[dfc]

This is a little myopic but understandable in the context of a discussion on HN. Infosec is hard, but it is just one example of a bigger truth:

Defense is hard.

This comes up time and time again in any defensive discipline:

  Over two decades the  CIA had learned again and again that it  could not hope to
  defend against  terrorists by relying solely  on its ability to  detect specific
  attacks in  advance. No matter how many  warnings they picked up,  no matter how
  many  terrorist cells  they disrupted,  at least  some attackers  were going  to
  get  through. Officers  in  the  CTC privately  compared  themselves  to  soccer
  goalies: They wanted to  be the best in  their league, they wanted  to record as
  many shutouts as  possible, but they knew  they were going to give  up scores to
  their  opponents. Ultimately, many  of them  believed,  the only  way to  defeat
  terrorists was to get out of the net and try to take the enemy off the field.[1]

The final sentence above highlights the one pecularity of InfoSec; you do not have any offensive capabilities.

[1]: "Ghost Wars" (Steve Coll) pg 505

[Intermernet]

This is why I think some more work into client (or active) honeypots may be beneficial. If we can get an easy to install, auto updating honeypot that fights back, we may have a better offensive capability.

This may just end, like nuclear warfare, in MAD... But it would be great fun to watch!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_honeypot

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=YQmWtsqlvfMC&dq=active+h...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction