Inventor of Proxy Firewall Blames Hackers 742
An anonymous reader writes "SecurityFocus published an interview with Marcus Ranum, the inventor of the proxy firewall. It's an interesting reading, and the end is even better:
Truly, the only people who deserve a complete helping of blame are the
hackers. Let's not forget that they're the ones doing this to us. They're the
ones who are annoying an entire planet. They're the ones who are costing us
billions of dollars a year to secure our systems against them. They're the
ones who place their desire for fun ahead of everyone on earth's desire for
peace and the right to privacy."
"Desire for fun"? Oh please.. (Score:5, Informative)
In the past years, we have seen profit-seeking criminals discover how useful insecure systems are to them. The major disruptions now are not caused by simple thrill-seekers.
He means crackers right? (Score:2, Informative)
criminal hacker => cracker
criminal non-hacker => script kiddie
Re:What the above poster doesn't realise (Score:2, Informative)
> where my nose begins"?
"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The actual quote implies that a spirit of self-restraint is necessary in order for the concept of "rights" to be applicable to all.
The common misquoting as reflected in your post turns the individual responsibility around.
Re:I agree... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:its the hackers alright! (Score:3, Informative)
Breaking legs doesn't alter ones DNA. Kids would be born with stronger bones only if bdit went around breaking the legs of a large fraction of the population, and the stronger legs among the population survived the breaking attempts. Also, you'd need people without broken legs to have more kids than people with broken legs.
lame blame game (Score:2, Informative)
companies want to blame hackers
hackers want to blame developers
developers want to blame users
users blame whoever the media tells them to blame.
there is some truth to what is being said here. sure early hacking showed the developers they had to pay some attention to security. but couldn't that be done in a controlled environment? why? because that way innocent people wouldn't be put out. there are people losing identities and money because of theives (i say 'thieves' becuase a hack where you steal is a theft - sorry everyone but that's the law).
so continue to point your own finger when a finger is pointed at you but at some point some culpability must be had.
600 Fucking Posts and Nobody RTFA! (Score:3, Informative)
Get over the last paragraph, morons, and RTFA!
It's FAR more insightful than any of the comments I've seen bitching about the "blame hackers" paragraph - which was preceded by "blame everybody else" sentences anyway.
You guys sound like the big media press whenever somebody gets caught faking or running false stories - "Oh, woe is us! Somebody is blaming us for being idiots! We're such a poor, put-upon industry!"
Deal with it!
Re:its the hackers alright! (Score:2, Informative)
http://timlambert.org/2001/07/levittpoolsvsguns/ [timlambert.org]
Re:its the hackers alright! (Score:2, Informative)
Take a look at Switzerland, higher gun ownership than the US and less violence. The US is a more violent country in general than many other industrial nations, guns have nothing to do with it.
I really hope you don't have kids at home since guns are wildly more likely cause harm accidentally than be used for self-defense.
That's pure 100% Handgun Control Inc bullshit. Guns are used far more often in self defense than in accidental deaths. There are as many as 2.5 MILLION defensive uses of firearms [guncite.com] every year in the US and less than 15,000 accidental deaths total, far less if you only count children, even counting "children" like HCI does up to age 24.
Re:Someone should patent blame deflection (Score:3, Informative)
Thing is the bank takes on risk too. All it takes is for another depression for the banks to lose everything... Look, today we're at a MASSIVE credit bubble... Huge, unlike nothing we've ever seen before in our lifetimes. Personal debt is the highest per-capita it's ever been. A spike in interest rates is all it takes to create defaults on loans. Those defaults are a direct hit to the bank's bottom line.
Re:its the hackers alright! (Score:1, Informative)
In Switzerland, misplacing a government-issued cartridge will get you a fine. (Not locked up.)
You are free to buy and use your own cartridges all you want. In fact, it is suggested that you do so to maintain your firearms proficiency.
The reason for the lost cartridge fine is to ensure that militia members all have the proper amount of ammunition on hand for the defense of their country. Not some gun-control bullshit.
And while we're at it, perhaps you like to explain how the crime rate has continued it's downward trend while firearm and ammunition purchases have nearly doubled in the past 10 years?
But we wouldn't want to let mere facts get in the way of an agenda now would we?