Re: [PLUG] Article on 'cyberwarfare'

["Keith C. Perry" <kperry@daotechnologies.com>]

The internet would be as useful as a wet napkin is only a select number of people could host.  The fact that anyone can host their own site I see as a strength not a weakness.  Just like anything else, the vast major of what goes on on the internet is not malicious or harmful in any meaningfully way so if we ever get to the point where government trying to consolidate "power" the power to host in this case to their crony's we might as well say good-bye.  I sincerely how that never happens.  It would be worse that the current battle of net neutrality.

The reason for pop up ads is and other traps is because it works.  Once it doesn't you won't see it anymore.  I couldn't find it but there was a report out either last year or 2013 that state that pop-up ads are hardly used anymore because users don't click or having blockers.  Obviously, its in a marketing context but this is a [good] unintended consequence of social engineering.

That guy in Moscow just needs to end up on enough FW policies.  Problem solved.  If anything we need a better way to report and aggregate activity- not just and email blacklist but a blacklist of all types of bad actors and their traffic.  I suspect that might even already exist.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
Keith C. Perry, MS E.E. 
Owner, DAO Technologies LLC 
(O) +1.215.525.4165 x2033 
(M) +1.215.432.5167 
www.daotechnologies.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Freeman" <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>
To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 3:18:28 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Article on 'cyberwarfare'

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 2:44 PM, Keith C. Perry
<kperry@daotechnologies.com> wrote:
> That's not what social engineering means.  The term points to user behavior (or expected user behavior) not skill sets.

You still have to improve the general climate.  Sure, there are things
you can do when walking in a city at 8PM at night to reduce your risk
of getting mugged.  On the other hand, if cities had roving squads of
military troops that sought out and attacked random tourists, there
wouldn't be much of a tourism industry.

Why is it that there are pop-up ads containing malware in the first
place?  It all comes down to the fact that ANYBODY, ANYWHERE can host
a website.  Any solution to the security issue is going to have to
eliminate that ability.  Is the solution worse than the disease?
Today yes, but if the disease gets much worse I wouldn't be surprised
if a voting majority starts to think otherwise.

But, of course users will always have some kind of role in security.
If you leave your door unlocked some kid is more likely to break into
your house.  On the other hand, simply locking the door won't
guarantee that they'll stay out.  The problem is that in the physical
world you can just move to a nicer neighborhood and greatly curtail
the number of desirables looking to break in.  On the internet you can
have some guy who lives in Moscow checking your door to see if it is
locked 35 times a day.

--
Rich
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