Re: Why NOT the web? -- MIDRANGE-L

If you don't have a firewall blocking all but port web traffic to a web server, you should be taken out back and shot. If you are browsing the web from a server you should be taken out back and shot. If you are running outlook on a server, you should be taken out back and shot. If you haven't followed best-practices for locking down IIS and running (and re-running) baseline security analysis you should be taken out back and shot!

And if you're using a Windows server when you could be using an iSeries/i5 server, you should be taken out back and shot!

John Brandt Sr. wrote: Of course, the software my company has designed and developed allows a user FROM an iSeries system to take control of a Windblows machine running MSSQL server. I guess I write viruses for a living. Gosh, I can even reboot a Windblows machine FROM an iSeries command line. I don't even have to install anything on the remote machine. Pretty tricky, but it works.

When my son was getting his MCSE, the teacher said something about how secure their server was, and a student in the class said "I could reboot it right now". The teacher smiled a smirk and said "Not this one!". They had it locked down, of course, all the things you're supposed to do. In ten seconds the student had rebooted the server from his PC workstation.

The first virus I ever got "in my life" on any machine was on my XP, and it was blaster. My PC gave me a "RPC error message" that I barely had time enough to read before the machine rebooted.

My browser is Firefox, my email is Thunderbird, and if you dish up micros--- specific stuff to me that won't work, I don't care at all, and rather glee in not caring at all. I think my next machine is going to be Mac or Linux or some such.

((( Art: I read that in India, they were sacrificing chickens on the beach to coax relatives back. These might be the people that take your tech support calls. Talk about a cultural difference. )))

((( Pillai: Dislike outsourcing or not, that I think was most uncalled for. )))

Don't sweat Pillai. Just ask him how many calls our Psychic Hotlines get in a day, how many lottery tickets are sold based on (what?), how many copies of Weekly World News get sold in a day here, how much metal can you find "hanging around" in some of our finest clubs, how many of our high school grads can spell anymore here in the U.S.. :-)

- Alan