NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/sys/sgi/18659

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-11 | 3.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!bnr.co.uk!uknet!doc.ic.ac.uk!cc.ic.ac.uk!imperial.ac.uk!vulture
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Sippel - Dau)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: is wide-open tftpd ever needed for install from remote?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Jan 93 11:41:58 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Thomas Sippel - Dau)
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
Lines: 57
Nntp-Posting-Host: cscgc

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mark Bartelt) writes:
.....
- Given the security worries related to a unrestricted-mode tftpd, why
- does the documentation even suggest running it that way in the first
- place?
-
Because people usually end up where they set out to get to. If the task is:

   "Design an installation procedure that it idiot-proof and secure"

you get something that is reasonably so. If the task is:

   "Design an idiot-proof installation procedure by Tuesday"

then you get that, with all security considerations poo-poohed as "not
required in most cases", and it will be sort of ready by the time the
machine ships. Retrofitting security to something created in this
way means re-designing it from scratch, with all the delay and backward
incompatibility that that entails.

Since no-one reads installation manuals unless absolutely necessary, and
stops reading them as soon as "it works", just documenting the security
considerations does not help. Any redesign of installation for security
should also ensure that 'old habits' - i.e. the commands that used to work -
start failing in a spectacular way before security starts to get compromised.

So people will invariably tell you that:

   o  Life is too short to worry about that.
   o  We have machines to make and sell for a living.

The problem with the internet is that it is akin to the road network, i.e.

   o  You have to use the one that's there, you cannot roll your own
   o  You must use it, as life is impossible or intolerable without
   o  You cannot exclude others from it, even if you don't like what they do
   o  It is a dangerous place, with little effective innate security

The internet has additional problems that it transgresses national
legislatures, which themselves have not yet seen the need to impose
regulations. Thus any security is by private sentinels, mostly operating
in a dubious legal framework.

Societies have always adapted very slowly to such a new situation brought
about by technical advance, and many such adaptions have been brought about
by catastrophic events rather than evolution. No, I do not advocate having
another war to get secure internet usage accepted (nor another flame war),
but even without it the cost will be terrifying.

... and there you have it               Thomas

--
*** This is the operative statement, all previous statements are inoperative.
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