Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 13:47:05 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>, <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Crash, thud
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 1/4/2006 12:15 PM, Michael Walsh wrote:
> > omni at omniphile.com 1/3/2006 8:53:56 PM >>>
> >At 1/3/2006 07:42 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> >
> >>I have often expressed dismay that the industry has adopted what I
> >>believe to be a profoundly broken model of how the net should be
>used.
> >
> >The net was never intended to be used the way it is being used.
>
>Life is like that....
>
>The first US web page was put by SLAC in Dec 1991.  Amazon came online
>mid 1995.

We aren't just talking about the web...we are talking about the
Internet.  HTTP and associated things ("the web") are just one part of what
goes over the Internet.  The problems I was referring to are at a lower
level than application protocols like HTTP.  I'm talking about TCP/IP and
other things at the transport level.  There's stuff in there to prevent
infinite loops, handle alternate routing of packets, etc., but little or
nothing to deal with denial of service attacks (such as "syn floods"), or
spoofing attacks, etc..  Some higher level protocols attempt to deal with
some problem areas (like kerberos's systems to prevent replay attacks by a
man in the middle), but there's nothing in the infrastructure of the 'net
to help with this, and this sort of thing doesn't take care of basic
vulnerabilities (if there was, we'd have no spam...).

>Darn... people.

Yep.  Always hammering with a screwdriver because that's what they happen
to have in their hand, or buying crap because they don't know any
better...not even enough to know who to listen to for advice.  Windows
would have had little or no penetration into corporate America if the MBAs
had listened to the BSCS folks rather than the liberal arts majors who
copied the MS press releases into articles in BOTASMs (Back Of The Airplane
Seat Magazines), and if the makers of better OSs had been willing to
consider a different business model (volume and low cost per copy rather
than low volume and high cost with restrictive licensing).

Open Source is our only hope now...

-- Mike B.