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From: cerebus at sackheads.org (Timothy J.Miller)
Subject: (no subject)

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On Friday, August 16, 2002, at 10:24 AM, Matthew Murphy wrote:

>     We must direct our anger towards these losers at these losers.  
> Anything
> else is an attack against our own values.  While they claim to be 
> hackers,
> their method of attack shows them to be nothing more than spoiled 
> children.
> You can either fight them or give up, there's not an inch of middle 
> ground.
> Are you up for it?

In some ways, I understand their ire.  There are, within the "security 
industry" (whatever that means) people who-- intentionally or 
unintentionally-- sell their customers short.  The people create a false 
aura of security wherever they pass, and are unwilling or incapable of 
expanding their capabilities.

Scanning a network doesn't make it secure, but we've all run into people 
who think it does-- including people who should know better.

I've long advocated (and tried to design) systems (not just hardware, 
but software and business practices) that *fail well*.  Systems designed 
not to be unbreakable-- a fool's pursuit, to be sure-- but to contain 
the inevitable breach.  Systems that fail in known modes, so that the 
consequences of an intrusion are known ahead of time, and steps can be 
taken based on that knowledge.  Systems that don't eliminate risk, but 
manage risk.

Unfortunately, most customers aren't interested because systems like 
this are expensive.  They're hard to design, hard to build, hard to 
maintain, and require profound knowledge of the components and the 
activities that use them.  It's a hard sell, especially when those less 
educated self-labeled experts (and vendors) are pushing silver bullets 
in the form of yet another certification, yet another scanner, yet 
another training course.

I could be wrong, but I see the current upwelling of vitriol directed at 
these people.  They are truly living off the labor of others, and 
providing little of use to anyone, including their customers.  But 
they're not everyone.

- -- Cerebus
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