zomo technology

Firewalls

Friday, 09. 5. 2008  –  Category: vague

Ace quote from Bruce Schneier’s book Secrets and Lies:

The first firewalls were on trains. Coal-powered trains had a large furnace in the engine room, along with a pile of coal. The engineer would shovel coal into the engine. This process created coal dust, which was highly flammable. Occasionally the coal dust would catch fire, causing an engine fire that sometimes spread into the passenger cars. Since dead passengers reduced revenue, train engines were built with iron walls right behind the engine compartment. This stopped fires from spreading into the passenger cars, but didn’t protect the engineer between the coal pile and the furnace. (There’s a lesson for sysadmins in this somewhere.)

(My emphasis)