While acknowledging that I am falling for a troll does not excuse the act itself, I would like to float an idea I think is useful. If you look at security as control, then you can measure it as the ratio of controls to features. That is, for N in/egress points there are X active policy enforcement gateways. Similarly, for all functions in a peice of software, there are X configurable controls of their inputs and outputs and en/disabled-state. The reason we have "security" vulnerabilities is that we are building (or evolving) systems that lack adequate controls relative to the sheer volume of their features. While access to source-code does not guarantee that the user will exercise their control over the software, it does provide more granular control than say, a config file, or a clickity-click-configurator. The idea behind commercial software is that it is a service in which responsibility for control is maintained by the vendor, with a few options available to the user to customize. Open source provides total control to the user, limited only by their skills or access to information. Now, whether this control I am talking about is applicable to "security" as we understand it, I will leave that to the reader, but I would speculate that this simile could allow for something like cybernetics to be applied to evaluating the security of complex systems, and possibly offer more practical solutions than the political economy of security that characterizes alot of research in the field. Best, -j -- Jamie.Reid, CISSP, jamie.reid@mbs.gov.on.ca Senior Security Specialist, Information Protection Centre Corporate Security, MBS 416 327 2324

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<doug@nanog.con.com> 01/29/04 09:26am >>>

Microsoft software is inherently less safe than Linux/*BSD software. This is because Microsoft has favored usability over security. This is because the market has responded better to that tradeoff. This is because your mom doesn't want to have to hire a technical consultant to manage her IT infrastructure when all she wants to do is get email pictures of her grandkids. doug