Did you see this yet?
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010802.html Was going around one of my local mailing lists. Pretty scary read. Thus spake Craig Dickson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > Robert L. Harris wrote: > > > You'd think within 12 days people would figure out how to download and > > install a service pack. Kinda scary how long this has been going on > > in the first place. > > Indeed. The basic problem, I think (not that this is anything terribly > revelatory), is that the Internet is really not a safe place for people > who don't understand computers well enough to protect themselves, and > Microsoft has never really made security their primary concern. Not that > they're alone in that; a default Red Hat Linux installation runs all > kinds of potentially vulnerable services that the average home user > doesn't understand or need. (Nor is Red Hat the only distro with this > problem. Even Debian, which is more conservative than most in this > regard, includes telnetd, fingerd, and identd among the "standard" > packages. My machines run none of these, but only because I went out of > my way to remove them.) > > My feeling is that the default workstation configuration for any OS > should have _no_ open ports. No web server, no mail server (just an MTA > configured only for outbound use via the command line), no ftpd, no > telnetd, no sshd, no fingerd, no identd, no file or printer sharing, X11 > services configured for local use only, etc., etc., etc. If the user > wants these things, s/he should have to actively select them one by one. > Not that this is any guarantee that the user will know how to manage > them, but it's better than installing everything by default in the inane > goal of giving the user a "feature-packed" system. > > Craig > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] :wq! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert L. Harris | Micros~1 : Senior System Engineer | For when quality, reliability at RnD Consulting | and security just aren't \_ that important! DISCLAIMER: These are MY OPINIONS ALONE. I speak for no-one else. FYI: perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
