[1932] in Kerberos
Re: kerberos & novell
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Lister, Cranfield Computer C)
Wed May 27 05:11:08 1992
To: kerberos@Athena.MIT.EDU
Cc: ccprl@xdm001.ccc.cranfield.ac.uk
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 27 May 92 02:08:06 +0100.
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 09:37:05 BST
From: "Peter Lister, Cranfield Computer Centre" <ccprl@xdm001.ccc.cranfield.ac.uk>
> Kerberos suffers from the fact that its source is widely available and
> abusable by any Joe on the internet whose figured out how to use FTP.
> Being such a Joe, I could FTP it over from MIT now, change a few lines
> of code, insert a back door or two and unleash my kludgery upon an
> unsuspecting planet. Is this what you would wish your bank to be using?
Err.. how can you change the MIT distribution so that the "unsuspecting planet"
sees your changes? If you can persuade some idiot to trust your
doctored version, all you've proved is how persuasive you are.
As to source being widely available, that's a GOOD thing. I would mistrust any
system which relied on a group of people keeping a secret. This way, everybody
knows where they stand, a large number of people have an interest in making sure
it's correct, and no-one has any incentive to cover up a loophole.
Peter Lister p.lister@cranfield.ac.uk
Computer Centre,
Cranfield Institute of Technology, Voice: +44 234 750111 ext 3157
Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL England Fax: +44 234 750875
