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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: axial who wrote (10961)	8/10/2005 5:32:20 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Jim, you present a number of valid questions concerning Internet security that are beyond my depth to fully answer, since I'm neither a coder nor a security wonk. However, I don't believe Skype's success could in any way be confused with a failure of Internet design. The Internet is performing as it should when Skype gets through, and it does get through most firewalls and NATs. Rather, I view the success of Skype as a reflection of how the Internet was originally regarded and how it was intended to work by its crafters at a time when the types of scourges we deal with today were virtually non-existent. Or, as I am often reminded, when the government, universities and research centers were the sole tenants of the Internet, the permissiveness that lends itself to today's breaches was in actuality regarded as a beneficial "feature" (witness the Skype example you cited earlier), rather than as a vulnerability or weakness. There is, imo, a highly instructive thread discussion taking place on NANOG at this time under the heading of "Cisco crapaganda" that you might want to catch up on for a broader set of perspectives on the subject. There have actually been a number of good threads on the subject since the 2nd of August, come to think of it. While this thread doesn't actually get down to assembler code and objects, it does shed considerable light on some of the vagaries and complexities that underlie the problem as seen from high altitudes. The Merit site's NANOG thread LIST can be found here: merit.edu And the actual thread that I referenced above, titled "Cisco crapaganda," here: merit.edu Of course, when reading those threads, as here, one should be mindful that what's written there are only opinions. Many of them on NANOG are highly qualified opinions, but opinions nonetheless. So, caveat emptor, as usual. Enjoy, FAC