From: "Geo" 

"John Beamish"  wrote in message
news:op.terkfnnam6tn4t{at}dellblack.wlfdle.phub.net.cable.rogers.com...
> Well, we could debate this for quite a while or we could bring in a few
> mainframe security types to explain just how secure mainframes are.  You
> would (because you've had other discussions about this back in the
> CS/Canopus days) continue to grudgingly accept that mainframes might be
> secure.  I don't think you fully appreciate how "boxed off"
one is on a
> mainframe.

It doesn't matter, NT was "boxed off" compared to DOS/Win but the
virus writers made the transition without even skipping a beat. They
exploited bugs, they exploited drivers, they exploited dns (fake screens),
they exploited users.

> Minisystems?  I'm sure that many of them were easily brought to their
> knees (it was a relatively cheap market to enter so everybody did).  But I
> wasn't talking about them.

The guys who designed them claimed they were sooo much more secure than
Personal computers, they weren't.

> At the end of the day, trust me:  getting to root on a PC is a no-brainer;
> getting to root on a mainframe ... well, Don Hills, Phil Payne and others
> here will be only too glad to disabuse you of your assessment.

What, don't MF's user wireless drivers? If there were no PC's would there
be no wireless terminals?

> As for the different radio, different lights, etc.  Sure I've seen them.
> There's a whole business line built on the aftermarket for automobiles.
> But it's (hardly surprisingly) targetted towards a very, very specific
> segment (the elite of the automobile owners, if you will).

You've never modified one of your cars?

> Your argument about Polaroid is as interesting and compelling as the one
> about product activiation.  We both agree but it's not relevant to the
> point at hand:  the security of the mainframe.  The same is true about
> copyright.  Again, we agree but -- yet again -- not germane to the point
> in discussion.

Well the point I was trying to make before this became a mf discussion was
that consumer devices that use software would be more desirable if the
software they used was open source and modifiable by the public so anyone
could write new versions and add new features.

Geo.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5