From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 07:55:15 PDT
To: David Berger <dvberger@eit.com>
Subject: Re: NYT on Internet Flaws
In-Reply-To: <199510111812.LAA21331@viper.eit.com>
Message-ID: <199510121454.KAA20694@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



David Berger writes:
> As a result, the only thing I think this article should say is that we need
> secure ftp.  Isn't this being worked on?

Well, in addition, universal deployment of Photuris and IPSP would
probably prevent the sort of active attack being discussed because you
could no longer replace the packets.

> As for the article - 9/10 scaring people, 1/10 semi-fact.  Be serious?  NFS
> is not the basic structure of the Internet.  I'm embarrassed that an article
> so weak in its explanations and so high on fluff appeared on the front page
> of a well respected newspaper.

It was suprisingly weak for a John Markoff story (he usually gets the
details exactly right) but it is an issue that had to be brought up
and I see no reason to call it a bad article overall. The alarmism is
needed -- people have to get off their asses (including me).
 
Perry