[126921] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Nato warns of strike against cyber attackers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Bellovin)
Wed Jun 9 00:27:09 2010
From: Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
In-Reply-To: <21B53E5F-E463-4C04-9830-1511080AA5DF@delong.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 00:26:55 -0400
To: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
> Problem is there's no financial liability for producing massively =
exploitable software.
> No financial penalty for operating a compromised system.
> No penalty for ignoring abuse complaints.
> Etc.
>=20
> Imagine how fast things would change in Redmond if Micr0$0ft had to =
pay the cleanup costs for each and every infected system and any damage =
said infected system did prior to the owner/operator becoming aware of =
the infection.
>=20
It isn't Microsoft. It once was, but Vista and Windows 7 are really =
solid, probably much better than Linux or Mac OS. (Note that I run =
NetBSD and Mac OS; I don't run Windows not because it's insecure but =
because it's an unpleasant work environment for me.)
Microsoft is targeted because they have the market. If Steve Jobs keeps =
succeeding with his reality distortion field, we'll see a lot more =
attacks on Macs in a very few years. It's also Flash and Acrobat =
Reader. It's also users who click to install every plug-in recommended =
by every dodgy web site they visit. It's also users who don't install =
patches, including those for XP (which really was that buggy). There's =
plenty of blame to go around here....
A liability scheme, with penalties on users and vendors, is certainly =
worth considering. Such a scheme would also have side-effects -- think =
of the effect on open source software. It would also be a lovely source =
of income for lawyers, and would inhibit new software development. The =
tradeoff may be worth while -- or it may not, because I have yet to see =
evidence that *anyone* can produce really secure software without =
driving up costs at least five-fold.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
