NODE 4a7757f8Re: NYT on Internet Flaws
David Berger <dvberger@eit.COM>Wed, 11 Oct 95 18:51:36 PDT
[stuff deleted]
>People seem to miss that the NFS hack was only an _example_ of a powerful
>way to silently destroy the integrity of an executable. Spoofing the
>insecure FTP session they used to retrieve it works. Sending them a random
>trojan horse works. The point was not that NFS is insecure. It was that
>unless you can authenticate your executables as being trustworthy NOTHING
>ELSE MATTERS.
No I don't think the community missed the point. While both NFS and FTP are
equally weak in the way you point out, I think you should have used FTP as
your main example because if we presume that the file server where the
binary lives is reasonably trustworthy (like the guys at Netscape haven't
inserted a trojan horse into their own binary and placed it up for FTP) then
the way the file will propogate throughout the net is FTP and not NFS.
Nonwithstanding, the NY Times writer took an otherwise reasonable point and
blew it up into a "War of the Worlds" style article. I'd make sure he
writes a decent article before quoting me in it.
David (wondering whose stock fell because of this page one-er)
===========================================================================
David A. Berger
Software Engineer/Internet Product Development
Enterprise Integration Technologies|800 El Camino Real|Menlo Park, CA 94025
dvberger@eit.com http://www.eit.com/~dvberger/ (415) 617-8792
===========================================================================
NODE 254973feRe: NYT on Internet Flaws
sameer <sameer@c2.org>Wed, 11 Oct 95 21:26:50 PDT
> Nonwithstanding, the NY Times writer took an otherwise reasonable point and
> blew it up into a "War of the Worlds" style article. I'd make sure he
> writes a decent article before quoting me in it.
>
Not possible. Reporters don't call you for a quote and then
send you a draft of the article for your approval before they
publish. They call for a quote, write their article, and publish, not
asking for approval.
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NODE 88593002Re: NYT on Internet Flaws
Piete Brooks <Piete.Brooks@cl.cam.ac.uk>Thu, 12 Oct 95 00:12:29 PDT
> Not possible. Reporters don't call you for a quote and then send you a draft
> of the article for your approval before they publish. They call for a quote,
> write their article, and publish, not asking for approval.
Depends how well you train them !
If you can get through to them that it is in their interest to get the facts
right, you may find that they get back to you ...
I try to get them to send the draft as email or fax, but instead I get it read
over the phone to me :-(
NODE af8fb15bRe: NYT on Internet Flaws
Mark <mark@lochard.com.au>Thu, 12 Oct 95 03:41:31 PDT
>> Not possible. Reporters don't call you for a quote and then send you a draft
>> of the article for your approval before they publish. They call for a quote,
>> write their article, and publish, not asking for approval.
>
>Depends how well you train them !
Lets train them. Someone post their email addresses so we can send them all
the RFCs for their education. :) They need to know what the hell they are
talking about.
I wonder if the biology lists get this, some wannabe hero posting how billions
of people are infected with deadly toxins just because some researcher
mentioned a well known fact that an amount of various bacteria and toxins
exist in all living mammals.
Werd.
Mark