On 2006 Sep 27 , at 07:11, Robert C Wittig wrote:
Adam Martin wrote:
I think it's just that I pine for better days. Just 5 years ago,
this behaviour was restricted mostly to Windoze systems. 5 years
before that, the notion of net-wide "evil traffic" as a constant
background noise was far fetched. And just 5 years before that, 15
years ago, the notion of loads of background evil traffic was, as far
as I recall, appalling.
After the whole of that spam episode, combined with several
spikes in local ssh-bruteforce attempts... I just felt despondent. I
still do. It seems like the whole 'net has gone to hell in a
handbasket. So as I said, I pine for better days. But I think I am
a curmudgeon these days :-)
Cheer up... you, being an OpenBSD user, are at the top of the food
chain, and much less likely to become food for a bigger fish, than
most other computer users.<g>
I use OpenBSD, and FreeBSD mostly. (I've got a few MacOS X boxes,
which I hack around with, and some times it's NetBSD, and when I have
to use it, Linux... and shudder: Windoze.) I've been using computers,
and UNIX for most of my life (since I was about 8, daddy would let me
use his SunOS workstation, and telnet around to various machines in his
office) and now at 24, things just seem so much different than when I
grew up. Every time the network-evil ratio spikes higher, I just
lament about how things used to be. Newbies, and innane questions I
can stand. It's mostly just the evil packets routed along. I don't
fear hijacks. I just loathe my precious bandwidth resources, and time,
spent on dealing with this garbage. Which seems to translate into more
garbage, in my inbox. It seems after every ssh-bruteforce wave,
there's a spike in spam distribution. So the problem just keeps
showing up. To me, it seems like there's hordes of vandals running
about torching the town, and generally causing havoc. I guess I just
fear a dark future for the 'net, where this will just get worse. Of
course, it seems I always address this issue late at night, after hours
of writing code, and then dealing with the day's security work. So
maybe I should discuss it at a more cheerful time? :-)
The legislators and the people that legislators love are in all
likelihood *not* running BSD, or even Linux, and will therefore
probably become victims of phishing, identity theft, having their
computers hijacked.
This will bring the reality of the 'State if the Internet' home to
those legislators in a very personal way, inciting them to take
legislative action in their various countries (except for Nigeria,
where the legislators are involved in running the scams).
This is also what I fear, beyond just pining for the "good old days."
Instead of a "spamargeddon" a "lawyerclysm" of sorts, where we'll
sacrifice our freedom, to feel safe from cyber-attacks.
When the automobile was first invented, there were no 'Rules of the
Road'. This was Ok for a while, because cars required a techie, just
to operate them. But as cars became simpler to operate, and more
popular, and the roads became clogged with maniacs, killing people
with their autos, rules had to be set down, to regulate the New
Technology.
I suspect that something similar is happening with the Internet.
Ten years from now, we might be complaining about over-regulation.<g>
Eh, I already do complain, to a degree. But by the time the
over-regulation hits, hopefully, some geeks (possibly including me,)
will have an underground network using tcp/ip protocols, but over
directed radio links or something. Just avoiding the clutter of the
soon-to-be "now-dead" internet.
Okay, enough lamenting. I think it's time to do productive work. :-)
Regards,
--
Adam David Alan Martin
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