Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!"
From: Anton Aylward <aja () si on ca>
Date: 17 Oct 2002 07:19:40 -0400
On Mon, 2002-10-14 at 13:15, Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
Inside every "appliance" is an operating system. Inside every ASIC or "embedded processor" is software. There's really no difference other than the packaging.
Wake up and smell the caffine! Its all software. THAT'S IT! End of Story. All the heritage of s/w applies to "appliances". - Keep it small and simple - Test, test and test. - Limit the complexity. If we can't learn that and apply it rigorously, what have we learnt? We've got nearly 50 years of experience in what makes poor quality (whatever your metric) software. That same poor quality results in poor security. It doesm't matter whether its monolithic or modular, micro, pico or nano-kernel, application or OS layer. Its all software. It doesn't matter whether you're coding in ASM, C++ or Euclid. It doesn't matter if you're design tool is back-of-the-envelope or the best that Rational has to offer. You're still human and fallible. Unless we learn from those basics and address them, all else that said on the subject if frippery. And arguing about the need for "secure kernels" - whatever that may mean - is moot if the application layers are swiss-cheese. Go back through this list and see what else Marcus has to say on, for example, SSL and VPN applications. /anton _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
Current thread:
- Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Dominic Malig (Oct 14)
- Re: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Marcus J. Ranum (Oct 14)
- Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!" Anton Aylward (Oct 17)
- Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!" Paul D. Robertson (Oct 17)
- Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!" Mike Frantzen (Oct 17)
- Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!" Stephen D. B. Wolthusen (Oct 17)
- Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!" Marcus J. Ranum (Oct 26)
- Re: Proverbial appliance "Its software, Jim!" Anton Aylward (Oct 17)
- Re: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Marcus J. Ranum (Oct 14)
- Re: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Mikael Olsson (Oct 14)
- RE: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Jared Valentine (Oct 15)
- RE: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Anton Aylward (Oct 15)
- Re: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Gary Flynn (Oct 15)
- Re: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Anton Aylward (Oct 15)
- Re: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Ryan M. Ferris (Oct 15)
- RE: Proverbial appliance vs software based firewall Anton Aylward (Oct 15)