[1008] in WWW Security List Archive
New York Times article
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Prince, Cheryl)
Wed Oct 11 20:01:03 1995
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 12:03:57 PST
From: "Prince, Cheryl" <cprince@mfi.com>
To: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
The front page of today's New York Times focuses on (alleged) recently
discovered security flaws inherent in the structure of the Web that could
potentially delay the take-off of electronic commerce. According to the
article, the "weakness occurs in a widely used Internet protocol-or technical
standard-known as the Network File System. Because NFS does not have any means
for allowing the recipient of a program or document to verify that it has not
been altered during transmission from the file server to the user, any
interception or tampering would go undetected."
So, now I'm completely confused. Didn't we already know that, on its own, the
internet is hardly secure for the transmission of sensitive data?? The article
does not explore these new "flaws" in the context of all the various security
architectures and firewalls etc. that have been and are being developed and
implemented. Has anyone else read the piece? Would anyone venture to make any
sense of it?
Much obliged,
CJ Prince
