Re: wolves and sheep on the inet

[spaf () cs purdue edu (Gene Spafford)]

Re:

> > Robert Heinlein, in his book, "Starship Troopers" raises the issue of 
> > what to do to prevent insurrection.  "If you make the wolves the 
> > guardians of the sheep, it will turn them into sheep dogs."

There is little evidence to show that people with experience breaking
into computer systems have any particular talent for protecting
them.  A few may have some specific insights, and a rare few may have
general background, but that is not the general case.

For instance, being able to guess someone's password doesn't mean
someone is able to design a cryptographic algorithm to protect
passwords; and being able to exploit a race condition doesn't mean one
knows how to write effective code without them.

It's also the case that sheepdogs that ever stray and kill a lamb must
themselves be put down.  Once they've been a sheep killer, there is no
way to ever trust them not to do it again -- the temptation might be
too much for them on another occasion.  Ask a shepherd.

--spaf