Subject: The wheel reinvention mystery

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:52:41 +0300

A recent argument in Hamakor prompted me to consider the general
question why would people sometimes prefer not to reinvent the wheel,
and why would they be enthusiastic about reinventing the wheel.

http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/63135.html

                              --- Omer (aka The Captions Troll)
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---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 02:06:08 +0300

> http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/63135.html

I posted my opinion on your post in your blog (under the heading "you're
a bit confused" :-) ).

Unlike you, the same Hamakor thread prompted me to ponder on a different
topic - one that I raised on this list a few months ago. This is the question
of how come every time that somebody uses "security" as a reason for some
action (or inaction), people immediately take this as an acceptable
explanation, even if it completely unfounded.

Also, people also tend about security as a binary thing, either there is
"security" or there is "no security", and obviously "security" is better
than "no security". In reality security is a broad spectrum, and there is
*always* a tradeoff betwen more security at the cost of more money / less
functionality / less convenience.

In my previous post on the subject I gave a few real-world examples of
people's awe and blind acceptance at the face of "security excuses".
Your post is unfortunately another example - where you blindly accept
from the "security" as a good excuse from the "first volunteer", for why we
should accept the system he designed, even if it doesn't do what we need
it to do.

Recently, I saw two more real-world examples of this phenomenon:

1. The interview system for the US visas. (only people who've been through
   this ordeal will understand what I mean).

   They tell you they are doing this because of "9/11". Really? Then why
   are all the questions aimed at catching people planning to illegally
   *work* (not bomb) in the US? Why do people in countries (e.g., Europe)
   from where illegal immigrants do not often come, but bombers *do* and
   *have* come, are exempt from these visa requirements?
   Does the excuse of "security" really explain why the US embassy treats
   in such an inexcusable inhumane manner all applicants, sending them on
   wild goose chases of Internet sites, filling forms, collecting documents,
   post office branches, payments of various kinds (some you can ONLY do in
   cash, some you can ONLY do in credit cards), standing in lines for
   hours upon hours?

2. A certain office building in Tel-Aviv requires everyone entering to pass
   through two metal detectors *and* give their driver license at the
   reception. They *say* this promotes security. But does it? Would a
   terrorist (or lowly thief) have a really hard time giving the busy
   receptionist a fake or stolen id? In a building where you can park your
   car bomb below, would a terrorist really try to bring metal with him
   to the lobby?

   Instead, what happens is that getting into this building is a real
   nuicence, often taking many minutes. Not to mention that giving some
   unknown receptionist my driver license is a *security risk* for me -
   who know what this receptionist can do with it, or what kind of
   simple "social engineering" can be used to get him to give over my id
   to a thief?

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Friday, Sep 22 2006, 29 Elul 5766
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Someone offered you a cute little quote
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |for your signature? JUST SAY NO!

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:21:53 -0700

> should accept the system he designed, even if it doesn't do what we need

I'd say that some of the time it's used as an excuse, some of the time
to create the allusion of security, and the rest of the time it's just
because most people don't really understand security.

An example for the first is airliners requiring an ID to board a
plane. The airliners want to prevent the ticket resale market so they
jumped on the Sept. 11th bandwagon and enforce security checks.

An example for the second is the TSA, which checks are so useless a
researcher managed to get all the components of a bomb aboard an
airplane and assemble it in 15 minutes in the toilets. Twice. They
just search for the wrong things. A few days after Sept. 11th I flew
back from the US to Israel. The guy was going through my luggage and I
asked him, what are you looking for? He told me that they just told
him to browse through people's bag, and he got zero instructions on
what to look for. It does look very elaborate, though.

And an example of the 3rd is the check in to buildings where you have
to sign your name. Absolutely no incentive for me to sign my real
name. Sometime they check your ID and then allow you to sign in...
yourself... and they don't verify that the name you signed in with is
the actual name on your ID.

Yet in the right context you can claim that X is more secure than Y.
There are many assumptions involved, and all in all, there are things
that, all else being equal, are more secure.

-- Arik

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From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 07:51:24 +0300

Apparently passions about the story are still hot around the nonprofit
in question.  Anyway, I duly notice the diversion (change of topic) in
the discussion - from discussion of wheel reinvention vs. NIH to
management of security.

I am cross-posting this also to [email-masked], because the
altered topic is more appropriate to Hamakor discussions than to the
general philosophical atmosphere of Hackers-IL.

> explanation, even if it completely unfounded.

While I agree that the "S" word is frequently abused.  We have been
experiencing it a lot in Israel, where political censorship, corruption
and environmental damage (TAASH in Hod Hasharon area, for example) were
hidden behind the veil of "Security".

However, in this specific case, I believe that nonstandard configuration
by knowledgeable people does promote security.  The problem seems to be
the failure to take the complementary step of documenting the changes in
the system and ensuring that it is easy for someone else to pick up the
reins.  (Think of what would happen if the first sysadmin were hit by a
bus.)

> functionality / less convenience.

Yes.  Please tell us what is your threat model and how (in your opinion)
should Hamakor deal with each threat.
A quick and dirty threat model is as follows:

1. Membership information - should be guarded (even if a single person's
ID can be easily obtained by other means, we do not want to release the
IDs of 100 people, about 50% of them are successful).
2. Financial accounting - can be viewed, must not be tampered with.
3. Web site - not to be defaced.
4. Wiki - occassional defacing is acceptable (everyone knows that wikis
are not as protected) but must be easy to detect and recover from
defacing.
5. Mailing lists - must not be a vector for spam.
6. Worms and trojan horses - must at least be easy to detect and
disinfect.
                             --- The Captions Troll
-- 
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soundtracks, professional photography and expert editing.
My own blog is at http://tddpirate.livejournal.com/

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:09:58 +0300

> general philosophical atmosphere of Hackers-IL.

Are you looking for abuse? Posting on a heated subject, and in English, on
the Hamakor list? I'm not joining your game, and returning this to hackers-il.

> should Hamakor deal with each threat.

You (and the "first sysadmin" in question) is acting like Hamakor's site
is some sort of unique site that needs unique protection. In fact, it and
your "threat list" is hardly unique. The threats you list are the same for
*every* web site: almost every web site wants not to be defaced, contains a
bit of personal data, does not want to be taken over by spammers, and so on.
So every "linux distribution", which already cater to web site builders,
already take these threats seriously. They already have timely and automatic
security updates, firewall, secure defaults, system-call firewall (i.e,
"selinux"), rootkit and change detection, stack-smashing-protection and many
other things.

Indeed, you may argue that these measures protect against the "typical"
threats, and may not protect against extremely dedicated and clever attackers
with zero-day attacks up their sleeve. So what - are you expecting any of
those to target Hamakor's site? If these attacks come on Hamakor ever, say,
10 years, what kind of functionality/cost/convenience cost are you agreeing
to incur in order to reduce their frequency to once every 20 years? (yes,
this is what the security/functionality tradeoff looks like).

Anyway, it appears you completely missed my most important point: perhaps
*some* of this sysadmin's actions are (somehow) justified by security.
But he hung *every* one of his actions on security, and you believe him
implicitly just because of the word "security".
For example, he refused to install Perl on the machine, stating that one
interpreter (PHP) is enough, and having another one will open more holes.
Really - do you seriously believe that? Perhaps one specific worm that depends
on Perl will fail on a machine without Perl, but do you seriously believe
that this will hinder a serious attacker for more than 5 minutes? How hard
is it for an attacker to install Perl himself, if he wants Perl *that* much?

And this "Perl" thing is just an example. It just goes to show you how easy
it is for people (like you) do defend bizarre actions just because they were
done in the name of "security" or have a weak smell of "security" in them.

> IDs of 100 people, about 50% of them are successful).

Most web sites in fact contain MUCH MORE sensitive data than Hamakor's
membership list (which only lists 200 people and does not contain any
financial information, credit card numbers, or anything even a bit interesting
to crackers). The fact you're getting overworked by a "list of ids" is very
strange, considering how you can find these ids everywhere: go to any
university and see id lists hanging on the wall or used as computer user ids,
for example. Lists (originally created for use in elections) of millions of
Israeli citizens, their personal details and ids, are floating around with
every criminal being able to get them.. Office buildings (like the one I
mentioned) already take the physical id cards of thousands of "successful"
(as you call them) people who come to the building, and can do with them
much more than just copying the id numbers.

> 2. Financial accounting - can be viewed, must not be tampered with.

These have no business being on the Internet site, and never were on the site.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Friday, Sep 22 2006, 29 Elul 5766
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Seen on the back of a dump truck:
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |<---PASSING SIDE . . . . . SUICIDE--->