Thread: Security on Nits?
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tabletrat is offline tabletrat
2008-04-13 , 23:32
Posts: 481 | Thanked: 65 times | Joined on Aug 2007 @ Westcountry, UK
#9
Originally Posted by meanwhile View Post
That's not a disadvantage, it's a flaw - a disadvantage would be if having the firewall was worse than not having it, whereas you're arguing that the firewall isn't *perfect*. Yes: I certainly wouldn't have a machine without a virus checker and other protective apps as well as a firewall.
I have several and always have had.

Originally Posted by meanwhile View Post
Otoh, switching off a firewall probably means GUI interaction (or certainly the firewall can be designed that way) so the effort for the virus writer has gone way up. Or his job may be impossible, doing on what the OS allows.
Almost never means GUI interaction. Anything you can control in any way, can be controlled by any other thing If you have a virus/keylogger/whatever, it is running at the same privilege level as you, so it can control your firewall as well as you can. Maybe even better because it is putting effort into it.


Originally Posted by meanwhile View Post
This is an argument that the Religious Right uses over condoms and Aids. The empirically observed result is death among believers.
That is going to an extreme to try and prove an argument. It is nowhere near the same level of importance.

Originally Posted by meanwhile View Post
(Hint: do you drive through stop lights because you are wearing a seatbelt? Employing a safety measure doesn't flip a magical switch in the human mind to forget about a problem - it just means that the person has taken a step to reduce the threat level. If you believe otherwise, good luck with the campaign to ban seat belts, motorcycle helmets, firearm safeties, safe sex education, tetanus shots, safety shoes, parachutes, and fire extinguishers and exits.)
Again, going to an extreme to try and prove your point doesn't make it any more valid.
But no, employing a safety measure does statistically flip a switch to reduce the thought about the problem. Ok, you are not going to go into your daft example, but many studies have shown that people employing safety mechanisms do actually think less about a problem. Especially when that safefy mechanism is more of a placebo.
A hardware firewall is a fantastic thing. A software firewall is better than nothing from protecting you from the outside, and gives you some protection from the inside.

Originally Posted by meanwhile View Post
But you don't in any meaningful sense, unless you wrote every line of code running. Unless you're referring to some sort of runtime monitoring tool?
No, I am referring to knowing what you install on your NiT, and knowing where it came from. You can't be expected to know every line of code running, but you can be expected to know what you have installed, and know what level of trust you give that code.
 

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