RE: Limiting Client Access - Rant!

John...while I might quibble with some of your points, I agree resource
access control and the management of it is hard to do (on any machine...).
Vendors get it screwed up on all machines. I used to see it all the time
during my 12 years of UNIX system adminstration and applications
support/development.

But you missed my point...I didn't argue that resource access control was
easy. I said it was required.

My point was that if you don't have resource access control correct, adding
an exit point product doesn't fix the problem either. Neither did I say
exit point programs were irrelevant.

The way to control who can get to your mission critical data starts with
resource access control. It is a necessary condition. It is arguable
whether it is sufficient or not. But you must satisfy this condition, or
you don't have reliable access control. IBM has preached that for years;
even when green screen was dominant.

Lets say I was a prison warden, and I installed a vendor product to open
and shut doors. Then I found out it didn't work unless it left the doors
unlocked. Is it just the vendor's fault? Or am I at least partly to blame
for installing something that affected security but I didn't know it?

By the way, I still think it is easier to get resource access control right
on OS/400 than on other platforms. And IBMis working on some of things you
complained about which we actually control.

Patrick Botz