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Yes. Yes. Yes. An internet that requires devices to be publicly exposed to the entire internet, and directly addressable at all times, is not an internet I wan

Yes. Yes. Yes. An internet that requires devices to be publicly exposed to the entire internet, and directly addressable at all times, is not an internet I want to participate in. You WILL negotiate a firewall, before learning anything about the devices I use. ESPECIALLY if I am prevented from knowing their internals, whether by willful disclosure or unlawful reverse engineering. I control The Spice. I control the universe.

deathanatos 10y ago
I wouldn't/don't mind better research/work into better permission systems for OS's/processes; allowing the user control over what gets exposed to incoming connections and what is allowed to make outgoing connections is fine and good. NAT, and uPnP, is not that. In the case of uPnP: if uPnP was SOP, wouldn't the camera (needing to be "remotely accessible" because the Internet of Crap) just make the requisite uPnP calls, likely making everything accessible? NAT, in particular, is terrible. Trying to explain to a normal user how to establish NAT port-forwarding for devices or applications is a UX nightmare. NAT, in particular, kills off entire classes of protocol design, necessitating hacking around NAT by routing traffic through untrustable third-party servers. NAT is further not a firewall: one anything inside your NAT gets remotely exploited, and everything else is wide open. (And that's at best; depending on the protocol in use, you might not even need remote code execution.) (And uPnP's support in my experience has been utterly pathetic.)
- nat4ever 10y ago
  Of course, I'm being a little cheeky, but ah, my sentiment of digging a moat around a house with an unlocked door is an idea I'll always keep in my back pocket, and show no hesitation in applying a ridiculous solution to a ridiculous problem. Obscurity and inscrutability certainly will never supplant the Objective Ideological Truth that "Security" tries to be, but it's often useful as a source of leverage when all other leverage would be denied to you. You could never ever claim to endorse obscurity for its own sake during a daily stand-up or a conference call, because people woud rip you to shreds for any number of valid reasons, but when push comes to shove, and you find yourself on the losing side of someone else's moral hazard, being able to throw a smoke screen up, where a brick wall would be preferred, is sometimes all you can do.
stryk 10y ago
Ok, this is completely off topic and unrelated to the topic of discussion, but NICE Dune reference man. NICE!
draw_down 10y ago
Good grief.

deathanatos 10y ago

I wouldn't/don't mind better research/work into better permission systems for OS's/processes; allowing the user control over what gets exposed to incoming connections and what is allowed to make outgoing connections is fine and good. NAT, and uPnP, is not that. In the case of uPnP: if uPnP was SOP, wouldn't the camera (needing to be "remotely accessible" because the Internet of Crap) just make the requisite uPnP calls, likely making everything accessible? NAT, in particular, is terrible. Trying to explain to a normal user how to establish NAT port-forwarding for devices or applications is a UX nightmare. NAT, in particular, kills off entire classes of protocol design, necessitating hacking around NAT by routing traffic through untrustable third-party servers. NAT is further not a firewall: one anything inside your NAT gets remotely exploited, and everything else is wide open. (And that's at best; depending on the protocol in use, you might not even need remote code execution.) (And uPnP's support in my experience has been utterly pathetic.)

nat4ever 10y ago
Of course, I'm being a little cheeky, but ah, my sentiment of digging a moat around a house with an unlocked door is an idea I'll always keep in my back pocket, and show no hesitation in applying a ridiculous solution to a ridiculous problem. Obscurity and inscrutability certainly will never supplant the Objective Ideological Truth that "Security" tries to be, but it's often useful as a source of leverage when all other leverage would be denied to you. You could never ever claim to endorse obscurity for its own sake during a daily stand-up or a conference call, because people woud rip you to shreds for any number of valid reasons, but when push comes to shove, and you find yourself on the losing side of someone else's moral hazard, being able to throw a smoke screen up, where a brick wall would be preferred, is sometimes all you can do.

stryk 10y ago

Ok, this is completely off topic and unrelated to the topic of discussion, but NICE Dune reference man. NICE!

draw_down 10y ago

Good grief.