The state of panic we live in.

My first post here and an issue near and dear to my heart.

The world we live in or more to the point the world we believe we live in.  I’m going to cite an example from personal experience.  For the past seven years I’ve been running shall we call an accidental test.  It’s something that every time it came across my conscious I thought, “This needs to be corrected.”  But seeing as it was not high priority and I didn’t want to incur the extra expense it has always been quickly relagated to the “when I get a chance bin.”

So what’s this about?  Well let me ask you all a direct question (since most of you are techno savy), what would happened if you put a server running, FTP, web services (IIS and php), SMTP services on the internet without firewalls or virus protection?  This server was locked down removing netBIOS, all services properly secured (running as a limited user) and relay prohibited for email forwarding without proper login.  Set on auto patch and left by it’s lone some going on seven years.  I kind of give away the answer with that last statement.  Beyond random port scans and a brute force attempts now and then absolutely nothing.  The checksums on the server are the same every quater.  Beyond normal log file creation and growth, nothing has changed about it (you might ask what the hell I’m doing with this server if nothing ever changes and it’s now seven years old suffice it to say when something is free..well yeah it’s free and I don’t care).

So after all this technogarble what does this have to do with the state of panic?  Interestingly I would assume if I polled your average techno savy person they would probably say ‘ZOMG HAX” if you left an “unprotected” machine open to the internet.  Much like the concept that if you don’t have super secure airports the terrorists will get ya.  Both are possibly true but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that if this server had actually anything of value some one with actual skills would have by this point presented me with a surprise.  Much like if you want to blow up a plane or a building, if motivated a little security is not going to stop you.

I personally hate the way modern culture is heading, pick up a kid off the play ground after he falls off the monkey bars and watch out for the pedophile law suits.  Secure your home or it will get robbed! Invade a foreign country because if left to their own resources they will attack you!  The internet is unsafe!

I have no real point to this beyond saying wake the fuck up and live in this world not the imaginary world presented to you.

I don’t have a middle finger pic, but I’m waving mine proudly as a write this.