Re: Caddx NX-8E - RS232 ASCII Codes

["Robert L Bass" <robertlbass@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> OS's should not depend on the obscurity factor, but
> alarm panel makers products different: They are not connected to the
> internet 24x7 - yet.

That "yet" is getting smaller by the minute.  The largest manufacturer of
security systems in the US and probably the world is Honeywell.  Their
popular Ademco Vista line just got a new addition which will shortly* become
standard on all their panels.  The Vista-20PI ("I" as in "Internet) will
support programming and reporting over the 'Net.  Every other manufacturer
that wants to remain competitive is or soon will be developing panels with
the same capabilities.

This is the way things are going -- not something that "might happen some
day".

> There's been a mass exodus of engineering plans
> of all kinds from the net after 9/11 because those
> in charge decided it gave terrorists too much of a
> leg up on doing bad things...

I doubt Bin Laden is going to try to hack your home alarm system any time
soon.  If he wants you he'll send some idiot kid with 20 pounds of C4
strapped to his chest.

> I would have preferred if we had kept learning how
> to fly a jet a little [more] obscure than it was...

Anyone can fly a jet.  Mr. Olson claims to have snap-rolled a 737 at 5000
feet.  It's easy to take off in a jet airliner.  They're not hard to fly at
all.  The landing is where it gets tricky but terrorists don't seem to mind.

> After WWII the Russians didn't want the physical atom
> bomb nearly as much as they wanted the bomb *plans.*

Plans for construction of a nuclear device are readily available online --
further proof that security through obscurity is a myth.  You find ways to
detect and locate those who are building one and then make a loud noise in
their immediate vicinity.  :^)

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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