[AusNOG] RISK - IT Industry - Concern Over Equipment Being, Installed in Data Centre Facilities - Further Replies

[Sam Silvester]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Skeeve Stevens <
skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:

> A lot of people have this idea that everything should be openly discussed
> because doing it helps us all understand the situation and we can all
> contribute and solve the problem. This is a stupid idea mostly perpetrated
> by people who is not the person actually at most risk or the most to lose.
>

I would counter with it being a ridiculous notion to hide away these
discussions, and that the the ones that want to 'keep it quiet' are
motivated by commercial or ego/vanity reasons.


> Should we openly discuss, on an archived list, with press watching. how we
> could use household goods to make explosives?
>

In detail? No, but nobody has done this either.

Conceptually (as the OP did)? Sure - why not? The concept of making
explosives from items you can source without too much effort is already
pretty well documented on the Internet, so I don't see why AusNOG is
magical in this regard and should have this as an off-topic concept.

 Although if you try to bring a pressure cooker into the data centre you
can probably expect a question or two from security on the way in.


> Or talk about how easy it is to make certain bioweapons and the different
> ways we could deploy them?
>
> Or should we perhaps talk about how easy it is to commit fraud?
>

This has come up on various NOG mailing lists - again, you're suggesting
that talking about fraud and the various vectors by which it can be carried
out is somehow harmful. I've always seen it discussed without sufficient
detail to provide a 'blueprint' (what a suggestion - you can't be
serious?!), but in detail enough that it's useful to keep others in the
industry in the loop.

Suitable forums are private industry ones with a membership criteria which
> is often gated to certain professions, peer recommendations, and so on.
>

See - here's what I was talking about earlier. Commercial or ego/vanity
come to the fore here. What on earth would 'qualify' one for this? What do
you think would reasonably disqualify one from entry? Nationality? Police
clearance? Security clearance? Criminal history? Ownership of a facility?
Customer of a facility? Technician employed by carrier servicing a facility?

Sam
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/attachments/20160928/df0f0013/attachment.html>