From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi.admin,comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: security concerns revisted
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:05:13 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1993Jan7.155721.7859@cs.wayne.edu> atems@igor.physics.wayne.edu (Dale Atems) writes:

| In article <uij5h2g@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
| >
| >I maintain (and a number of people disagree with me), that you *have*
| >to ship an open root, and given that, anybody who can't scan a 
| >*15 line* password file to notice the other accounts that have no
| >passwords is unlikely to do anything about root either.  If they
| >don't secure root, nothing else matters.  We can start all of these
| >arguments all over again, but I maintain (both as a system admin in
| >a number of environments, and as a tech support resource in 4 compainies)
| >that we would be *crazy* as a company to do anything else.
| 
| With all due respect, Dave, I have to disagree here. Most people are
| sensible enough to protect root, but either aren't aware of the other

I keep hearing this, but I simply can't believe that *anybody* who
cares the slightest amount about security can't take the 5 seconds
to look at a 15 line password file (I've heard via email or net
postings from at least 10 people saying the people don't, so don't
repeat those answers).  I continue to maintain that anybody that
careless will not have a secured system for very long anyway.

I'm not saying that people are expected to be "aware" of other open
accounts, merely that they have a very slight amount of common sense.
No doubt these are the same people who leave the as shipped password
for the field account on VMS systems...

| open accounts or put off learning how to protect them without giving up
| the ability to share resources over the network (like remote printers,
| etc.). People buy systems to solve problems, and many sites (like ours)
| don't have full-time system administrators. The people who set up the
| systems aren't idiots, they're expected to set the systems up and then
| go back to writing proposals. Learning about security issues gets put
| on the back burner along with getting system software upgraded, getting
| clocks synched to a reliable source, diagnosing network slowdowns...

Which is basicly what I said.  We have no choice but to ship systems
that are usable out of the box, for exactly these reasons!  The number
of sites/users that care about security are far, far, far fewer than
those who just want to use their systems.  Where people care about
security, they have to do something about it on a continuing basis
anyway.

| >As has been discussed here every time this has come up (and as Vernon
| >mentioned in this same thread), the best thing would be to have a script
| >that runs after install, similarly to the autoconfig and confmsg scripts,
| >that asks the user if they want to setup a secure system, and walks them
| >through it in a script.  That may still happen for a future release.
| 
| Excellent idea. How far in the future are we talking about?

Months to years.  The person that 'owns' this script is in for a lot
of grief, so nobody is anxious to take it on, particularly given the
very small percentage of our customers who care.  It isn't the
initial script, it is the bugs, enhancements, meetings, and arguments
that keep us all from just doing it.  There is always TIRIX for those
who really care about security.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi.admin