Katrina Network Damage Report

Mon Sep 12 10:47:00 UTC 2005

On 12-sep-2005, at 2:47, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:

>> In other words: 0wning random appliances isn't all that interesting.

> Amazingly enough, the *single* biggest problem in trying to get Joe
> Sixpack to secure their systems is "But I don't have anything  
> they'd be
> interested in..."

Security isn't an end in itself. For instance, I don't care enough  
about people using up my paper and ink to secure my print server  
against remote printing. However, I do care about my passwords,  
documents and so on.

>> In fact, I would much rather allow access to pretty much anything
>> else rather than a powerful general-purpose computer.

> On the other hand, if it's got enough smarts to do an IPv6 stack  
> and have
> enough left over to have something interesting to say, it's probably
> "powerful enough" for miscreants to think of creative and interesting
> uses for it, even if it *is* just a toaster....

I think I didn't make my point clear. On a general purpose computer,  
you can install new software to make it do whatever you want. Not so  
for most appliances. (Although if they have way to upgrade their  
flash or whatever that would be a way in.)