OSEC

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NFR Wizards Archive: RE: .gov/.mil threat ID

RE: .gov/.mil threat ID

Paul D. Robertson (probertsclark.net)
Thu, 28 Jan 1999 08:40:13 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Crumrine, Gary L wrote:

> Sounds like the gentleman should be more interested in tightening up his
> systems than complaining on how DOD reacted to someone knocking on their
> door.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have difficulty deciding how to react to
door-knocking. Well, besides whoever that was who used to automatically
e-mail zone contacts for any connect attempt, and I think they had problems
with the results of their decision.

As for his own system, how he runs it is completely up to him and his network
provider. However, I think he's been over his system since his post, and
it's still possible that his address was used as a smokescreen, or that his
network provider is at least partially compromised. My guess would
be that housing your machine on a .edu network probably isn't the most
comfort-giving experience in the world.

With that in mind, and trying to drag things back to topicality a bit,
has anyone played any with some sort of host-based authentication scheme
combined with packet filtering? Something like "Auth to this Web page,
and your IP address is unblocked until we don't see packets for X minutes
or for a maximum of Y hours." ipfw or ipfilter solutions prefered.

> No matter what they do, they will get criticized for it.

I don't see anything inherently bad with criticism, I just prefer it to
be informed, thought-out criticism.

> Before someone goes flaming the practices of different people and agencies,
> I suggest they step outside of the academic realm and walk in the DOD's
> shoes for a while. Maybe then they'd understand a little more. It is not a
> game.

That's a two-way street. There are a lot of people in government who
could probably gain some insight into the problems of administering a
network where the bulk of your users are transient youngsters without
constant supervision, can't be easily disciplined, and could know more than
you, and problably about 1/3 of that population changes each year.

Now if ya wanna talk about those darned State people... ;)

Paul
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Paul D. Robertson "My statements in this message are personal opinions
probertsclark.net which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
                                                                     PSB#9280

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