[comp.protocols.tcp-ip] Security comments, response to <43845@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>

dewey@execu.UUCP (Dewey Henize) (11/29/88)

I have tried several times to mail this to sswat, but it appears it isn't
possible to get mail from here to there.  My apologies in advance to those
that are bored with the subject, please feel free to hit 'n' now.  Following
is the text of a letter I attempted several times to get to him.

-------------------

Allow me to congratulate you, please, on an EXCELLENT article.  You hit a 
great many points, and I felt you handled them particularly well.  Thank
you.

May I please note, as the one who first suggested that Morris (or whoever
the clown releasing the worm was) have the [I believe my words were] shit
beat out of him, that I DO NOT and never did advocate that as a simple and
final solution.  It has been portrayed that way, and a great deal of the
other comments since have seemed to take the dichotomous stands you describe,
yet I feel and believe most other serious people feel that a combination
of solutions are necessary.  I still feel that a message should be sent that
its not ok to trash other peoples property to prove you can.  I also feel
that each site has responsibilities to do the best that they are capable of
doing to limit unauthorized access; and I feel that in that regard the
current world we live in is being let down by many, if not all of the
vendors.  And so on.

I do like the idea of 'licensed' crackers.  This would imply a bit of real
expertise AND accountability.  I've seen a lot posted of late that would
imply all too many people are ready to set themselves up as the judge of
my systems and rampage and destroy just to 'make me aware it can be done'.
Well, I'm aware already, and I would welcome constructive criticisms from
any reasonable sources, as I always have.  Or, heck, I'd be more than 
glad to have free labor do much of the grunt work I do already in my
usual 70+ hour week.  I don't have that luxury, though...  Yet, if I knew
that people who were responsible and mature (regardless of calendar age)
were making a best effort to detect areas that I could be reasonably asked
to handle and would let me know the results in ways that didn't trash
everything, I'd be extremely supportive.

Anyway, I've taken enough of your time.  Thanks for reading this far.  Again,
let me thank you for a really good article with a lot of good information
in it.  I hope it's recieved as well and widespread as it should be.

Dewey Henize
Execucom Systems Corp
512-346-4980

 

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|                   execu!dewey             Dewey Henize                      |
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