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Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

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Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#81

Post by [deleted] »

rsync wrote: post #53
korethr wrote: post #48

I wonder if they have any sales to large enterprises or similar institutions. In my experience, the larger organizations will have a "security" questionnaire required of their vendors, and the person administering it is a droid, incapable of evaluating whether the questions, originally written in the mid-00s and only updated for buzzword compliance since, are applicable to modern security practice today, or to the pa…

"I wonder if they have any sales to large enterprises or similar institutions." Yes, certainly. We frequently fill out very detailed checklists and questionnaires related to our quality policy, standards, internal policies, etc. We're also very honest about how we approach these issues: https://www.rsync.net/resources/regulatory/pci.html ... and they generally appreciate the honesty.

[deleted]

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#82

Post by api »

I go by the rule that if something is not secure enough to plug directly into the Internet, it is not secure. That doesn't mean I'll necessarily do that, but that should be the bar.

The only exception is special purpose backplane networks that are designed explicitly to be isolated. These are basically data busses for clusters, not user-facing networks.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#83

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

Alupis wrote: post #57
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux just isn't plug and play enough yet to make the switch less painful than dealing with the pain-points created by anti-consumer practices by Apple and Microsoft on MacOS and Windows, even for technically literate people. I made the switch a year ago after having reached my breaking point with Windows and it still was a massive pain and daily loss of performance. For comparison, I also rooted my Android phone and…

Fair criticisms. We're still waiting for the fabled "year of the linux desktop". Although, I feel the specific issues you raise are less of a problem on a desktop-focused distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Those distros really focus on a complete desktop experience, and really try to never require a user to drop into a shell to get anything done. So, perhaps it's a case of people using the "wrong" distro for their nee…

I'm afraid the issues I describe have been with Ubuntu.

Here's the first line from my "linux sins" file as an example: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1151283/disable-nautilus-cac... If you copy a large file to a USB drive on either Ubuntu or Mint the progress bar goes to 100% instantly and closes and the actual transfer of the file is done in the background without the knowledge of the user. And the answer is "It's your fault, just try to eject the drive until it works."

And even beyond the OS, the whole software ecosystem is broken. It's impossible to find simple, working UIs for the most basic pieces of software, everything goes through the commandline.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#84

Post by efxhoy »

That was a nice read! Good to read about something simple after a day working with AWS and their managed magic.

Scrolling through the cert pages 2015 seems to be in the future though?

> We personally toured every single major datacenter in Hong Kong and Zurich to choose the facilities that best met our old-fashioned standards for datacenter and telco infrastructure. The same will be true of our upcoming Montreal location in Q4, 2015. https://www.rsync.net/resources/regulatory/sas70.html

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#85

Post by NortySpock »

Alupis wrote: post #52
rsync wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. It's why a hackintosh has never appealed to me. However, in this case , the tweak I needed to do to the mac pro was so trivial as to be (essentially) cost-free. No need to alter the installer, etc. It pleases me to be (re)using this machine for over 12 years now - especially given what a triumph of workstation design these mac pros were ...

My last personal desktop was about 11 years old when I retired it. It had an AMD Phenom II 965, just to emphasize it's age. It started life with Windows 7 (Win7 was like a month old at the time) and was subsequently upgraded to Windows 8, then Windows 8.1, then finally Windows 10 (and all it's "feature" updates) until it was retired. It ran slower than a new system, but fit my needs perfectly. If Microsoft had arbitr…

Hah, I am still occasionally using my AMD Phenom II 955 as an occasional gaming PC... I admit it now is powered off more than half the time.

Anyways, similar story: I'm not about to put up with Microsoft telling me my machine is too old to us; that just promotes e-waste.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#86

Post by dr-smooth »

vel0city wrote: post #73
korethr wrote: post #48

I wonder if they have any sales to large enterprises or similar institutions. In my experience, the larger organizations will have a "security" questionnaire required of their vendors, and the person administering it is a droid, incapable of evaluating whether the questions, originally written in the mid-00s and only updated for buzzword compliance since, are applicable to modern security practice today, or to the pa…

Cloudflare not using any firewalls seems like a strange concept, considering they literally sell firewall-as-a-service. https://www.cloudflare.com/waf/

A WAF is not the same thing as a general-purpose firewall. Think of it as a web proxy with filtering capabilities.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#87

Post by toast0 »

iso1631 wrote: post #74
sideshowmel wrote: post #39

Don't know if running a dumb switch connected to your ISP is the best infosec policy: https://blogs.cisco.com/manufacturing/the-top-5-reasons-to-a...

The only "security risk" i see there is number 1, and that is all to do with physical security. > Disadvantage #1 – Open ports on unmanaged switches are a security risk Why? Is there something that would prevent an attacker with physical access from unplugging an existing cable? Does the average managed switch config have mac limits and auto shutdown if a link is lost for just a few seconds? Mac limits are easilly by…

802.1x is trivially proxied anyway, unless you don't reconnect when the link is lost. So an attacker with physical access is going to be able to inspect your packets regardless.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#88

Post by Alupis »

gambiting wrote: post #71
Alupis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it was easy for you to modify your OS to continue updating, or you downloaded some ISO of Catalina someone else pre-hacked for you - but it was certainly a non-trivial effort for whoever figured out how to trick the OS into installing and/or updating. It just seems like wasted effort, since the company all this supports really has made it clear they do not want you to have this ability, and can at any moment ma…

So I don't agree, and I will use the car analogy again - old cars are not "supported" in any way and yet many people keep them going. There's serious engineering effort to make the parts, to write new software, to improve existing firmware etc. By your logic, that's also "wasted" effort since the manufacturer chooses to abandon cars after just few years, so why would you keep them going. I feel the same way about com…

The difference there is you're not violating some TOS or EULA by replacing parts on your classic car, and when you change your oil (do OS updates) there's no chance of suddenly your transmission refusing to allow you to shift gears until you perform more heroics and disable the artificial limitations.

Very few non-classic and/or popular cars receive massive aftermarket support for all parts - often the aftermarket supports parts that are in common with a lot of vehicles or are vehicle-agnostic (such as belts, etc), and in some cases you're plain SOL (try replacing an airbag on a 1993 Dodge Caravan, for example - all you can find are OEM used ones pulled from junkers).

I think your comparison would be more apt if, say, Ford disabled all vehicles that were 10 years + 1 day old. While Apple isn't disabling your OS, they leave you exposed without security patches, etc... - making it approximately the same.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#89

Post by lima »

vel0city wrote: post #73
korethr wrote: post #48

I wonder if they have any sales to large enterprises or similar institutions. In my experience, the larger organizations will have a "security" questionnaire required of their vendors, and the person administering it is a droid, incapable of evaluating whether the questions, originally written in the mid-00s and only updated for buzzword compliance since, are applicable to modern security practice today, or to the pa…

Cloudflare not using any firewalls seems like a strange concept, considering they literally sell firewall-as-a-service. https://www.cloudflare.com/waf/

What would they need a firewall for? They have full control over the entire environment. They can (and should) just filter host-side.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#90

Post by [deleted] »

deadlyllama wrote: post #75
korethr wrote: post #48

I wonder if they have any sales to large enterprises or similar institutions. In my experience, the larger organizations will have a "security" questionnaire required of their vendors, and the person administering it is a droid, incapable of evaluating whether the questions, originally written in the mid-00s and only updated for buzzword compliance since, are applicable to modern security practice today, or to the pa…

I used to (late 2000s) work for a tiny, tiny company that was courting a customer in the mobile banking space. They wanted us to tick boxes. So we bought a box (some sort of Fortinet) that said it was a firewall and IDS. Plugged it in, used it as our new router. "Cost of doing business." Could we have argued with them during the sales process? Only if we wanted to lose the sale. The Fortinet was cheap compared to the…

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