Why is port 22 open by default?

[Daniela]

On Wednesday 07 May 2003 20:03, Brad Lisoweski wrote:
> Would you rather have telnet open?
>
> IMHO, SSH is secure, and is fine to be open by default.  If you are
> paranoid, compile ipfilter or ipfw into your kernel and block access to
> port 22.

Thanks for your reply.

I run a shell server, so I need SSH. 
I'm still relatively new to all this, so I figured if it is open by default, 
it must be secure.
Before I thought that easily exploitable holes are regularly discovered in 
SSH.

Daniela