Is complete home security possible?

Gak!!! What are you trying to do, kill yourself? That stuff should be banned as a Hazmat.

Old guy

I believe it was pointed that it is not that easy.

On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 13:18:38 -0600, Moe Trin wrote: "There were a lot of home users who didn't know they had any servers installed - but did, and had them in default (read 'wide open') unprotected mode."

After.....

Should your mother-in-law have learned before she used the computer? And, as you said, most of the information is available if you are already using a computer.

Geo

Yes, as a matter of fact, she should have done like I told her in the first place and NOT let her son set it up for her. During the two weeks I was away the computer arrived and was setup by another of the ignorant masses and it was compromised.

If they had followed my advice it would have been secured before it went online.

Now, here's the perfect part of this - they were both aware of the risks to as much extent as anyone, but wanted the convenience above the wait. This is the same thing that happens to the masses of computer users/buyers that don't take the time to learn anything BEFORE the turn it on.

Just found this link:

"Elias Levy (Symantec) noted a cute illustration of the weakest link in a would-be security system: "

Geo

Perhaps so - but relying on ISPs to yank crap spewing connections because it's in their best interest to do so doesn't appear to be having the desired effect either.

That's not at all nice, you should have provided a medical warning with that. It's all I can do right now to breath and that made me laugh so hard I about passed out :)

I am glad you enjoyed it. It was mentioned on the Risks Digest

Back to the earlier point you made. I think that, yes, there is an element of carelessnes on the users. But, as in the explanation provided by Triffid, I consider that the companies have been trying so hard to promote their products that their propaganda overwhelms any warnings. Like the little warnings that used to be on cigarette packaging. It reminds me a comment made after a bear attacked some campers on the Lake Louise township campground (Banff National Park);

-it was made by someone very familiar with bears, and he said that the park was so keen on bringing more tourists that the warnings about 'you are in bear country' were meaningless, and the park was lucky it was not being sued.

It's harder to be the support of relatives and close friends.

Geo

What effect is that? Home systems that become infected and try to spread the infection only harm other unprotected systems.

You almost got me with that one. I almost said I agree, then I remembered that when I go camping I always check to see what equipment I'm going to need in case the weather changes, in case I have an accident and the Cell phone doesn't work, in case of some strange change to the land area, etc... I also consider the animals of the area. If I were going camping in an area that had bears, even if they were just suspected of roaming that area, I would take precautions or just not camp there.

It's kind of like hiking in mountain lion country - yea, it's pretty country, very nice views, great walks, oops - danger will Robinson, possible lion around... You can't blame the lion, or the park - anyone going into those areas assumes the risk on their OWN as they know that the liberals don't want us toting our hunting rifles as we hike through wilderness areas, heck, even with our rifles we might still be surprised, but it would still be OUR OWN fault, not the parks.

That thought of yours reminds me about how much owning a pool was (I use to own a LARGE POOL before I took it out). It was not that I (or my family) was threatened by the danger of water/drowning, it was the threat of some kid/neighbor climbing over the 6' high cedar fence, getting into the pool without my permission, downing, and then his parents suing me - in California they call it "An Attractive Nuisance" and it's the owners fault even if there are warning signs and a fence. They don't consider blaming the swimmer for breaking and entry, trespassing, damages, or the parents for neglect.....

It's hard to support anyone not willing to learn, friends or family make no difference in that.

Oh, you mean like the automotive commercials you see on television (at least in .us) that open with a caption across the bottom of the picture saying something to the effect of "professional driver on a closed course" and maybe 'dramatization - do not try this' - while you see video of the manufacturer's product doing positively insane tricks that would void the warranty, and get your insurance instantly canceled at the very least...

You mean something like that?

Computer manufacturers (software _and_ hardware) want to make it appear that using their product is easy - this goes back to the IBM ads when they introduced the IBM PC in 1981 - where they had a Chaplin-esque character prancing around a PC, pressing ONE key (most likely 'Enter') and the system then displayed a meaningless multi-colored pie-chart which was obviously meant to solve the worlds problems. The application was 'basic' and the program being run was most probably piechart.bas, and the basic program had this wonderful 'user-friendly' feature that if you did not assign a value to a variable, it automagically assumed the value of zero (fixed or floating as needed) or a null string. So if you entered

A=3 B=4 PRINT S+B

notice the typo? - microsoft basic didn't care. It avoided the shame of being yelled at by the computer "Hey stupid - variable S is undefined" and quickly printed the answer you didn't expect. Now, if you know anything about programming, microsoft had gone out of his way adding code to auto-assign undefined variables - because in virtually all programming languages using an undefined variable would cause a computer to barf. So do you blame the user for making the typo, or microsoft for masking the error? Oh, and I know that microsoft basic would barf on the above snippet, because it's missing the line numbers.

Old guy

Well, yes. Some people are better at planning and organizing than others. It's also important to have access to the relevant information. If the information available said that bears avoid large groups of people, you would have -incorrectly- assumed you were safe. In the years I have been here I have heard a number of corrections regarding black bear behaviour (hibernation, large groups, horses). Remember the promotion of bells as a good way to keep bears away?

Exactly, this IMHO is a big part of the problem. There is a culture that promotes that kind of attitude. It's what leads people to assume that popular tourist places 'must' be safe, and assume that their elected officials would never lie to them.

I guess that you are a much more patient person than I am.

Geo

Here in Canada the warnings were fairly small until a few years ago. ('a few'= time is relative)

Yes, an excellent example.

Perfect!! I am glad somone has a good memory around here. I just remembered how they were advertised for the housewives -they would be able to keep and organize their recipes, plan a whole month of menus!! -One could create databases of wine or record collections. -Balance the accounts, automate bill payments. I remember that there used to be a good number of organizers to choose from: Lotus Organizer, On-time, etc.

Not really, but I do remember people that were studying programming expressing their displeasure at the way people wrote programs in Basic (too many GOTOs). It bothered them that they would call themselves programmers when they only knew Basic. It also bothered them that because it was so well promoted, people that only knew Basic had an easier time finding jobs. (Devry, a Calgary school, which I believe that only taught Basic in their programming course, did a lot of self-promotion)

Thanks for the memories. Geo

My wife graduated from Devry before it was called Devry, she got a degree in CS - they learned very little basic, mostly COBOL and RPG in those days.

Taking a moment's reflection, Triffid mused: | | You missed the point. The Average Home User is neither incapable nor | ignorant, they merely don't want to know - because the PC is supposed to | just work, safely, like the fridge and microwave.

I think that's the very definition of ignorant ... which the AHU is.

I agree, they are ignorant until they become aware of the issues/threat, and then, if they take no action, they are just stupid.

There is one problem with all of this - the assumption that people didn't hear anything about all of the threats over the last 20 years, missed all the news reports of it, didn't hear anything from their friends that have computers about them being compromised.....

I'll be dating myself here, but I heard those comments in an 'Introduction to Programming' course in '82. The course used Pascal -I believe it was the first version of it. Many businesses at the time would have to write their own programs.

Geo

LOL - I was programming in the mid 70's on a couple systems, but it was mostly machine language (pre-assembler days). We had a number of languages available in the early 80's for business systems, I still remember using a PDP system and a variant of COBOL and then alter there was BASIC. I considered C to be a great language, still do.

The last I checked, the warnings were still about half the size of the side of the pack, both on the individual package, and the carton. When they were still allowing tobacco advertising, the warnings also had to be that large in printed ads, and proportionate in signs.

I'm in the Southwestern US - we get a lot of ads for off-road use of pickup trucks, and you normally see these trucks airborne cresting a hill (both Dodge and Ford are showing this with trucks pulling a trailer of some kind, like you are going to tow your 25 foot long bass boat on a trailer at 80 MPH down some hilly dirt road). Of course, they never show the trucks landing, just whizzing by the camera tucked low off the side of the trail.

One of the first unofficial use I made of a PC was to put my book catalog on it - except that the file size was limited to 32kb, or about 400 lines of text, and 5 files filled that floppy.

Made me look. I still have a textbook on Basic ('Basic Basic' by James S. Coan, Hayden books, 1970), and that would have been about the time I was learning it on an HP9830 Programmable Desktop Calculator.

DeVry was down here in the states as well. I have hazy memories of them having facilities in Chicago, St. Louis, and Tampa. They used to advertise quite a lot in "mens" or "adventure" magazines, and in matchbooks. I more remember their courses aimed at becoming a TV/Radio service person than the programming.

Geez - I'm now starting to remember 8008 assembly language commands. Time to go wash the brain with carbolic acid.

Old guy

Mommy! Leythos said some bad words! Wash his mouth out with soap!

(What, no FORTRAN or Pascal???)

Old guy