[Infowarrior] - Contest: Rename The DMZ!

[Richard Forno]

One reader (Paul) responds:

"DMZ is the "worst name possible" because it misrepresents what the feature does. The "M" stands for "militarized", which pretty much universally means offensive capabilities. This has been true since at least 1940, and probably before that. A firewall DMZ has no offensive capabilities (and many of us think that is a good thing, given how easy it would be to create false positive hits with spoofed addresses). It took some actual military people to be able to point out the fact that someone in the security community used a cute-sounding name that didn't make actual sense......FWIW, I'm not suggesting I have a better name. The most accurate name I have come up with is "filtered air-gap". When I have used it, however, it has proven confusing to people who don't understand how real-world filters work (that is, most people, given our abysmal science education). Further, the acronym isn't really gonna fly."

.... Paul proposes a contest to discover either an accurate and/or catchy name to replace "DMZ" as a security term for this particular item.   Sounds like a plan to me.

What say you?      Responses will be reposted at a later date.

-- rick
infowarrior.org