The magic security CD disc Re: HTTP proxies

Sean Donelan sean at donelan.com
Mon Dec 9 04:16:06 UTC 2002


On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> I forget which of the Rainbow Series of books said it -- the Yellow
> Book, I think -- but one of them noted that the same LAN that was
> insecure in an office might be quite secure in a submerged submarine
> with a highly-cleared crew aboard.

As far as I know, we don't have a big problem with zombie computers on
submarines DOSing the Internet.

It takes a lot of time to talk individual users through fixing their
computers.  Especially when they didn't break it.  They just plugged
the computer in, and didn't spend 4 hours "hardening" it.  Most of the
time we're not talking about very complex server configurations, with
full-time system administrators.  The "magic" CD would be for people who
don't know they are sharing their computers with the Internet.  When
they find out (or someone else reports it), they don't want to share
their computers with everyone the Internet.  They just want it fixed.




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