On Dec 14, 2009, at 11:47 PM, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
>
>
> Owen DeLong wrote:
>>>> UPnP is a bad idea that (fortunately) doesn't apply to IPv6 anyway.
>>>>
>>>> You don't need UPnP if you'r not doing NAT.
>>>
>>> wishful thinking.
>>>
>>> you're likely to still have a staeful firewall and in the consumer space
>>> someone is likely to want to punch holes in it.
>>
>> Yes, SI will still be needed. However, UPnP is, at it's heart a way to
>> allow
>> arbitrary unauthenticated applications the power to amend your security
>> policy to their will. Can you possibly explain any way in which such a
>> thing is at all superior to no firewall at all?
>
> I'm a consumer, I want to buy something, take it home, turn it on and
> have it work. I don't have an IT department. How the manufacturers solve
> that is their problem.
>
> As a consumer my preferences for a security posture to the extent that I
> have one are:
>
> don't hose me
>
> don't make my life any more complicated than necessary
>
>> I would argue that a firewall that can be reconfigured by any applet a user
>> clicks on (whether they know it or not) is actually less useful than no
>> firewall because it creates the illusion in the users mind that there is a
>> firewall protecting them.
>
> Stable outgoing connections for p2p apps, messaging, gaming platforms
> and foo website with java script based rpc mechanisms have similar
> properties. I don't sleep soundly at night becasuse the $49 buffalo
> router I bought off an endcap at frys uses iptables, I sleep soundly
> because I don't care.
>
Precisely. And if you want to get picky, remember that "availability" is part
of the standard definition of security. A firewall that doesn't let me play
Chocolate-Sucking Zombie Monsters is an attack on the availability of that
gmae, albeit from the purest of motives.
No, I'm not saying that this is good. I am saying that in the real world, it
*will* happen.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
