Re: Security Alert -- massive flood against UPD port 1434 (UPDATE)

[the_omega_man@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Sat, 25 Jan 2003 23:39:49 -0800 Frank Fleisher wrote:

>Perhaps no such enforcement is necessary because every worm outbreak 
>forces people to secure their servers anyway.  So it's a moot point.


And with such statements do the statists always end.  They look only and always at single, concrete, out-of-context, range-of-the-moment issues, never at basic principles or ultimate consequences.  And they think that their issues-of-the-moment ("My ISP's server went down!", "We need prescription drugs!", ...) are the "point".

Here is the real point:  the internet, like all useful things, was produced by creative, productive men - by the minds of men.  And every threat made toward those minds, every threat of fine and its inevitable corallary, the use of physical force, causes those minds to wonder whether they'll be able to continue to use their creative power, or whether that power will be regulated to the point that they are unable to make decisions any more, to the point that it is not they who make decisions, but government.

And when creative, productive men become convinced that they can no longer exercise their own judgement, their own power, they will stop producing.  

You think that I overstate my case?  Look at the old East Germany or the former Soviet Union - those formerly gray, bland, starving, diseased places where great talent was wasted by suppression of its freedom.  I do not overstate my case.  Men will not produce at the point of a gun.  You cannot coerce men into creativity.

The choice is not between an internet free of inconveniences and an internet with inconveniences.  No.  The choice is between an internet with inconveniences, a life with inconveniences, or no internet, no life, at all.


Rock Thrower



>
>Saturday, January 25, 2003, 7:29:18 PM, you wrote:
>
>
>
>thc> Or maybe idiots who propose government intervention into every 
>aspect of life should have to live in a place where there is such 
>intervention.  
>
>
>thc> OM
>
>
>
>thc> On Sat, 25 Jan 2003 14:35:43 -0800 Ray Gurke <ray@xxxxxxxxx> 
>wrote:
>>>...or maybe companies that consistently produce software that 
>is 
>>>prone to,
>>>and rife with, security flaws should be whacked on the knob with 
>
>>>a rubber
>>>chicken...
>>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: "Frank Fleisher" <r6_5fpen8@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>To: <Omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 11:18 AM
>>>Subject: Re[2]: Security Alert -- massive flood against UPD port 
>
>>>1434
>>>(UPDATE)
>>>
>>>
>>>> Companies should get fined for being too cheap to hire computer 
>
>>>people
>>>> able to keep their servers up to date.