Anyone can connect to Internet today and pollute the Internet
It is sometimes good to compare with cars. Before you can bring a car to the market, one needs to go through severe quality tests. Once somebody bought the car, each two years there will be a checkup of the car to see whether it is still capable to drive our roads.
On the Internet anyone can connect. Compare it will a polluting car that distributes huge black dust clouds each time the gas pedal is pressed. Police enforcement would remove such a car from the highway.
On the Internet a badly managed or even bad developed PC can connect and be used as a gateway to infect or disturb other people on the Internet. Something has to be done.
A secure stack? Sure but that still leaves us with the huge ____ that will be used during the next ten years on the Internet? No one knows what the attack vectors will be by then and maybe the great protected systems of today will be turned into ____ also, leading to a status quo.
Why don't we educate people by giving them a license to run the Internet for the next six (,two, one?) months. When the license expires they need to go to the PC maintenance desk. This could be done automatically by the ISPs. They will check out the systems, assure they are well managed and secured before they get another license.
Something to think about
Regards
Todas las respuestas
- Hi,
this is actually an interesting question which sometimes is even discussed within regulatory bodies. At the end - if you think it through - it is coming down to a discussion about what is more important: Security or Freedom of Speech. Is it ethical to block somebody from being able to express himself or herself on the Internet just because they are not "trusted" and who decides this?
Roger - This approach is very much like the idea, that only representatives of "accepted" political parties can have a say in politics (cf. Iranian elections, for example, where the Supreme Council vets all candidates).
If a person chooses to have an unpatched desktop PC, it is their headache most of the time (the sysadmins have ways to defend against the DDOS attacks run by the botnets). ISPs should be more tightly controlled, and given some responsibility to block certain kinds of traffic (say, 10,000 emails going out of a home desktop hijacked by a spammer).
Microsoft's approach to trust seems very much like a way to make sure that everyone, who wants to access the 'net, should have to pay a royalty to someone, who created a common-sense approach to security (and they figure they will get the patent first, or at least use their dominant market share to drive other solutions out). And, their own main goal is to maintain their ability to control the DRM capabilities of their software (and lend a hand to RIAA and MPAA at the same time).
Network security should absolutely be assured by non-profit entities, whose transactions should all be over the counter. Business entities should only be allowed to suggest standards that are open for anyone to implement. The current certification process of CA's is absurdly expensive, and we still have had Verisign issue certificates, that were based on an algorithm, that had been proven faulty.
Furthermore, Microsoft has been trying to scare people away from Open Source by saying, that if the bad guys can read the code, they can use its vulnerabilities. They omit the fact, that executable, obfuscated code can be reverse-engineered as well. And, Microsoft supports the Open Source Apache http server, which is the most popular and most reliable server there is currently. Even they run Apache servers for some critical services. Open Source means, that anyone can audit the code, which means that if a vulnerability is found, a patch is usually available within hours.
- Nothing, absolutely nothing will protect us from user stupidity. I can have a nice safe car, a driving license and still kill a pedestrian because my cell phone was ringing. What we need is an infrastructure where the problem of bad user behavior can be contained. Basically this means that all sane users protect their own stuff. I use a secure OS, a secure browser and common sense, and the result is that bad behavior of others does not affect me. Also, my computer is unlikely to become part of a botnet and cause more problems for others. Nevertheless, user education is always good. The more sane users there are and the less bad users, the better for everyone. But I don't see, and I don't want to see, how this can be centrally regulated/enforced.
- It's true that perhaps the Internet evolved as a completely free and mostly unregulated resource from the ARPANET foundations of the early 1990s. However, free-and-unregulated is a good thing. Greater government controls could limit our privacy and freedoms in using this resource. Pus they might find something to tax ;-)
With that said, there are resources that look for abuse or illegal activities. It's still somewhat like the wild west as folks can indeed create malicious attacks or spam. However, those folks are taking a risk if they reside in countries that have laws discouraging these practices (e.g., USA)
Better yet, using the car analogy:
1. Protect yourself with the best technological defenses -- Don't get into a car that doesn't meet safety requirements
2. Educate yourself in security concepts -- Learn the basics of how to drive before getting behind the wheel
3. Keep up with security patches -- Perform those 3,000 or 5,000 mile oil changes on "Patch Tuesday"
4. Keep up with security developments -- Read the highway warning signs, lookout for construction zones, and mapquest your trip so that you know what's ahead
Harry Waldron, Microsoft MVP - Enterprise Security Jleroux,
maybe you havent been around long enough... but ISPs were amoung the biggest offenders. There is a tried and true business model, dont think it is in Sun Tzu, but it goes, "Create the need, then fullfill it." I only mention this because you are sounding dangerously like a fightened sheep being herded by the wolves. Are you mad? What is an ISP? A business. What is a business's primary responsibility? To make a profit. If you are going to "license" people, why not just hang the whole public thing and turn it over to the Government. Dont get me wrong... I like to dance... just not while there's a noose around my neck and I am standing on a 3 legged stool.Pappkartoosh
Just another speck in a fibernachi sequence of stars about to be reordered by Andromeda
