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[nycphp-talk] September Talk

Matthew Terenzio matt at jobsforge.com
Tue Aug 16 18:41:02 EDT 2005


>
> I believe that the defacto standard for out of the box product and
> programming will become more like "locked down, instant secure setup", 
> "data
> encrypted", "all SSL" and "no anonymous access".
>
> We will all be reading on newbie forums questions like: "How do I let 
> my
> users access their admin site without a strong password or Smart 
> card." And
> the answers will be: "Typically impossible. Why would you do that 
> anyway,
> newbie?"
>
>
I agree and disagree.

I think it's great that FreeBSD comes shipped without the ability to 
SSH in as root. I was used to that ability in Red Hat, and when I tried 
FreeBSD, I was surprised for a moment, but then I thought about it, and 
if I ever use a Linux distro that allows that, it will be the first 
thing I change.

But security is a moving target. A lot of hardening  is in response to 
exploits, not as a result of pre-engineering.
So, while I'm glad that experts may be willing to start things off with 
heightened security, I realize that security is an ongoing process.

No average web programmer would be comfortable with the "secure"  setup 
of a web security "expert" of five years ago.





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