Re: nobody stuff
daedalus (daedalus@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au)
Fri, 31 May 1996 09:40:19 +1000 (EST)
I would like to congratulate Ryen Shelswell on his latest post on
this topic, and add my voice to his supporting what I _thought_ ProgSoc
was all about. All this high moral ground stuff about protecting the
security of systems is all very well, but it sounds too much like ITD for
my liking.
I was under the impression that ProgSoc was for people who have an
interest in computers and want to play around with them more than is
permitted or perhaps even possible on such systems as acacia, and to learn
more about the nitty gritty and obscure bits that aren't taught in
standard university subjects.
I support the maintaining of security on ProgSoc systems, and I
agree that cracking is to be discouraged. Hacking is a different matter.
If there _was_ a security hole here, I would like to know what it _was_
(note the emphasis of past tense) for the following reasons:
a) Pure interest value. I like learning esoteric stuff about
sysadmin/unix/anything.I.thought.was.ProgSoccy.
b) Maybe, just maybe, I might one day end up as a sysadmin on a
system with similar problems to the one here. I would prefer to learn from
the experience of others who have previously encountered this problem so
that I don't have to re-invent the wheel every time there is a security
flaw.
Learning about a security flaw that _used_ to be here is of use.
Even knowledge about existing flaws is good, provided such knowledge is
passed on to those who maintain the system so they can fix the problem.
Does anyone seriously object to the teaching of others? Does anyone
seriously object to learning about computers? If so, is this the ProgSoc I
joined, or is it some other doppelganger masquerading as ProgSoc.
Finally, I remember some brief mention of 'reducing the size of
ProgSoc' or some-such. ! Pardon? Reduce ProgSoc? Why? How? Do such people
wish to create an 'elitist' ProgSoc where only those who already know the
answers are permitted to speak, and those of us who admit our mortality
must learn the hard way as did the old masters by learning assembler and
hacking the SunOS kernel?
Pardon my extremistness there, but such talk alarms me. I always
wanted to belong to a ProgSoc which encouraged its members to learn and
enjoy _all_ that is computing, not just the titbits thrown to us by
overzealous sysadmins of larger systems.
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daedalus
director - eigenmagic
daedalus@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~daedalus
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't
mean they're not after you...
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