Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!spaf
From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Getting Complacent
Message-ID: <5366@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 10 Nov 88 02:33:19 GMT
References: <44439@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <16742@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Reply-To: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 28

In article <16742@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
>In article <44439@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>, rick@seismo (Rick Adams) writes:
>>Does that make it less of a crime?
>
>Who cares?  Why is it SO IMPORTANT to have the MORAL HIGH GROUND?  So
>that you can feel justified about being smug and complacent re security?

1) Rick (and I and others) are hardly smug and complacent about
security.  We're working on it, and have been working on it, for
quite some time, although that is not our primary job.  Just
because we don't tell you and the Usenet about it doesn't mean
we aren't acting on it.  In fact, considering your behavioral
aspects, not telling you about anything is an important part
of a good security program.

2) Some of us are concerned about ethical issues in addition to
technical issues.  Too many people are not concerned with ethics,
professionalism, liability, et. al.  and we see technology as not
providing all the answers to important questions. That you are
unconcerned with ethics does not seem surprising to many of us.

3) Please, please insult Indiana some more -- it makes you appear so
terribly clever and humorous.  You're so cute when you're rabid.
-- 
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida  Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet:  spaf@cs.purdue.edu	uucp:	...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf