work. The solution is that you must install patches.

    I definatly need to send that to the net admins here at school. I can surf the web, read e-mail, and use instant messaging. Thats about it. Everything else is restricted on a dorm-to-dorm basis. So I can play games with people from my building but my friends on the other side of campus are shit outta luck.

    --

    -caf
  36. Two rants: Patches and Libaility by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. "Install Patches" - Good idea for admins/unis/companys, but Joe User just doesn't get it. But then again, why should he have to? To many the computer is just another entertainment device, like his TV, DVD player, or a stereo. Joe User would likely prefer a simpler closed black box than the tremendous amount of freedoms (and consequent dangers) that his PC gives him now.

    Why should Joe User have to invest hours of his leisure time ministering to and babying some hunk of metal that he uses for email and getting stock quotes?

    The industry's constant preoccupation with blaming Joe User for security problems/viruses/everything is unfair.

    If Joe User can't handle the daily coddling of his PC, then by god, make it easier for him! And make a tidy profit in the process. Give him a webtv like device that doesn't suck. Create more secure protocols and applications. Create automatic update methods, and damn all the tinfoil nerds' protests. They aren't buying these types of products anyway. Resist the urges to spy/sell out/coerce/etc. your customers. Build a better, simpler mousetrap and stop blaming your customers for the sad state of modern computing as it pertains to security. You can blame Joe User for blabbing his password, nothing more.

    2. Liability - Sorely, sorely lacking in the software world. Computer applications NEED to come with liability attached to the person or company that puts it out there. You claim it does x,y,z? Fine, it better do all three.

    What other industry can make such wonderfull and grandiose claims in their advertising, yet be held completely unaccoutable for their outright lies to the consumer?

    If I am paying for something based on the claims of what it can do, as presented to me by the salesman, the ads, a website, or whatever, those claims need to be accurate, or the company should be held liable.

    Why has this not occured? Why is it that liability is so much a part of so many other industries, yet software companys can continue to just ignore it, based on some imaginary EULA that they spit out.

    Introduce liablity to the software world, and yes, you will have a massive exit stage left by many developers. Good riddance. To get quality software, the possibility, no the *threat* of actually being held responsible for your claims needs to be present.

    Liability would also shed some light on just how unsecure, unstable, and unpredictable consumer software and hardware is, as companys would fall all over themselves to drop their inferior product lines for fear of being sued. Maybe Joe User would finally realize what a jumbled mess of crap a typical PC is when he sees that vendors won't back up their own products if faced with possible liablity.

    1. Re:Two rants: Patches and Libaility by wolverine1999 · · Score: 1

      You cannot guarantee software will work in all cases...

      That's why we have disclaimers especially in OSS.

      Software isn't like engineering. You can't guarantee anything at all. Just change the OS version and the application crumbles.

  37. What a great article by jkitchel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe I'm visiting the wrong web sites, but it's great to hear these things from someone who's been on the cusp of network administration from the beginning.

    S: So education is a part of this?
    JS: Education is a part of this, both for the people who own personal computers and work with the data and for the people running these systems.

    I can vouch for the end part of the article for sure, as I'm sure many Slashdot readers can. Right now I'm doing an Information Security Risk Assessment as part of a graduate level class that I'm taking. Fortunately, for the K-12 schools on which we perform these assessments we cover user education as part of an overall Information Security program. Also, it gives us the chance to see user education and awareness from their point of view, which helps us make the case for having user awareness training. A lot of end users don't realize that having a weak password is like giving away the key to your organization (or school in this case). I'll give you two guesses as to the biggest topic that we've discussed with the school corp. and the first one doesn't count ;)

    You would not believe how woefully inadequate schools are when it comes to an Information Security Program. If you have the opportunity to help a school out, do it. It will help you learn something, help the school better themselves, and better the community by protecting the little ones' information.

  38. what seems like dumb admins to me.......... by cynyr · · Score: 1

    I attend Northern Michigan University. We have a campus resnet that has live IP's and DNS names My_Tower_for_example and if you go look port 80 is open, 8080, and 22, but port 21 and the samba port and the nfs port are closed. that and they have blocked ping packets on campus, so i would ping google for you but i can't but it probably would be in the neiborhood of 500ms+ which is jsut a little bit higher than one would expect for a collage campus. some of the biuldings on campus are behind NAT as well. so i guess over all it's not the worse system but there are some odd things that happen.

    We also have very few if any computer labs on campus because the school "provides" us with laptops to use, running a cripled(as in rdesktop does not work) version of Winblows XP.

    p.s. please be nice to that server it's a 100mhz pentium..... :-)

    --
    All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
  39. Which side of the fence is which? by billstewart · · Score: 3, Insightful
    One of the canonical Internet security threats was always "some college student with lots of resources and technical skill and too much time on their hands" attacking your system. If you're running the Internet security for a university, a firewall is not going to keep that kind of threat _out_, because the students are already _inside_. (Ok, it'll discourage students from other colleges from hacking your college, but the most motivated threats are already inside your firewall.) Protecting administration computers is a different problem from protecting student computers, faculty computers, and shared workspace computers. Some of this can be helped by appropriate partitioning, and Schiller's point about keeping all the machines patched and as secure as possible is critical.

    Some university administrations are concerned with protecting the rest of the Net from their students; others think that interferes too much with legitimate research. Some other poster commented that their university's policies are to be "open", but they block incoming Port 80 and Port 25 to student residence networks - meaning that students can't run their own web servers or mail servers, which is distinctly *not* openness.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  40. Forced patch upgrading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It is just a bad practice to upgrade to each and every patch released by a vendor.

    For server side and data center machines, patches usually result in more problems since they break things that already work.

    It's common practice in the mainframe world to skip every other patch/upgrade as well as let patches age for a while before applying (to avoid getting an untested in the field patch).

    Desktop users are more able to get and apply patches since their reliability requirements are much lower.

    1. Re:Forced patch upgrading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's all well and good, but he was obviously speaking about PC's.

  41. Jerry Spence by zogger · · Score: 1

    --I just read his autobiography a month or so again, very interesting. The gist of it is, before the era of large malpractice awards, the insurance companies were absolute scumbags when it came to legitimate medical malpractice claims. Human beings were actually really screwed bad and it was brushed off, ignored, justice wasn't being done, and the med establishment was hunky dory with that. They screwed up, weren't self policing enough of their own colleagues. Generally speaking of course, But that really was it. Spence and a few others finally cracked it, on blatantly obvious cases that the doctors and insurance companies chose to fight, rather than just cutting a much smaller check to the victims of the malpractice. The juries awarded the verdicts,partly to reimburse the victims (or next of kin unfortunately) and partly to SEND A MESSAGE to those big corps and shaky docs to not screw people over. they still kept trying, so they got pushed hard back, and now it's a mess. Based on verifiable data and the disgust they felt at those corporations, the juries did it, just folks like thee and me. IF the insurance companies and med establishment hadn't been such outright dinks, most likely it never would have gotten so bad. I realise it has see sawed now, but originally, they brought it on themselves. I am no fanboy of the law profession, I tend to think they make life a lot more complicated and expensive than it needs to be, but sometimes there IS no other remedy to try and get some relief*. It's hard as heck to be joe paycheck and get screwed over by megacorp and even think about fighting it in court. Default in 99% of the cases with joe paycheck against some corp is the corp will never admit they are wrong, EVEN when they know full well they are. That's been proven over and over again, and they use that ridiculous ruling allowing corps to be treated as almost blameless "persons" to hide behind.. Some balance is needed, and it's not *all* one side or the other is the complete bad guy. There's A-"profit is the ultimate king, whatever it takes" business plan, then there's B- "we at XYZ corp are in business to make money,and we will, but our policy is honesty and we do not engage in unethical behavior or lying".

    If these big corps would just buy a single clue with the zillions they make and adopt business plan B over A, they might avoid a lot of problems down the road.

    As to software, this is an easy question. If it's for-profit, it should be held to useability standards, same as any other product. If it's free, then, ya take your chances and get what ya pay for. I see no reason whatsoever that a company like microsoft is able to make hundreds of billions over the years, yet they incur no liability when their software is so blatantly hideous that it costs inncoent purchasers and other folks on the net actual folding money and lotsa time to fix their stuff. It has never computed for me anyway. There should be, at the very least, some sort of minimum threshold security model before selling software that accesses the net. It should be built in and functional. What they have had traditionally was profits first, and down the list at job 73 or something was "oh ya, have joe check on the security thing after his break, will ya?" That's nuts. I am especially incensed that any of my tax dollars have gone to support them, especially the last few years when it was obvious even to non computer users that their stuff was seriously borked when it came to security.

    *Mr. Subliminal says "dueling". It worked for thousands of years.

  42. Too Late by imlepid · · Score: 1

    At my campus streaking is a common, and welcome in the event called "First Rain". The first rainy day of the acedemic year, people go streaking through campus. It's great fun to both watch (for its curiosity) and participate in.

  43. What about me? by Bozdune · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My little company tries to make money selling software, but I'll tell you what, I sure can't afford to shoulder liability for our mistakes. If you make me liable, I'm out of business. You use my software at your own risk, and if for some reason it becomes impossible for me to say that to you, I'm through.

    The other thing that makes me laugh is "indemnification." I'm running around "indemnifying" multi-billion dollar corporations against lawsuits from people who might claim that our code violates their patents or their intellectual property. If I refuse to sign the indemnification clause, I don't get their business, it's as simple as that.

    Obviously, one nuisance lawsuit from some asshole somewhere means that I'm finished. Probably they'll come after my personal property, too, and I'll die penniless in some gutter. What can I do? I'm screwed.

    It's time to reform the whole goddamn tort system, because I can tell you, it's really no fun at all out here, trying to sell software, when who knows what jackass is going to emerge from some closet somewhere and claim to have patented the "if" statement.

    Welcome to the insanity. Move your money to the Cook Islands while you still can. Me, I don't have enough to bother at this point.

  44. Pause by fw3 · · Score: 1
    who's to say offhand that Triple-DES or AES are better than Blowfish or plain DES?
    Jeff Schiller obviously, as an author of kerberos I would expect him to be reasonably knowlegable on this.

    Anyone even reasonable familiar with the details can say that 3DES is more secure than DES. DES's keyspace is too small and has been so for several years.

    That said, the algorithm behind DES and hence 3DES has withstood 3 decades of scrutiny. It is optimally strong against differential cryptanalysis because the IBM designers figured out that attack (which was already known by NSA). The linear attack is theortically, but not practically better.

    Like them or not, NSA and their british counterparts are pretty good at what they do (e.g. they came up with RSA's asymmetric cypher a decade before RSA did).

    Is Blowfish 'better'? I have no idea. What I do know is that more *competent* eyes have reviewed (3)DES and AES than Blowfish.

    --
    Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
    bsds are of course just BSD
  45. My experience on MIT ResNet... by karlm · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I was one of two network contacts for my fraternity. Basically, I volunteered for some minor network administration in the house so that we all got a free T1.

    In general, the MIT "firewalls are false security" mantra is a good thing, particularly at MIT where there is a high concentration of bright and inquisitive people. You can never count on the black- and grey-hats being on the other side of your fire wall. You have to assume that the networks on both sides of your firewall are hostile. Each host must be a castle unto itself. This is simply a much more robust security model than "keep the bad guys over there".

    On the other hand, shortly before MS started covering IIS on WindowsUpdate, the house had a rash of IIS exploits and RPC exploits. I asked for advice about setting up an OpenBSD firewall to only allow outgoing connections from most machines (and knocking holes in the firewall for MIT Network Security's vulnerability scanners). The response I got was basically "If you have to ask, we won't help you. Just patch everything and it will be fine." They didn't seem to realize that a sophmore can't just run around the house pestering everyone to keep their machines up to date. Basically, my powers were limited to waiting for problems and then finding the offender and saying "MIT is threatening to cut the entire house off from the Internet in two hours unless you do what I say now!". Sure, I send out reminders and heads up emails, but when they didn't listen and got compromised I would invariably be the one to do their OS reinstall because if I didn't, half of them would just put the compromised machine back online without fixing anything.

    This last year, MIT actually stepped out of the ivory tower and did some port-based filtering (firewalling) when tons of students came back from Summer to take their computers out of storage. Many of the students would get compromised while updating, even if they patched as soon as connecting the machine to the Internet.

    I think they also permanently firewall off their MS Windows-Athena computer cluster. (side note: the internal code name for the project to modify Windows to work with the rest of the Athena network was Pismere -- Latin for horse piss)

    I also pestered MIT for about a month after RedHat released the ptrace bug kernel fix and they hadn't pushed the fix out to the official RedHat-Athena packages. Their position was that local root exploits weren't a problem since MIT gives the root password to most of the machines to students who ask. I pointed out that many departments and individual students set up machines so that absolutely anyone with an Athena account could SSH in as a normal user. There had been no warning emailed out that RedHat-Athena machines were still vulnerable to the ptrace local root exploit. Most of these machines owners assumed that the problem had been taken care of by RedHat-Athena's daily automatic updates. It was by sheer luck that I looked at the file modification date on my friend's kernel and realized the modification date was long before the ptrace vulnerability had been discovered. After all, I had already checked that it was up to date on all of the patches MIT put out for RedHat-Athena.

    In short, MIT netowrk security policy is a strange patchwork of opinions.

    --
    Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.