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Comment by PlayingPossum | Hacker News Reader

I mean, if you install your server and open it to the internet without securing it with a FW, what would you expect to happen?

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Who said anything about servers? This mostly affects consumer devices. If this was a windows installation, I'm not sure the same "skill issue" argument would be popping up. A normal person just installs their OS and uses it. They don't know the intricacies of CUPS, the implications of using 0.0.0.0 or how to set up a firewall in a way that would prevent this from happening. Hell, even tons of people on HN make the mistake of just checking their TCP ports when discussing this issue (when it's UDP), or don't check for the right cups package. So imagine everyone else?

Depends what you mean by "expect":

1. To predict or believe that something will happen

I expect it to get hacked because it's written in C.

2. To consider obligatory or required.

I expect servers to be secure!

Exactly, and I think you'd expect the people managing those servers to be experts and do their job. That's the whole point of what I wrote.

Seriously, and I mean this in the most non-aggressive way: Grow up.

Seriously, anyone who disagrees with that ends up with even bigger problems, like getting hit by ransomware. You, not some developer or Linus Torvalds or anyone else, are responsible for your client and your data. If you put your server on the internet without securing it properly, you deserve to get owned. Your negligence ends up hurting other people.

Is that so hard to understand? You have to take security seriously. My point is that a firewall is the bare minimum you should be thinking about when setting up your server.

The issue is when people don't realize that CUPS is installed either because it happened by default or was accidentally brought in through some other transitive dependency. Ubuntu is especially vulnerable to dependency smuggling like that because recommended packages are installed by default.

Don't blame or anger at people for not knowing their stacks entirely. There's so much to keep track of that it's totally understandable that something like this can fall through the cracks.

That's the point - you don't need to know your stack. You don't need to worry if CUPS is installed, enabled, or listening on your interface. You don't need any of that, as long as you do the bare minimum and configure your firewall.

That's the whole point!!!

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