An intelligent man is capable of overcoming problems and difficulties a wise man would have avoided in the first place.
There is only one China
A new level of religious tolerance
Which is worth more, living or just staying alive?
Washington learns from...Florida!
Sniperphobia spreads
Glenn Reynolds on Mars
Make smoking unconstitutional
Pregnant Pigs
Thursday, October 24, 2002Computerworld talks to Stephen Crocker about this week's DDOS attack on the Internet. Crocker helped invent the Internet in the 70's (he doesn't mention seeing Al Gore) and chairs a committee studying ways to improve security. He says the Net's design let it handle this one pretty well, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need work.
One serious problem he sees is wide open off-the-shelf computers:
What I think our biggest problem globally is are off-the-shelf computers. The minute you plug them in they are susceptible to being enlisted unwittingly to a DOS attack. And I don't understand why that's OK. To have that same computer be used to attack someone else, it's a public nuisance issue. Computers should not be wide open.
If you are running your computer without at least an antivirus program and/or a firewall, you may have been one of the attackers without realizing it.
