[aclug-L] Re: Denied connections

[Ironrose <amccadden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

We talked about having a discussion on Personal Encryption, but I don't
remember it ever being done.

As far as the people at work, I am the only female in my area, and some
of the guys think that because I am a female that I couldn't possibly
understand what is going on with computers in the first place.  They
seem to be surprized that I even spend a lot of my personal time reading
and talking with others about the topic of OS, networking, and servers. 
They are shocked to find out that I have 4 Linux computers running 24/7
in my house.  Right now 3 of the 4 are running multiple sessions of
Seti.  My Seti co-workers realize now that my Linux computers are
creating the sessions faster than what their Microsoft computers are. 
(I remind them every chance that I can that Linux is VERY efficent.) 
Some of them have tried to install Linux and haven't succeeded for one
reason or another and gave up.  I have informed them of the Install
sessions that you do and we have done some Linux installs with my
software at work...until the manager found out and suggested that we do
this on our own time instead of company time.

My co-workers have big enough egos to where nothing I say will change
their minds about networking and security.  I have talked to them about
writing programs and shell scripts, but they continue to think that I
couldn't possibly understand as much as what they know about network
security (M$'s version).  Some day their opinions may change, but not in
the near future.  In the mean time I will continue to read all that I
can and learn from others in the ACLUG group.  ~Ironrose
> 
> On Sunday 26 August 2001 18:40, you wrote:
> > Greg House wrote:
> > Maybe we should have SSH for a topic and how to use it one of the ACLUG
> > meetings.
> 
> Could be interesting. Perhaps a wider topic of personal encryption would also
> be good (did you guys do that one awhile back? PGP, etc?)
> 
> > My Micorosoft friends are always telling me how INSECURE
> > Linux is and that Linux computers are so easy to hack into.  (I wonder
> > how they think they know that, have they tried?)
> 
> Sounds like the standard FUD to me. If Windows was so secure, why did Code
> Red cause such a mess? [Yeah, I know, it was a RESOLVED problem before it was
> exploited, so the answer is that M$ administrators don't know how to keep up
> with the important security patches...even the M$ administrators at M$ owned
> services like Hotmail, who got infected too...]
> 
> > I need more amunition to argue with them.
> 
> Go check out the Bugtraq list (securityfocus.org). You'll find thousands of
> unresolved vulnerabilites with WinNT/2000, maybe a few hundred for Linux
> (which distribution?), with 99% of them already having patches available for
> free download.
> 
> Some people make the argument that an "out of the box" Linux system (RedHat?)
> is less secure because it installs and starts a lot of services by default.
> So if you don't go trim back the stuff you don't use, it's there. But that
> can be pretty easily eliminated if you pick what packages you want installed.
> If you don't want telnet running, hey, don't install the telnet-server
> package (or don't start it). I guess the argument has some validity
> 
> > Right now, I just try to leave them alone.
> 
> Probably the best approach. Frankly, anyone who'd argue that Microsoft
> produces anything even remotely secure is probably blind enough to the truth
> that an intelligent argument on the topic would be difficult. If you really
> want to learn about hacking, security, etc, there are lots of books out
> there.
> 
> I'm sure someone more familiar with this stuff could recommend the best ones,
> but I've looked over Hacking Linux Exposed and it seems pretty interesting.
> The regular Hacking Exposed talks about a lot of M$ vulnerabilities. I looked
> at Maximum Linux Security awhile back and it seemed pretty interesting too. I
> don't claim to be an expert, my machine's probably more insecure then most,
> but it's only connected for short periods of time over a slow modem
> connection. It's a p.o.c. anyway (half broken, old hardware) so I don't know
> why anyone would be interested in crackin it to start with.
> 
> Greg
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