Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!uxc!garcon!pequod.cso.uiuc.edu!dorner
From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: time zones
Keywords: time zone setting next bugs features
Message-ID: <1187@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 8 Jun 89 12:23:13 GMT
References: <11408@megaron.arizona.edu> <5139@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1178@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> <51362@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <2333@blake.acs.washington.edu>
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Reply-To: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
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Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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In article <2333@blake.acs.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>     The bottom line remains that anyone can do anything on the
>console, at least until NeXT comes out with a model that lets you lock
>out the NMI interrupt or typein to the boot ROM (e.g. by key).

No disagreement there; I've complained about that before.

>     ...      Anyone you can't trust not to do bad things in
>Preferences (once instructed on what not to do at your installation)
>can't be trusted with physical access to a NeXT console either.

I agree that there is NO protection against malicious damage.  But to
put the time, etc, in such a prominent application, with such tempting
buttons and controls just begs people (even responsible people who would
NEVER do something deliberately wrong to my system) to play with them.  In
fact, the most knowledgeable among them do so with impunity, figuring that
"This can't POSSIBLY set the real system time, that would be ridiculous."

And that little calendar display?  Everybody thinks its some sort of appoint-
ment book, and tries clicking on the buttons.

Educating regular users is one thing.  But you simply can't educate
everyone BEFORE they sit down at a cube.  And, posting a list of "Fifteen
Bad Things You Should Not Do" seems like a dangerous proposition; surely
there is some _small_ validity to "security through obscurity".
-- 
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust:  (217) 244-1765