Six Dumb Ideas
Sep. 12th, 2005 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I just finished reading The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security. I went to read them with the expectation of them being nonsense, but I was wrong. In this case, I agreed with 99.44% of what the author had to say.
Nope, only 66.67% right.
Date: 2005-09-12 05:38 pm (UTC)The entire value of computers is that they are programmable, and of the net, that it provides communication. To remove programmability and restrict communication is to perform a controlled explosion on the baby along with the bathwater.
Let's get the engineering right and stop curtailing liberties and concentrating control in the hands of power-hungry fools. I don't care if it's done in the name of suppressing terrorism, it's wrong.
Specifically, in this most technical case, firewalling is wrong. It's a technique intended to make unacceptably insecure software seem viable. Instead, engineer the right protocols, and then use them.