Off course you're right. My point, which I obviously made ineptly, is that *everything* must be patched at some point, so the idea that you install a DSL router and just forget about it was what I was trying to get at. There *is* no panacea for security. It's an ongoing, never-ending process of checking and rechecking and rechecking again to make sure that there aren't any known holes in your defenses.
Paul Schmehl ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Adjunct Information Security Officer The University of Texas at Dallas AVIEN Founding Member http://www.utdallas.edu/~pauls/ -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 3:09 PM To: Schmehl, Paul L Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] [OFFTOPIC] Zone Alarm On Thu, 05 Jun 2003 10:17:57 CDT, "Schmehl, Paul L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > I wasn't going to respond to that because it was so patently obvious, > but since you did, I'll append this note - I have flashed my DSL > router three times since I bought it. I've had it for about a year. > (It's not a LinkSys or a NetGear router. It's an SMC Barricade.) > > In case anyone hasn't noticed, you have to patch some systems almost > daily - RedHat, for example, Windows obviously, etc., etc. On the flip side, let's compare apples to apples, shall we? Unless your DSL Router also has Gnome and OpenOffice and 693 other .rpms installed, the RedHat is getting patched more because there's more stuff. How about comparing how often you have to update your DSL router with how often you have to update the corresponding code on a RedHat box (say, the networking parts of the kernel, iptables/iproute, maybe iputils and parts of initscripts)? _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
