I shall suppose, therefore, that there is, not a true God, who is the
sovereign source of truth, but some evil demon, no less cunning
and deceiving than powerful, who has used all his artifice to
deceive me. I will suppose that the heavens, the air, the earth,
colors, shapes, sounds and all external things that we see, are only
illusions and deceptions which he uses to take me in. I will consider
myself as having no hands, eyes, flesh, blood or senses, but
as believing wrongly that I have all these things.”
—Rene Descartes, First Meditation
About The Things We May Doubt

I shall suppose, therefore, that there is, not a true Network, which
is the sovereign source of trust, but some Evil Daemon, no less
cunning and deceiving than powerful, which has deployed all of its
protocol knowledge to deceive me. I will suppose that the switches,
the admins, the users, headers, commands, responses and all
friendly networked communications that we receive, are only illusory
identities which it uses to take me in. I will consider myself as
having no source addresses, obfuscated protocols, trusted third
parties, operational client code, nor established state, but as
believing wrongly that I have all such credentials.
—Dan “Effugas” Kaminsky

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ January 28, 2002 1:08 pm