[Cialug] Courier V.everythying modem

[Scott Prader]

How is an increase in trust a form of bad security?  If the party that you
increase trust with has evil intentions, then you deserve to get owned for
not watching your back.  Dot matrix printers were/are pretty awesome in that
regard - having an instant carbon-copy for multiple records is nice, but at
an auto-shop?  I could see it being useful at a financial institution of
some sort or in an office setting, but these days everyone uses laser
printers to keep the noise level down.

As to the original USR courier modem, that thing's a classic!!  Could use it
as a door prize at a LUG meeting or something similar.  Does anyone ever do
anything like having a contest at a meeting to see who the biggest nerd/geek
is?  Something like Jeopardy or Family Fued or something similar?  I went to
a few PLUG (Phoenix LUG) meetings a number of years ago, and one of them did
just that - someone had built a buzzer system, so everyone that sat down on
both sides (nerds vs. geeks) could hit their button - of course, whoever hit
the button first got to answer (or ask!) the question.  It was great fun and
I had my gluteus maximus handed to me in the nerd department, but I excelled
with the geeks.

-Scott

On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 5:40 PM, Zachary Kotlarek <zach at kotlarek.com> wrote:

>
> On Feb 22, 2011, at 5:00 PM, Matthew Nuzum wrote:
>
> > I think it comes to a matter of trust. Some people feel like they can
> trust multi-part forms. In some cases, the illusion of security is as
> important as real security. Like those dummy blinking lights you can buy for
> your car that makes people think you have an alarm.
>
>
> If the purpose of the carbon copy forms is to convince the car dealer that
> they can't pull off a fraudulent copy, then I'd agree -- like the blinking
> light it might provide some deterrence (though like the blinking light, not
> very much against a knowledgable attacker).
>
> But if the intent it to make consumers (or the state) feel safer then the
> fake-security is worse than no security because it will cause an unjustified
> increase in trust.
>
>        Zach
>
>
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-- 
Scott Prader
Undergraduate Electrical Engineer
CARC, SSCL, AmesLUG
sprader at iastate.edu
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