Rational Survivability

I found the following dialog which I borrowed liberally (and slightly modified) from the script of "A Few Good Men" deliciously apropos.

Given the recent rash of status quo apologists who continue to cling to some bizarre notion that all I want to do is steal their girlfriends, call them names and separate them from their precious firewalls, I couldn’t help myself. 

Two outa three ain’t bad, I suppose.

I’ve got people putting together bitchin’ soundtracks in my honor and showing real concern that I’ve just gone off the deep end, pleading with me to revert to my prior ways before an intervention is required.

So what the hell…let’s have some fun with that concept.

In this scene, I imagine myself (I’ll be Tom Cruise) interrogating one of my firewall-fanboy antagonists (Nicholson) regarding the unnatural attachment to implementing technology rather than solving business problems right after a botched cover-up of (and if this isn’t serendipity…) a "Code Red"

Son, we live in a world that has firewalls, and those firewalls have to be configured by men with  policy editors, bad attitudes and an extensive knowledge of ACL’s.  Who’s gonna do it? You? You Lt. Weinburg?  I have more responsibility here than you could possibly fathom.

You weep for de-perimeterization, and you curse the firewall jockies. You have that luxury.  You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the perimeter’s much greatly exaggerated death, while tragic, probably saved my ass from not patching my servers.  And that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves machines.

I know deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you don’t want me on that firewall, you need me on that firewall.

We use words like threat, vulnerability, budget. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending "something." You use them as a punchline.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very security I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it.

I prefer you said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up an IPS and weed out false positives. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you call what I do!

That pretty much sums up the situation thus far, I’d say…

You can find the original dialog here.

/Hoff
(If even one of you takes this seriously, I’ll really put some effort into annoying you…)