[Info-vax] VSI OpenVMS Hobbyist Program Announced.

[Simon Clubley]

On 2019-06-17, Hans Bachner <hans at bachner.priv.at> wrote:
>
> I wonder why DECnet has been completely omitted. For many/most hobbyists 
> it's probably relevant.
>

If you are teaching students, why waste time teaching them about an
obsolete product ?

DECnet is something that should never appear on any new VMS systems
(in the same way as SSH is used for user logins in production sites
in the TCP/IP world instead of telnet) and ideally should be removed
from existing user sites as and when the opportunity arises.

Just because something was acceptable 10-20 years ago in terms of security
in production use does not mean it is an acceptable standard these days
(which is why telnet has now been banned in many sites in favour of SSH).

If VSI are teaching students about DECnet, I hope they are teaching
them about all its security flaws (by today's standards) and limitations.

To any students reading this, the major flaw in native DECnet Phase IV
is that it assumes the underlying physical network is trusted.

You can run the stack on top of things like IPsec (if both sides support
that) but DECnet Phase IV by itself is hopeless these days when it comes
to security. For example, you have nothing like SSH or encrypted file
transfers built into the DECnet Phase IV stack itself.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world