Arpa Network Working Group                             Bob Metcalfe (PARC-MAXC)Request for Comments: 602                                              Dec 1973NIC #21021           "The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care"The ARPA Computer Network is susceptible to security violations for at leastthe three following reasons:(1)  Individual sites, used to physical limitations on machine access, have     not yet taken sufficient PRecautions toward securing their systems     against unauthorized remote use.  For example, many people still use     passWords which are easy to guess:  their fist names, their initials,     their host name spelled backwards, a string of characters which are     easy to type in sequence (e.g. ZXCVBNM).(2)  The Tip allows access to the ARPANET to a mUCh wider audience than     is thought or intended.  TIP phone numbers are posted, like those     scribbled hastily on the walls of phone booths and men's rooms.  The     TIP required no user identification before giving service.  Thus,     many people, including those who used to spend their time ripping off     Ma Bell, get access to our stockings in a most anonymous way.(3)  There is lingering affection for the challenge of breaking     someone's system.  This affection lingers despite the fact that     everyone knows that it's easy to break systems, even easier to     crash them.All of this would be quite humorous and cause for raucous eyewinking and elbow nudging, if it weren't for the fact that inrecent weeks at least two major serving hosts were crashedunder suspicious circumstances by people who knew what theywere riSKINg; on yet a third system, the system wheel passwordwas compromised -- by two high school students in Los Angelesno less.We suspect that the number of dangerous security violations islarger than any of us know is growing.  You are advisednot to sit "in hope that Saint Nicholas would soon be there".RMV:rmv