Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!cmcl2!rocky8!cucard!ccnysci!dan
From: dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: The worm's real purpose
Message-ID: <985@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 88 23:39:39 GMT
References: <16496@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <2210004@acf3.NYU.EDU> <436@n3dmc.UU.NET>
Reply-To: dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 37


The discussion in this thread as well as much of the other discussion
related to the worm brings to mind a number of articles that have
appeared in Computers & Society, the publication of the ACM Special
Interest Group on Computers and Society.  A paragraph from the Fall
1984 issues has remained in my memory.  It is from the testimony of
Susan Nycum before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on
Governmental Affairs in October of 1983. [Computers & Society
14(1984)2]

Permit me to quote it here for your edification.

	"Security, whether technical processes, operations procedures
	or personnel practices, is an overhead factor that usually
	slows down throughput and efficiency.  It is not therefore
	urged by vendors as a sales promotion technique or necessarily
	proposed by a user organization's first line managers to
	higher management.  Where effective computer security is in
	place, it is usually insisted on by top management and made
	part of the review of performance of those persons responsible
	for its implementation.  One positive result of the media
	coverage of computer crime has been to alert senior management
	to the substantial risks to a business organization if it
	fails to take reasonable precautions to protect itself from
	computer abuse."

As a part of the "first line management"  I think we are all aware of
the havoc that higher management can wreak on computer communications
if they panic over the recent worm.  Our only real defense is to try
and prove wrong the assertion that we can have good computer security 
only at the insistence of higher management.

-- 
Dan Schlitt                        Manager, Science Division Computer Facility
dan@ccnysci                        City College of New York
dan@ccnysci.bitnet                 New York, NY 10031
                                   (212)690-6868