Don, Firstly, I do not need to avoid arguments that refer to the Internet as something that was never meant to be a consumer service. I do not need to avoid such arguments for the simple reason that I am not making an argument. With anyone...
Secondly, I never said to tell users the Internet was never meant to be a consumer service. I was explaining to a peer, a fellow networking professional, that the forged from issue was not a failure in the original design, not a 'loophole', but rather it was an intentional design parameter back when address security was not required. Thirdly, when making your very valid point that the email address from forgery problem is identical to the ability to forge the from address in a snail mail, you ask me if snail mail was also designed in academia. The Internet did not come out of academia, it came out of ARPAnet. A government run design. The same government (okay, so not the same branch) that designed the USPS snail mail. Guess my tounge-in-cheek case is both services came out of the government, both have similiar flaws in sender authentication. -Alan :-) >> please try and remember the environment >> that the Internet came out of. From inception >> it was NEVER meant to be a consumer service. > >Alan, I realize the point you are trying to make but I think we all need to >try to avoid arguments that refer to the Internet as something special that >was not meant to be a consumer service. > >I ask users (with regards to virii), If you opened your front door tomorrow >and there was a chocolate cake sitting there with a typed note saying, "From >Mom, with love." would you gobble it down or would you say, "why would mom >leave a cake on my porch?" > >Users need to learn that computers aren't magic. Just because you saw it on >your computer screen doesn't make it true. They wouldn't think, "The note >says the cake is from Mom so it must be from mom" But they do think, "The >e-mail says it's from Mom so it must be from mom because computers know >everything." > >If I'm supposed to remember the environment that the internet came out of >and that is was never meant to be a consumer service then what's your >explanation for snail mail where I can write anything I darn well please in >the top left corner of an envelope or even leave it blank if I choose? Was >snail mail also designed in academia and never meant to be a consumer >service? > >As the anthrax and ricin incidents in the US have shown, I can put anything >I want in an envelope, write anything I want in the "From" field (top left >corner) and mail it to anyone and be largely untraceable. > >To continue to say, "Well the internet was never meant to be a consumer >service" is a disservice to users. We need to teach them that computers and >e-mail are no more nor no less secure, safe or traceable than good ol' snail >mail was. Through their lives people have learned how to spot junk snail >mail (i.e. brown "government looking" envelopes that tend to appear in US >mailboxes around tax time that are really just magazine sweepstakes ads) >They need to build those same skills with e-mail and not expect the magic >computer to somehow protect them from dangers and falsehoods that have >always existed in all forms of communication. > >Don > >This is the discussion list for the IMS Free email server software. > To unsubscribe send mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Delivered by Rockliffe MailSite > http://www.rockliffe.com/mailsite > Rock Solid Software (tm) This is the discussion list for the IMS Free email server software. To unsubscribe send mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered by Rockliffe MailSite http://www.rockliffe.com/mailsite Rock Solid Software (tm)
