Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!decwrl!spar!edsel!kdo
From: kdo@edsel (Ken Olum)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Harmful security measures (was: How to stop future viruses.)
Message-ID: <1613@edsel>
Date: 9 Nov 88 19:58:38 GMT
References: <16722@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: kdo@lucid.com
Organization: Lucid, Inc., Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 32

In article <16722@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> greg@math.Berkeley.EDU (Greg) writes:

>Here is some of what needs to be done: [to protect against future viruses]
>
> . . .
>
>3.  Protect home directories.
>
>4.  Eliminate unnecessary .rhosts files
>

The things that frigtens me most about this whole affair is that
people will institute a lot of harmful and poorly-thought-out security
measures.  Unprotected directories and easy rlogin allow me to get my
work done every day.  Changing this would cause me a big loss of
productivity.  I'd rather spend my time in productive and pleasant
work, even if that means I have to chase viruses and restore my system
from backups now and then.  It's like spending $100K a year on guards
because otherwise you lose $10K a year in stolen equipment.  Easy
access to other machines and files isn't just a convenience that we
can do without -- it's an important part of being able to do anything
useful.

I'm not against security.  Somebody said that it was possible to have
a security system that doesn't interfere with easy access to the
things you need.  If that's true, let's do it, but Unix certainly
isn't like that now!

					Ken Olum

P.S. Can someone tell me the difference between a worm and a virus,
and why it is important to avoid the wrong term?