Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!eagle.ukc.ac.uk!icdoc!tgould!awm From: awm@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk (Aled Morris) Newsgroups: news.sysadmin Subject: UK press reports of Internet worm Message-ID: Date: 17 Nov 88 19:11:55 GMT Sender: news@doc.ic.ac.uk Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London Lines: 35 I thought you might all like to read part of a letter which appeared in "Computer Weekly" (an English freebie paper) this week. It appeared under the banner "VIRUS ATTACK WAS AVOIDABLE" (!) "The recent virus attack on the US defence computer network demonstrates three major points First, the larger the network of interconnected computers, the more vulnerable it is. Secondly, breaking is nearly always via authentic impersonation. Sophisticated line taps are unnecessary. Finally, passwords are a complete waste of time. [Now the good bit] "This highly dangerous incident that has attracted so much press attention recently was totally avoidable. If signature-based, biometric authentication techniques had been used instead of passwords, there is no way the virus could have multiplied in the way that it did. [and so on] "Alan Leibert, Alan Leibert Associates, Pinner, Middlesex. Well, it made me laugh anyway. I wonder if the "Alan Leibert Associates" are on the net? I wonder what field of computing Mr. Leibert is involved in? Would _you_ buy a "biometric authentication" system from this man? Aled Morris systems programmer mail: awm@doc.ic.ac.uk | Department of Computing uucp: ..!ukc!icdoc!awm | Imperial College talk: 01-589-5111x5085 | 180 Queens Gate, London SW7 2BZ