On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Norman R. Bottom wrote:
> The use of terms such as Firewalls (read Firebase); Intrusion Detection; and , DMZ
"Firewall" is a construction term, not a military term (the .nsa.gov/.mil
term was traditionally 'Network Guard'.)
A military mind who didn't have the pre-history of intrusion attacks would
have labled Intrusion Detection counter<somethingorother>. DMZ is really
not accurate, free-fire zone would have been more fitting. Never-the-less
the terms are common usage in firewalling, and common terminology helps
significantly when discussing anything.
> is OK. However, some on the list cannot seem to grasp that military terms are
> used with reference to an enemy, and a threatened assault.
"So, I deployed my P-38 rapidly, assulting the B-2 unit's rear echelon.
Piercing the hardened perimiter with precise yet frenzied attacks.
Having conquored the exernal defenses, I eagerly consumed the enemy.
Nothing like a good fast victory over a can of pound cake to pump life
into a day in the field."[1]
IOW, terminology is generally used to describe something, making a martial
situation out of anything that uses common military terminology, or even
uncommon military terminology seems well, silly.
> If you cannot distinguish between a friend and an enemy, you are dog meat.
No, you're either in a guerilla campaign or a terrorist action, a complex
war, or what we tend to lable as "peace time." People have survived and
triumphed in all of those before. It's a better analogy than us v.s. them
anyway, since it more accurately reflects the chaos that is Internet
Security.
> Either give up military terminology or name your enemy. He/she is a hacker,
> cracker, or phreak.
In a firewall context, it's not "military terminology", it's "firewall
terminology." There are plenty who would take issue with your term of
"hacker", so putting lables on it really doesn't bring much value,
especially if it polarizes your view of things to "targeted by name" and
"always the intenet to kill you." Neither of those is absolute, and
reacting as if they are when it's not warranted will get you labled a bozo
in a lot of situations, isn't efficient and tends to create the "cry wolf"
scenerio.
Remember scorched earth defenses tend to leave unoccupyable territory.
Physical building firewalls slow down a fire to give you a chance to act
or react. They do the same thing no matter if it was an arsonist, a
dropped cigarette or faulty wiring. In Internet firewalling, I've seen
the equivalent of all of those take down sites, a poorly-written Web
browser isn't an "enemy", a misconfigured DNS entry that's obviously
transposed numbers isn't "evil" and firewalling helps protect against
them no matter if it's maliciousness, curiousity or incompetence.
Paul
[0] This footnote intentionally left blank.
[1] For those who didn't have the utter joy of life with Uncle Sam back
when food didn't come freeze dried in plastic pouches- A P38 is a tiny
mostly-functional can opener, a B-2 unit is just one of the boxed sets of
rations you got in the field. No, I don't really remember if pound cake
was a B-2 dessert, we traded a lot. Critiques/comments/questions are best
offline.
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Paul D. Robertson "My statements in this message are personal opinions
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PSB#9280
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