On Mon, 2011-10-17 at 13:16 -0700, Joe Zeff wrote: > Back when I did tech support for an ISP, I used to tell callers that > having a dynamic IP address made their computer more secure, > especially on dial-up. Why? Well, even if somebody managed to get > into their computer they'd never be able to find it again once the > owner had logged off the net because next time they'd have a different > IP. Then you lied to them. If you get hacked once, once was enough. It isn't necessary to be hacked again. And an attack over IP can be purely random. I'll give you a case in point. A friend of mine called me to say he was installing XP, would I like to have a look. So I went, and watched him get infected four seconds after connecting to his ISP, and was unable to remove the infection (Windows wouldn't let his anti-virus software change the file that Windows let the malware change). So, he formatted and re-installed, and was infected again, and again just a few seconds after logging onto his ISP, the next time. Again he had to wipe and reinstall to get rid of it. And I can't remember if he got three infections in a row, but he certainly did get re-infected at later time. Having a dynamic IP didn't help him in the slightest. It was an un-targeted attack at his entire ISP. And doesn't help the next person that was a target. But taking steps that actually *are* security steps, do make a difference. Fooling around with dumb things that aren't security steps do not help. There are a lot of myths about security, and it's astounding how people keep perpetuating them, even when it's explained to them to the contrary. > Yes, I knew about rootkits back then, but it was a case of KISS. A case of over-simplifying things to the point that you pass on useless and incorrect information. - Trust me, you're safe. - Why do I need to trust you? - Because I'm not being honest with you. > Hell, I can also remember assuring callers that email viruses were > impossible right up until the day the first one hit. A rather telling tale. Are you going to continue to argue that other things are true/untrue, despite demonstrations to the contrary, until it hits you in the face? -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
