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IMO: this is actually a good default setting. Home-router designers should assume that things are hostile by default. Of course, it should be dead-simple to tur

IMO: this is actually a good default setting. Home-router designers should assume that things are hostile by default. Of course, it should be dead-simple to turn this off as well.

api 10y ago
I pretty vehemently disagree. We should be very reluctant to systematically break good things to protect badly written junk. Let badly written junk burn. Then people will learn it's junk and stop using it or the developers and vendors will be forced to fix it.
- robomc 10y ago
  Isn't it more like having a median barrier? It's unnecessary if everyone drives competently, but it also successfully prevents people crashing through no fault of their own. It also breaks or complicates use cases like "changing which direction you're going on the highway".
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  So you're in favor of Grandparents getting cryptowall from someone else connected to their WEP-encrypted wifi because screw them for using Windows XP and a cheap router? Off-switches for things like this are cool, because people who need them will find them, and people who don't won't. This is remarkably similar to defeatable traction-control; people who care enough to figure out what that button does will push it and have fun. People who don't won't and they'll be safe.
  - api 10y ago
    Yes, if this is the cost. Loss of local connectivity is not a small degradation. It's like losing floating point math from your CPU or the ability of your car to go in reverse. If we're building endpoint networks to prohibit local traffic, we are forcing a terrible architecture with terrible long-term privacy and security implications. Because of this, we will have a future where the NSA (and vendors, and advertisers, and the Chinese PLA, and ...) will literally know when you flush your toilet. In the future every interaction you have with every device in your house will be broadcast to third parties across multiple national boundaries and clouds. ... because we had to protect Windows XP machines from rare, marginal threat profiles. (Has anyone actually seen malware spread this way in the past 10 years in the wild?) The potential criminal and totalitarian applications of a cloud-powered IoT world are incredible. Look into "nudge theory" for a starting point, and then consider things like: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-you-fall-in-love-this-is-what-facebook-sees/283865/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-y... http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/power-behavioral-fingerprinting http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/power-behavioral-fingerpri... The decision of how to architect our communications infrastructure today and whether to, for example, permit local traffic could in the future determine whether or not we evolve into a borg-like totalitarian collective or a cooperative society of sovereign individuals. Communications infrastructure affects... well... how we communicate... which in turn affects every single aspect of human society and culture over very long spans of time. It's a special case of a larger phenomenon called path dependence. Small choices that you make today based on what seem like rational reasons today can have huge differences in the long term outcome of things in the distant future. While the future isn't fully knowable, sometimes conceptual reasoning from first principles can tell us what the likely outcome of a particular path might be.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Also worth pointing out that the reason everything talks over HTTP now is because companies figured out that the only port on a typical user's computer that can be assumed to be free of bullshit pseudo-security rules is the port 80...
      - api 10y ago
        Sure. We've degraded the Internet from the Internet to the HTTP-to-AWS-gateway-net. Meanwhile security still sucks.
    - Godel_unicode 10y ago
      It's closer to losing ECC; if you need it you can get it and if you don't need it you don't even need to know it exists. You're being rather alarmist, don't you think? > Has anyone actually seen malware spread this way in the past 10 years in the wild Yup, had several IR cases (trending up) where this was determined to be the initial vector. Related: stop making this argument. Nothing is seen in the wild until it is (go back a few years and realize this argument was made about cryptowall-style malware). I think you should re-read the end of my first paragraph; isolation should have an off switch. Give people the option and let them choose. Sorry if that's bad for your business model.
      - goodplay 10y ago
        I also believe that trading real networks for supposed security would be a very bad move. Network node security should not be delegated to the network. Not only would this necessitate forgoing very useful features that networks enable, you won't improve node security. Devices that are vulnerable by merely sharing a network with other nodes tend to have other more sever security lapses. I agree that a button is simple way to switch between modes, but it will also make point-to-point the default. People don't change defaults, and companies will eventually cease to implement network capability as a result. I'm all for better network security, but not at the expense of discarding the network itself.

IMO: this is actually a good default setting. Home-router designers should assume that things are hostile by default. Of course, it should be dead-simple to turn this off as well.

api 10y ago

I pretty vehemently disagree. We should be very reluctant to systematically break good things to protect badly written junk. Let badly written junk burn. Then people will learn it's junk and stop using it or the developers and vendors will be forced to fix it.

robomc 10y ago
Isn't it more like having a median barrier? It's unnecessary if everyone drives competently, but it also successfully prevents people crashing through no fault of their own. It also breaks or complicates use cases like "changing which direction you're going on the highway".
Godel_unicode 10y ago
So you're in favor of Grandparents getting cryptowall from someone else connected to their WEP-encrypted wifi because screw them for using Windows XP and a cheap router? Off-switches for things like this are cool, because people who need them will find them, and people who don't won't. This is remarkably similar to defeatable traction-control; people who care enough to figure out what that button does will push it and have fun. People who don't won't and they'll be safe.
- api 10y ago
  Yes, if this is the cost. Loss of local connectivity is not a small degradation. It's like losing floating point math from your CPU or the ability of your car to go in reverse. If we're building endpoint networks to prohibit local traffic, we are forcing a terrible architecture with terrible long-term privacy and security implications. Because of this, we will have a future where the NSA (and vendors, and advertisers, and the Chinese PLA, and ...) will literally know when you flush your toilet. In the future every interaction you have with every device in your house will be broadcast to third parties across multiple national boundaries and clouds. ... because we had to protect Windows XP machines from rare, marginal threat profiles. (Has anyone actually seen malware spread this way in the past 10 years in the wild?) The potential criminal and totalitarian applications of a cloud-powered IoT world are incredible. Look into "nudge theory" for a starting point, and then consider things like: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-you-fall-in-love-this-is-what-facebook-sees/283865/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-y... http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/power-behavioral-fingerprinting http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/power-behavioral-fingerpri... The decision of how to architect our communications infrastructure today and whether to, for example, permit local traffic could in the future determine whether or not we evolve into a borg-like totalitarian collective or a cooperative society of sovereign individuals. Communications infrastructure affects... well... how we communicate... which in turn affects every single aspect of human society and culture over very long spans of time. It's a special case of a larger phenomenon called path dependence. Small choices that you make today based on what seem like rational reasons today can have huge differences in the long term outcome of things in the distant future. While the future isn't fully knowable, sometimes conceptual reasoning from first principles can tell us what the likely outcome of a particular path might be.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Also worth pointing out that the reason everything talks over HTTP now is because companies figured out that the only port on a typical user's computer that can be assumed to be free of bullshit pseudo-security rules is the port 80...
    - api 10y ago
      Sure. We've degraded the Internet from the Internet to the HTTP-to-AWS-gateway-net. Meanwhile security still sucks.
  - Godel_unicode 10y ago
    It's closer to losing ECC; if you need it you can get it and if you don't need it you don't even need to know it exists. You're being rather alarmist, don't you think? > Has anyone actually seen malware spread this way in the past 10 years in the wild Yup, had several IR cases (trending up) where this was determined to be the initial vector. Related: stop making this argument. Nothing is seen in the wild until it is (go back a few years and realize this argument was made about cryptowall-style malware). I think you should re-read the end of my first paragraph; isolation should have an off switch. Give people the option and let them choose. Sorry if that's bad for your business model.
    - goodplay 10y ago
      I also believe that trading real networks for supposed security would be a very bad move. Network node security should not be delegated to the network. Not only would this necessitate forgoing very useful features that networks enable, you won't improve node security. Devices that are vulnerable by merely sharing a network with other nodes tend to have other more sever security lapses. I agree that a button is simple way to switch between modes, but it will also make point-to-point the default. People don't change defaults, and companies will eventually cease to implement network capability as a result. I'm all for better network security, but not at the expense of discarding the network itself.