Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mstar!mstar.morningstar.com!bob From: bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) Newsgroups: alt.hackers Subject: Re: Computer Abuse / Product Liability / Criminal Statutes / ECPA Message-ID: Date: 17 Jan 90 18:27:05 GMT References: <22359@usc.edu> <4948@sugar.hackercorp.com> Sender: news@MorningStar.COM (USENET Administrator) Reply-To: bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) Organization: Morning Star Technologies Lines: 34 Approved: why? In-reply-to: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com's message of 17 Jan 90 13:35:37 GMT In article <4948@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: The Internet is deliberately a moderately low-security environment, I'd go even further: The Internet is deliberately a no-security environment. It's a wire. It provides connectivity, not policy. Responsibility and authority over individual machines is reserved by the owners of those machines, as well it should. Of course, there are policies about what sort of traffic is appropriate to cause to flow over the network, and there are de-facto operations policies (don't flood the wire!), but individual machines are the responsibilities of their owners. I'm not particularly upset with RTM, Nobody should be upset with anybody - because nobody knows who's guilty! ...I think that if he or she! gets off lightly it'll open the floodgates for more disruption: either through pranks or ill-advised security measures that reduce the usability of the Internet. Agreed. The worst possible consequence of the Internet Worm would be if a bunch of congressmen's wives (or similar unknowledgeable busybodies) decided to respond to sensationalist press reports by imposing additional layers of policy on the network itself. The single most important attribute of the Internet is universal availability and connectivity between all the machines that are connected to it. When that is compromised, there might as well not be a network. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."