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> If they are not, then we are all doomed to continue to exist in a messy world where security problems crop up every minute. Side-tangent, but security enthus

by Touche 10y ago

> If they are not, then we are all doomed to continue to exist in a messy world where security problems crop up every minute. Side-tangent, but security enthusiasts need to calm down on the "world is ending" talk. Those of us who lived through Windows ME, where logging on IRC basically gave you a 25% chance of having your computer hijacked by some random script kiddie, think it's laughable to say that security is anywhere near as bad as it used to be. Night and day.

deno 10y ago
But it still feels like it. Security news should be “someone managed to breach one of the 20 layers that protect you,” not “someone got root, again.” At the very least you should be able to stay secure if you know what you are doing. But even that’s not enough. You also need to be lucky && uninteresting && not actually using computers.
dleslie 10y ago
For a while I had a Linux machine running just to use bitchX; in '96 IIRC. :D
tapoxi 10y ago
But there are significantly more devices out there these days, that we don't traditionally think of as "computers". Cable boxes/DVRs, webcams, vacuum cleaners, mobile phones, routers, hell a directory traversal bug was found in a dishwasher. Many of these devices aren't patched after they're sold, and can be compromised within minutes of being assigned a publicly routable IP - this is what happened with Mirai. Security is better for desktop computers, but if you include everything with an operating system, it's much, much worse.
naasking 10y ago
> Those of us who lived through Windows ME, where logging on IRC basically gave you a 25% chance of having your computer hijacked by some random script kiddie, think it's laughable to say that security is anywhere near as bad as it used to be. Night and day. Those were people just messing around. Annoying and harmful to your local machine certainly, but the harm that was caused was localized. Security vulnerabilities are now industrialized, with large-scale public attacks and widespread silent compromises used to gather and sell your information for profit. The situation is still bad, it's just bad in a different way.
- milcron 10y ago
  Individually, computers today are more secure than they've ever been. But there are zillions more computers, doing more things, with more interconnections than ever before. So the problems are compounded and I think the situation is worse overall.
  - bostik 10y ago
    > * Individually, computers today are more secure than they've ever been.* Unfortunately, that only holds if you take the view that IoT appliance != computer. Because let's be honest - those things are dangerous to general network hygiene and wellbeing.
    - milcron 10y ago
      True, IoT devices are less secure than their internetless predecessors. But they're more secure than Windows 95 computers.
elihu 10y ago
Security practices may be better now, but applications are a lot more complicated (meaning much more attack surface area) and there's a lot more at stake now.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by Touche 10y ago

deno 10y ago

But it still feels like it. Security news should be “someone managed to breach one of the 20 layers that protect you,” not “someone got root, again.” At the very least you should be able to stay secure if you know what you are doing. But even that’s not enough. You also need to be lucky && uninteresting && not actually using computers.

dleslie 10y ago

For a while I had a Linux machine running just to use bitchX; in '96 IIRC. :D

tapoxi 10y ago

But there are significantly more devices out there these days, that we don't traditionally think of as "computers". Cable boxes/DVRs, webcams, vacuum cleaners, mobile phones, routers, hell a directory traversal bug was found in a dishwasher. Many of these devices aren't patched after they're sold, and can be compromised within minutes of being assigned a publicly routable IP - this is what happened with Mirai. Security is better for desktop computers, but if you include everything with an operating system, it's much, much worse.

naasking 10y ago

> Those of us who lived through Windows ME, where logging on IRC basically gave you a 25% chance of having your computer hijacked by some random script kiddie, think it's laughable to say that security is anywhere near as bad as it used to be. Night and day. Those were people just messing around. Annoying and harmful to your local machine certainly, but the harm that was caused was localized. Security vulnerabilities are now industrialized, with large-scale public attacks and widespread silent compromises used to gather and sell your information for profit. The situation is still bad, it's just bad in a different way.

milcron 10y ago
Individually, computers today are more secure than they've ever been. But there are zillions more computers, doing more things, with more interconnections than ever before. So the problems are compounded and I think the situation is worse overall.
- bostik 10y ago
  > * Individually, computers today are more secure than they've ever been.* Unfortunately, that only holds if you take the view that IoT appliance != computer. Because let's be honest - those things are dangerous to general network hygiene and wellbeing.
  - milcron 10y ago
    True, IoT devices are less secure than their internetless predecessors. But they're more secure than Windows 95 computers.

elihu 10y ago

Security practices may be better now, but applications are a lot more complicated (meaning much more attack surface area) and there's a lot more at stake now.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]