Network and security experts (was Re: Dumb users spread viruses)

Wayne E. Bouchard web at typo.org
Mon Feb 9 18:12:58 UTC 2004


On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 12:41:26PM -0500, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, John Payne wrote:
> > --On Sunday, February 8, 2004 10:46 PM +0000 Paul Vixie <vixie at vix.com>
> > wrote:
> > > There is nothing wrong with a user who thinks they should not have to know
> > > how to protect their computer from virus infections.
> > However, someone attending NANOG should at least have cleaned up slammer
> > before connecting to the wireless...
> 
> I have never seen any evidence that security experts or network operators
> are any better at practicing security than any other user group.  In every
> forum I've been at, the infection rates have been similar regardless of
> the attendees security experience.

This is dramatically demonstrated by the number of NANOG attendees
that do not utilize encrypted paths to communicate back to their
offices and who do not maintain at least passable password standards
for their own accounts. It always astonishes me to see passwords such
as "asdfg", "microsoft", and "password" come up on that list.

---
Wayne Bouchard
web at typo.org
Network Dude
http://www.typo.org/~web/



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