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Date:      Tue, 23 Apr 2002 09:07:46 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Frank Mayhar <frank@exit.com>
To:        "M. Warner Losh" <imp@village.org>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Changing defaults versus increased security.
Message-ID:  <200204231607.g3NG7kDh045253@realtime.exit.com>
In-Reply-To: <20020423.094953.13280392.imp@village.org>

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M. Warner Losh wrote:
> : When you change defaults on a running system, you piss off a lot of users.
> : Including me. :-)
> When we fail to take reasonable steps to preclude intruders from
> gaining access to your system, we'd likely piss you off more if you
> knew about it :-(.

Hey, I intentionally said nothing about the desirability of such a change.
I just don't believe that changing the defaults of a running system is a
good idea.  Perhaps changing the defaults for newly-installed systems _is_
a good idea, about that I have no opinion, but when I do a mergemaster
and something very basic stops working, it's not more secure, it's just
broken.

I don't object to more secure systems (far from it), I just object to
sudden changes in systems I run.  These systems have _already_ been
secured against intrusion; like any administrator worth his salt, I've
taken steps to secure the borders of my network(s).  Inside my network,
though, things are less secure because I know I can trust myself.

It seems easy enough to create an /etc/rc.overrides script with a large
"Danger Will Robinson" message to annoy a sysadmin into looking at it
and containing the old defaults.
-- 
Frank Mayhar frank@exit.com	http://www.exit.com/
Exit Consulting                 http://www.gpsclock.com/

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