[liberationtech] Firesheep: Making the Complicated Trivial

[Alec Muffett]

On 27 Oct 2010, at 00:12, Frank Corrigan wrote:

> Debate on Hacker News: Is Firesheep a useful demonstration of security flaws or a dangerous hack?


How can this be?  Surely the WSJ know that the Internet ended in 1995 when SATAN was released?  The Chronicle explains:

http://articles.sfgate.com/1995-04-01/business/17802117_1_eindhoven-satan-security-administrator-tool-dan-farmer

> Two things make SATAN different and more frightening than other security detection programs available, Bruestle said. First, SATAN will be free on the Internet. No one has to register a name, as is the practice with other security programs so that any mischief can be traced. Second, with attractive graphics, SATAN is relatively easy to use even for computer novices. With a point and click, anyone can check out a corporation's computer system and find a few holes.
> 
> Many people have pleaded with Farmer and Venema not to give SATAN away freely. When their pleas have fallen on deaf ears, they have served up threats of lawsuits for giving computer crooks a handy tool to break into computers on the very same day corporations will get their first chance to run SATAN, Farmer said. On March 20, Farmer lost his job at Silicon Graphics because the Mountain View company disagreed with Farmer's intention to give SATAN to anyone.
> 
> But Farmer and Venema have held firm in their philosophical belief that only by releasing SATAN to everyone will the general level of security on the Internet improve.
> 
> "If you have any problems, if you have one, you have a serious problem," Farmer said in an interview at his Haight apartment cluttered with four powerful computers, wall-to-wall science fiction books and several cats. "Once a hacker is in, it's very difficult to keep them out."
> 
> But why give it to everyone? "How can I say who deserves it and who doesn't? Why should you get it because you have better credentials, know someone or make more money?" he asked.

The Internet died two weeks after SATAN was released, and has been dead ever since; this was after two previous deaths of the Internet - from COPS and Crack - plus several subsequent deaths.

But the important point is that it's dead, and has stayed dead.  All this "web" stuff is a natural side-effect of decomposition, and may be safely ignored.

"Film at 11".

	-a

--
alec.muffett at gmail.com