On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, Joe Abley wrote:
Most ISPs are relatively secure. Yes, occasionally a backbone router shows up on some list with a password of "cisco." The major problems are in the systems managed and installed on non-ISP networks (i.e. end-users).
Maybe all the ISPs I've been involved with in the past ten years have been exceptions, but there are only a small handful of them that I would elevate to the status of "relatively secure".
That's why I said relative. I didn't say they were very secure or had great security. But when out-running the bear you don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than than the other guy. If you compared the "average" ISP security with the "average" end-user security, relatively speaking which would be more secure? Of course, we all have some relatives we'd prefer not to invite to holiday dinner.
My experience every time is that end users are amazingly tolerant of breakage. The fact that there are popups all over the screen, or that it takes five minutes to open their mail client, or that machines freeze up every ten minutes and require a hard boot appear to be simply accommodated as "that's what computers do".
They are amazingly toloerant of "that's what computers do." They are amazingly intolorant when someone else "breaks" it.