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From: robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Hackers and others take note
Message-ID: <417@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Dec-84 01:47:39 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.417
Posted: Thu Dec 13 01:47:39 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Dec-84 07:11:40 EST
References: <410@gitpyr.UUCP> <336@stcvax.UUCP>
Organization: Georgia Tech, Atlanta
Lines: 45

>< 
> It's pretty much taken for granted that professional thieves can break
> into cars or homes in a matter of minutes, burglar system or not.
> Apply your logic to this similar situation (and it is similar).  How
> expensive of an alarm system should I have to spend to protect my home
> and property from common thieves?  Shouldn't we be lenient on them
> so that they can later advise the law enforcement and burglar alarm
> people on how to prevent them from breaking in?
>

But the difference here is that there is less being done to prevent
break-in's into computers than there is being done to prevent break-
in's into people homes.  Almost everyday, I see some ad or some art-
icle or some news story somewhere about security systems for banks,
stores, homes and etc.  People are more intent on protecting physical
property than they are of protecting electronic property.  The reasons
for this is the fact that physical property is more tangible and also
the fact that the average Joe-on-the-street doesn't know bull-whoopie
about how to protect his computer system.  The general public needs
to be educated to the problem of security on computers.  I work at
the computer center here at Georgia Tech and almost every day I see
little security problems like someone logging on to a terminal that's
set to half-duplex so the password gets echoed to the world, or people
who've never changed their password since they got their account, or
little things like that.  Quite frankly, I'm disgusted with either them
or the people who are responsible for educating them in computer
security.  I'd like to say that they deserve whatever they get, but I
really don't want to go that far.  At least I know that our systems
are secure enough to handle most minor security breaches.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as strongly for more secure systems as you
are, but I just believe more attention should be spent preventing the
damage than trying to pick up the pieces afterwards.  Whether we like it
or not, there will always be people who will try to break into computer
systems, regardless of how stringent the penalties are.

			robert
-- 
Robert Viduya
Office of Computing Services
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA 30332
Phone:  (404) 894-4669

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