Why advocating Linux can be an up hill battle...

[Hewitt Tech]

The problem is that when you have a bunch of workstations and a server you
can pretty much count on at least one machine being behind on patches.
Remember that most of these clients have between little and no on-site
expertise. One of the first things I do for a client is bring all their
systems up to current patch levels but even so there are vulnerabilities
announced at least once a week. It's a much better idea to hide the machines
behind a firewall. If a system is visible, it's targetable.

-Alex

P.S. Of course once someone gets a trojan installed on their system, all
bets are off. I've found out the hard way that even if your machine is kept
current with the latest patches, someone else can open an email attachment
and create problems for all the other folks sitting behind the firewall.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Travis Roy" <travis at scootz.net>
To: "Hewitt Tech" <hewitt_tech at attbi.com>; <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 3:26 PM
Subject: RE: Why advocating Linux can be an up hill battle...


> The Linux router was pulled and these
> "professionals" decided that they should just plug the DSL modem directly
> into a 16 port hub!

Just wondering.. Why is this so bad? If a person is up on their patches they
should be mostly fine. Before all this broadband most people were dirrectly
connected to their internet. Sure it was on a dialup but they had an IP and
it's not like an exploit is bandwidth intensive. Now everybody seems to
totally freak out when they're not behind some kind of "broadband router" or
"personal firewall". Even now, most people with DSL or cable modems, unless
they have more then one computer, are connected right to the device.

BTW, this is how my DSL modem is hooked up to my many computers.