Re: How Secure is the Series i, really?

have seen as400 programmers and users walked to the door with box in hand,
terminated for writing & executing code for several of the reasons Darrell
mentioned. Professionally I care less for "why", and more for how to limit
and close those doors of opportunity.
Don't be accused of the failure of imagination. Start with the idea that
people already can & do attack & penetrate all kinds of systems for
all kinds of reasons, and work from there. Stop assuming every event
is meant to harm - perhaps it's information viewed or extracted?

I think this thread would be far more productive if we looked at the
original question and defined what a "secure" iSeries looks like.
I'll start by saying it is not what gets unpacked from the shipping crate...
although IBM is to be commended for taking great steps to increase
the security of new systems.
Jim Franz

To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 9:30 AM
Subject: How Secure is the Series i, really?

Hi, all:

Ethics, shmethics. People write malware because they get something out of
it -- not rarely, a purely psychological benefit. Empowerment, revenge,
intellectual stimulation, whatever. Monetary gain may or may not be
involved.

The Series i is not targeted by malware programmers, in my not very humble
opinion, mostly because the effort required to get a certain level of
satisfaction is so much greater than it is for other platforms. First, it
is just plain harder to do. Second, even if you were to succeed your
efforts would be about invisible to the general public.

In other words, the smaller installed base is in itself an indirect
protection against attack. If everyone in the world was running a Series
i, we would have daily news bulletins about exploits against the platform.

"Claimer":  Although I do not play a therapist on TV I do indeed have a
degree in Psychology.

Darrell

Darrell A. Martin  -  630-754-2187
Manager, Computer Operations