WP,pg1: Fixes Only Temporary For Infected Internet

[DeepModem Mom]

Fixes Only Temporary For Infected Internet
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 26, 2005; A01


....Built by academics when everyone online was assumed to be a "good citizen," the Internet today is buckling under the weight of what is estimated to be nearly a billion diverse users surfing, racing, and tripping all over the network.

Hackers, viruses, worms, spam, spyware and phishing sites have proliferated to the point where it's nearly impossible for most computer users to go online without falling victim to them. Last year, the Carnegie Mellon University CERT Coordination Center logged 3,780 new computer security vulnerabilities, compared with 1,090 in 2000 and 171 in 1995. Computer security firm Symantec Corp. over the past decade has catalogued 11,000 vulnerabilities in 20,000 technologies, affecting 2,000 vendors....

***

Originally developed by the Defense Department, the Internet is now a global electronic communications network made up of hundreds of millions of computers, servers and other devices run by various governments, academic institutions, companies and individuals. Because no one entity owns it, the network depends on goodwill to function smoothly.

The Internet has become so huge -- and so misused -- that some worry that its power to improve society has been undermined. Now a movement is gathering steam to upgrade the network, to create an Internet 2.0. How, or even if, that could be done is a subject of much debate. But experts are increasingly convinced that the Internet's potential will never be met unless it's reinvented....

***

Many of the bugs in the Internet are part of its top layers of software, the jazzy, graphics-heavy, shrink-wrapped programs that come loaded on new computers or sold in retail stores. But some of the most critical issues were built into the network's core design, written decades ago and invisible to the average user....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062501284_pf.html

[LightningFlash]

1. Do I hear the ultimate drumbeat.....

Calling for internet censorship? They want to go after the new awakening media before its too late and all the cards are played.....

It sounds like to me some hackers and others really have made trouble for the big bad A, haven't they? :shrug: :shrug:

[dethl]

2. If M$ would fix the massive bugs in their OS

this wouldn't be as much of a problem!

[merwin]

9. That's a false statement :-)

Have you used XP SP2? The bugs are fixed (at least the ones relating to vulnerabilities). The firewall that comes with the operating system is more than sufficient to block pretty much everything.

The real problem is idiots opening every file that is sent to them. There's NOTHING you can do about that, in ANY operating system.

Like they say... build a better computer and they'll just build better idiots to compensate.

[MeDeMax]

12. I am afraid your statement is false :-)

in two respects:

1. Opening unsafe attachments isn't the only remaining vulnerability in XP-SP2. Look around on CERT:

http://www.cert.org/nav/index_red.html


2. Opening unsafe attachments isn't automatically a hazard in "ANY" operating system as you stated. Most email clients in unix & linux don't run executable content as microsoft's email clients do.

Enough said...this is a never ending debate, the M$ followers claim all is well now until the next mishap appears, the other crowd cannot be convinced that M$ will ever be safe.

Each to his/her own...peace be with you.

[merwin]

13. Again, it's the user that's to blame. In Windows it's so easy to create a

limited user account and run things from that. It also allows you to block attachments in e-mails from running, as well as any number of things to improve security. The only difference is that by default *nix comes uber-restricted, Windows by default comes less restricted. Either operating system can be restricted to the user's content (unless you're under the impression that Windows Server is also inherently insecure, since all versions of Windows are now pretty much the same codebase). Just because it's harder to run an application in *nix than it is in Windows doesn't mean that it's somehow more secure.

Contrary to popular belief, the average user also has neither the patience or the knowledge to do basically anything in *nix, which is why *nix hasn't caught on with the general population... and also the reason why the new MacOS has caught on with people.

(Simple buffer overflow exploits, etc are common to all operating systems, so I'm not including those).

[lovuian]

3. to try to control the internet is the one thing they have no control

over but heres the question could they really control it its so HUGE!!!

[VegasWolf]

4. Internet 2.0 to be headquartered at Langely, Virginia. nt

[ixion]

5. the old internet will still be around

and there are those of us that will remain a part of it.

All this shows is that they still don't understand what the net really is.

[interupt]

6. LOL

Originally developed by the Defense Department,

Hahahahaha!

[bpilgrim]

7. FUD - the whole article

there is no solution to stopping bad folks from trying to circumvent ANY security except being eternally vigilant.

the MSG i get from the article as that some big shots don't like the democratic way the INTERNET now runs. if that was taken out of the INTERNET it wouldn't be the INTERNET at all just private networks, which we have already.

the INTERNET was designed to be decentralized and is not only what makes it different from other networks it is what makes it GREAT.

the elite don't like all this communication power in the hands of weTHEpeople is all. all their 'security' concerns is code for censorship.

peace

[Sugarbleus]

8. I heard about "Internet 2"...

Didn't get the reasons for it, so thanks for the details.

I know that my computer is constantly under bombardment. It's frustrating to keep finding and eliminating suspicious stuff. Anti Virus programs only scratch the surface in terms of helping keep the system working well.

I'll be interested in seeing what developes.

[merwin]

10. The current internet was built for very slow connections as well as a very

limited capacity for the number of people that can be on it at one time. Those are the two biggest reasons.

The article above, however, is complete bullshit and the author knows nothing. The new internet will not stop viruses, hackers, or anything else... the only thing it will do is fulfill Bush's prophecy of multiple internets :-)

[bemildred]

11. IPv6?????

The core of the internet is the IP protocol, and it is fundamentally what it HAS TO BE in order to scale to arbitrary size. The security problems are almost entirely the result of clueless coding and clueless system/network administration. They occur at the session layer (#5 in the OSI model) and above. (ALL of the WWW is level #5 and above, for example, all of HTML, Java, SSH, etc.)

There is, furthermore, no reason at all to think that the engineers we have today will do a better job than was done back in the 70s, rather the opposite.

[slay]

14. My Internet works just fine thanks

Who are these assholes trying to kid? They are salivating at remaking an Internet where the government and corporations will have complete control over what shows up online. How bout computer users just educate themselves on how computers and the Internet work before they jump online and start running amok. That's the real problem. Get a firewall, a good anti-virus with some spyware removal, maybe a net-nanny program for the kiddies, and you'll be just fine. If anyone tries to make a power grab for control of the Internet we need to beat them back down at all costs. The Internet as it is today is one of the last public refuges for free speech.