Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 13:40:27 -0400 From: Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@cup.hp.com> To: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> Cc: arch@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/etc inetd.conf Message-ID: <39E5F78B.299628F6@cup.hp.com> References: <15251.971315263@winston.osd.bsdi.com> <v04210104b60acfa922f4@[128.113.24.47]> <39E5384C.4C3C0D53@cup.hp.com> <v04210105b60b62d2b755@[128.113.24.47]>
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Garance A Drosihn wrote: > > > > grep -qs '^telnet' /etc/inetd.conf > > > if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then > > > echo "" > > > echo "*** Note: telnetd is enabled in /etc/inetd.conf" > > > echo "*** either comment it out of there, or" > > > echo "*** delete this check in /root/.bashrc" > > > echo "" > > > fi > > > >This message is targetted for an audience that doesn't know whether or > >not telnetd is enabled in inetd.conf. The contradiction is in the > >assumption that these people care about security. They don't; otherwise > >they would know whether telnetd was enabled or not. Therefore, the > >message is meaningless. > > As I explicitly mentioned in the paragraph after that code, > "The text of the message needs to be improved, of course" I don't think that rephrasing will change the root purpose of the message and therefore the usefulness of the message :-) In principle the idea is good. It just doesn't fit the unix philosofy, IMO. I for one would be insulted by it as I'm already insulted by most of the security related, well intended, highly unwanted and in your face notices that tell me things I already know or tell me things I don't care about. example: I installed ucd-snmp yesterday to try something out. I know it installed a daemon, because it tells me so (in this case I already knew before I typed make). I therefore immediately know that security, if I'd care in the first place, would be an issue. In this case I couldn't care less. What happens? I get a security notice... It took me 5 minutes to funnel my agression :-) -- Marcel Moolenaar mail: marcel@cup.hp.com / marcel@FreeBSD.org tel: (408) 447-4222 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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