June 2, 2009 at 4:17 pm
don_goodman (6/2/2009)
24 million Texans are skillfully armed and there are only about 10,000 Brits in the military and police(just guessing) and they likely don't know how to shoot. The rest of the Brits will likely run away, cry foul or file a lawsuit.I'll take my chances in the Land of the Alamo.
I think the British military is much larger than 10,000 troops, and I for one would not challenge their military prowess at all. They may not have the largest military anymore, but they are extremely well trained.
😉
June 3, 2009 at 1:59 am
don_goodman (6/2/2009)
24 million Texans are skillfully armed and there are only about 10,000 Brits in the military and police(just guessing) and they likely don't know how to shoot. The rest of the Brits will likely run away, cry foul or file a lawsuit.I'll take my chances in the Land of the Alamo.
Please stop trying to claim America is better than Britain when it comes to security, we just go about it in different ways; otherwise I'll start mentioning just how many fatal shooting there are in the US compared to the UK.
As for our police and armed forces, our soldiers are at least as well trained as those in America, (the SAS anyone?), it's just that they're probably not as well equipped. Plus, we do have armed police, they're just not very common.
I'd rather criminals were armed with knives, (as over here), than guns, (in America), but if you prefer it the other way round then I respect your opinion and hope you do the same for us brits.
June 3, 2009 at 2:03 am
As for the "dummy site" idea, I'd guess that if it was a public website then there'd be some sort of disclaimer saying that anyone has permission to hack the site for educational purposes only. That should get around any country's laws.
Regarding the possibility of genuine hackers trying, why not let them? They couldn't profit from it, and if they did it for fun then all we'd need to do is restore a back-up to return to normal. Eventually I'd expect anyone like that to become bored.
June 3, 2009 at 2:22 am
This thread has drifted off-topic at times (Thanks to Paul for pulling it back), as the editorial was about reconciling the need to train one's knowledge and awareness of database security with the moral and legal problems of testing the various exploits on real databases without the owners' permission. I'm saying that we should set up, in safe DMZs, one or more community websites that show vulnerabilities, so that DBAs can practice on them and convince themselves of the paramount need for security in websites, and demonstrate these vulnerabilities to others. These demos can cut through a lot of talk and are great for convincing management. I can't believe that I'm the only DBA who has been faced by truculent application programmers who believe that I'm using the security issue to browbeat them into accepting a properly-constructed logical interface between database and application.
By arguing that it is the quickest way to demonstrate to any doubters (and they exist) the overwhelming need for making databases secure, I'm not, by any twist of logic, intending to say that it is OK to wander into other people's houses, or to illegally hack databases.
Don Goodman's Texan life seems a lot simpler than ours amidst the moral complexities of life in Europe. Click here to read of the sad and murky case of Tony Martin, who lives not far from me
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
June 3, 2009 at 11:19 am
I am in favor! Sign me up!
June 3, 2009 at 11:36 am
I read a great deal about the persecution of Tony for acting in accordance with your honorable legal history in the land of my ancestors. I was glad to read he was finally released for your modern tower.
Is it simpler in Land of the Free? Only in the sense that the shortest distance between 2 points is still a straight line. If attacked, I can defend where Poor Phil cannot. But when a boss decides to fix the blame on the DBA, there's no difference between England and Texas. The result is the same.
June 5, 2009 at 8:32 am
Having a dummy defensive position to attack, out in the public domain, is also not unlike the way
the M.o.D (UK Defence Department) carry on in Salisbury Plain. Perhaps we could use http://www.imbervillage.com
as the domain for your Ninja maneuvers, in memory of the real English village of Imber, which was invaded by Brit and American forces in 1943 to use for attack practice.
Here (by Salisbury Plain actually) we have to submit our systems to penetration testing at regular intervals when a team of government paid "hackers" try to attack our systems and provide excellent feedback for improvements.
Imber village, by the way, is open at varying times of the year - usually August and Christmas periods and worth visiting. At these times the cross-range road through the village used to save me about seven miles on the journey to work and you wouldn't meet anything but local wildlife!
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