[3681] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Is a serial cable as good as thin air?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Motyka)
Tue Dec 1 16:19:58 1998
Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 10:32:37 -0800
From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka@lsil.com>
Reply-To: mmotyka@lsil.com
To: cryptography@c2.net
Arnold G. Reinhold wrote:
>
> I am uncomfortable with the tone of this thread. There is nowhere near
> enough information provided in Mr. Georgoudis' posting to conclude that
> hisbank's existing floppy disk transfer scheme is secure, much less render
> an opinion on the impact of a serial connection.
>
Is each diskette examined before it is read in and cleaned before it is
reused using an isolated system? I've seen sneakernet get pretty sloppy.
Simple viruses can be spread rather quickly. Data that should have been
erased can be left on tmp disks for months.
The security of the "air-wall" could well be illusory. Especially with a
little insider help in getting the infections and the subsequent two way
"wireless" conversation going. Mix a few writes with the reads on the
internal system, have the external system forward incoming packets and
check for "outgoing packets"...could be a fun project.
