full-disclosure - CyberInsecurity: The cost of Monopoly

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From: frank at knobbe.us (Frank Knobbe)
Subject: CyberInsecurity: The cost of Monopoly

On Sun, 2003-09-28 at 15:38, Michal Zalewski wrote:
> So it's probably pointless to call for a revolution in this regard. My
> interpretation of what Paul said was that he referred to the problem of
> "blob networks" that cannot be held accountable and are often very
> difficult to control.

Nah, I'm not calling for a revolution. 

> That does not seem to have much to do with what you mentioned, control of
> the data. You still control the machine remaining blind to the information
> it handles. Besides, once again, it's all available. Some systems (most
> recent Linux, or, to a degree, even Windows) have extensive access control
> mechanisms that go beyond archaic root-and-user separation.

Sure, they do. But they appear to be underutilized. My point was that a
lot of admins appear to be focusing on the network/service layer. There
are controls available today as you say such as ACL's, but in my opinion
they are underutilized. I believe that the finer the control gets (i.e.
having to touch every file as supposed to just the server), the more
work effort it creates, and that's the reason it just doesn't get
implemented. The finer the control, the better the security. But also,
the finer the control, the greater the work effort/load. The greater the
workload, the less gets implemented. The less gets implemented, the less
secure the system is.

Increasing security efforts should not mean just piling up more controls
on the same level. It should mean zooming in and putting more controls
on a smaller level. I think we have been playing too much with "blanket
controls" and need to rediscover the security micro-cosmos. We've gotten
used to protect a lot of data with one control. We need to get back to
putting controls on each datum.

Sorry, I just don't know how else to express my sentiment. Instead of
arguing this point back'n'forth, let's just return to the topic at hand:
Monoculture != Security. I fully agree with it. :)

Cheers,
Frank

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