Women in Technology

Article:		Avoiding Trojans and Rootkits
Subject:		Dubious advice, scaremongering and oversimplification
Date:		2003-03-11 06:00:55
From:		anonymous2
The criteria for choosing a firewall given in this article are dubious at best. What matters is that you know what's going on and what a firewall-product/setup does, not what feels easy and cozy. Unconditionally recommending running some free personal firewall on a windows box is irresponsible. The implication that any system that ran without _any_ sort of firewall is probably infected and systems that did are probably safe is hair-raising. You don't do anyone a favour by oversimplifying things. Try harder to educate your readers.

Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.

• Dubious advice, scaremongering and oversimplification
  2003-12-09 16:56:05  mojogeek [View]
  
  
  ...and you don't even have the cohunes to use a real username. If you read her article carefully, she is not, as you say, "unconditionally recommending running some free personal firewall." Her criteria is ROOTKITS, nothing dubious that I see.
  
  Very simply she states "If you're intimidated at the prospect of learning the syntax of ipf or ipfw, invest in an inexpensive, preconfigured hardware firewall. If you're already running a free firewall on your Windows system (and you should be), place your FreeBSD system behind it until you're ready..." The only "implication" I read here is that she is stating an obvious for any system admin running a windows box-that you SHOULD be using a firewall on it, not that you should be using a free firewall!!
  
  You don't do anyone any favour here by stating the obvious- your simple inability to read clearly. Try harder to educate yourself next time.