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I don't expect an overnight change of all desktops to what the US Military used to call B3 level security. And even that would not stop users from shooting themselves into the foot.

Wietse Venema

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Wietse Venema
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: January 1
Computer Scientist
Physicist
Holland
Wietse Zweitze Venema
Stop
Foot
Call
Shooting
Change
Expect
Used
Level
Even
Military
Would
Levels
Desktop
Feet
Overnight
Security
Users

More quotes by Wietse Venema

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Like all software, Qmail can survive only when it keeps up with changing requirements.
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Lack of documentation is becoming a problem for acceptance.
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One bug in an SMTP server can open up the whole machine for intrusion.
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Sure, but competition is good for the user.
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As of today, the Postfix mail transport agent has almost 50,000 lines of code, comments not included.
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The challenge with Postfix, or with any piece of software, is to update software without introducing problems.
Wietse Venema
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This will surprise some of your readers, but my primary interest is not with computer security. I am primarily interested in writing software that works as intended.
Wietse Venema
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When I write software, I know that it will fail, either due to my own mistake, or due to some other cause.
Wietse Venema
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Writing software that's safe even in the presence of bugs makes the challenge even more interesting.
Wietse Venema
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Most of the effort in the software business goes into the maintenance of code that already exists.
Wietse Venema
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In a previous life I wrote the software that controlled my physics experiments. That software had to deal with all kinds of possible failures in equipment. That is probably where I learned to rely on multiple safety nets inside and around my systems.
Wietse Venema
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Coming back to the topic of computer security, the TCP Wrapper is an example of such a safety net. I wrote it when my systems were under attack by someone who appeared to walk through walls.
Wietse Venema
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At the time the Sendmail program had a very poor reputation with respect to security, with four root vulnerabilities per year for two successive years.
Wietse Venema
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For many people my software is something that you install and forget. I like to keep it that way.
Wietse Venema
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Postfix keeps running even if one Postfix process dies Windows requires that someone restarts the service.
Wietse Venema
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My reply is: the software has no known bugs, therefore it has not been updated.
Wietse Venema
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The Postfix security model is based on keeping software simple and stupid.
Wietse Venema
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Qmail out of the box works fine, so people will want to use it regardless of licensing restrictions, even when the software does not ship with their system software.
Wietse Venema
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I was going to visit IBM for six months as a visiting scientist. Now, six months is a lot of time, so I came with a whole list of projects that I might want to work on.
Wietse Venema
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Defect-free software does not exist.
Wietse Venema