Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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I did some work on my home broadband security page, in particular adding a section on the draft (erm, make sure not to misspell that "daft", it's actually not too bad) US Cybersecurity Plan. (NOTE for US citizens: the deadline to comment on the draft is November 18, 2002.)

I have added a section to my page specifically about the plan and some of the resources it links to.

My page tries to provide some of the technical detail that the "plan" ignores.
It's all fine and good, and indeed quite correct to say "you should patch your system", "you should have a firewall".
But the plan doesn't say anything about useful things like: what is a patch? why do you need it? what are the pros and cons of patching? where do you go to get patches? what is a firewall? where can you get one? etc.

They really should have at least mandated that ISPs offer a supported firewall and AV service.
To an experienced user, the Bell and Telus offerings look expensive, kind of too expensive.
But most people, believe it or not, are not computer and network engineers.

There you are, with only the vaguest idea of how your computer and network work, and you install a firewall and bang, Application X doesn't work any more. With no support, that's it for the firewall, click to uninstall.

While I am often amazed at how much some people actually DO learn about their computer and home networking and the Internet, for most people computer security should just be a matter of paying a bit extra and having someone to call to say "just make this work".

The other, HUGE problem with patches is that they're, well, huge.
Most people in the US don't have a high-speed connection.
Even if you are @n@1 enough to want to keep your patches up-to-date, how many people are going to tie up their dial-up for hours to get some Microsoft Update Q456984756, "fixes the flayrod when it goes all askew on treadle"? posted by Richard at 16:15 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)