Saying 'No' to an Executable Internet

Dylan Knight Rogers writes "Applications are constantly being ported for usage on the Internet - either for a viable escape from expensive software, or because it's often helpful to have an app that you can access from anywhere. Operating systems that run from the Web will be a different story."

Comments

Wow! A post to your own blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a submission! This is Sunday morning on Slashdot at its finest.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[tomhudson]

http://dylanknightrogersblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/ will-executable-internet-ruin-security.html Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

So much for saying "No" to the Eecutable Internet. "They" must have gotten him.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

They sure did... his blog is gone with the wind...

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[general_re]

"They" must have gotten him.

Obviously the internet executed him.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[shmlco]

The author apparently pulled his own work out of embarassment, and understandably so. The article was a badly written opinion piece flaming Microsoft and praising Linux. Imagine that. Almost no mention of the "Executable Internet" at all.

Reading it's a waste of time, but here's the mirror for those interested.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually want to read something interesting, try The Art of Unix Programming or Forensic Discovery.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[shmookey]

In Soviet Russia, internet executes YOU!

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[MickDownUnder]

Well without being able to read the actual article, I can say it would have to be a load of bullocks as anyone with any understanding of the net would know we've said yes already. A lot of the most interesting content on the net is already delivered via embedded active-x controls embedded in the browser e.g flash, windows media player, real media player, etc etc.

It is true though that this is a security nightmare, which is why many organisations with exceptionally tight security but a need to access the net have banned these controls. Saying no isn't the only solution though...

Those who have been developing with Microsoft .NET for a few years would know all about Code Access Security which has been at the core of Microsoft's .NET Framework from beginning with the one aim in mind; to make it possible for applications to run with limited priveleges (controlled by an administrator) in a partially trusted environment such as being run from an app or control from a local intranet server or from a server on the internet.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

At first I though you were just blowing steam, but it turns out you were correct. Just another post comparing Windows and Linux. *sigh*

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[osoese]

Thanks for posting the mirror. You are right. I am much worse off for having read that. What a tease. Just a thought, but a platform independent environment just might include both Linux and Microsoft, wouldn't it? Also, an article about the Internet probably should mention it in the thesis statement... Anyway, I thought with document sharing, etc. Microsoft is taking a swing in the right direction. And, don't forget that all the Ajax hype is probably the result of an initial Microsoft introduction (XMLHTTPRequest: http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/xml httpreq.html). So, I think Microsoft is getting it partially right, even though I normally would swing towards the linux side of the fence (argument wise). Things are changing and the Open Source community has been heard. Now I think it will take some cooperation and less ranting and raving to get the 'executable' internet in motion. Although, I am not so sure we need it. The current web is getting more and more seemless as it stands.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[eno2001]

Under section 55.2502 of the anti-Soviet Russia Troll act of Slashdot (2003.05.17) I hereby charge you with the crime of conceptual reversal (Yakovism). The crime in question is described by the following language:

"Any poster who knowingly takes two concepts mentioned in the parent post or main story and reverses them in order to emulate the comic stylings of Yakov Smirnoff shall be described as Yakovism".

This charge carries a sentence of one month of being ignored by the rational members of Slashdot and downmods for the next two weeks to all posts by the offending poster. Your trial by a jury of your peers (moderators who are not on crack) is to commence post-haste after completing receipt of this message. May Taco have mercy on your Slashdot soul.

Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

That would require a

chmod a-x internet

Re:Ah, yes

[Idolatre]

mount /dev/eth0 -t internetfs -o noexec

would be safer

Re:Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

kill -9 internet

Re:Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

All I wanna do is: cat /dev/internet

and watch my computer start on fire

Re:Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

no thats
killall -9 internet

Re:Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

C:\>start "Look, I'm online!" "C:\Program Files\Accessories\Teh Intarweb.lnk"

Re:Ah, yes

[MarkRose]

You forgot a mount point... or is that defined in fstab?

Re:Ah, yes

[trivance]

that is fuuny

Re:Ah, yes

[dpilot]

/usr/bin/ld (you neglected to give the internetfs mount point)/EvilExecutable
(One reason why "noexec" isn't terribly useful.)

Re:Ah, yes

[hector1965]

I'd rather use: nice -20 internet

Re:Ah, yes

[Thomas Shaddack]

Don't bother. Just wait for Signal 11.

It won't necessarily ruin security.

[CyricZ]

Such a system won't necessarily be insecure. But its level of security will depend heavily on how it is designed and implemented.

It's no different that what we have today. Systems that aren't very well designed and poorly implemented, such as Microsoft Windows 98, are horribly insecure. On the other hand, systems with a solid design and an effective development and testing process will turn out to be very secure (ala OpenBSD).

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[MyLongNickName]

Yet another factually void message, filled with Pro-BSD, anti Microsoft garbage. How did you get Excellent karma again?

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[CyricZ]

Are you truthfully denying that OpenBSD is more secure that Microsoft Windows? I would seriously hope not.

It's important to take a look at their two development models. OpenBSD puts a massive focus on security. It's paramount to them. Their coding practices are one of the main benefits, which helps to ensure that insecure code often isn't written, and that it does't enter their source tree if it is written. Not only that, but their audits help to ensure the high quality of their code. It also helps that they audit external software that is widely used, such as Apache. Overall, proper design and a good implementation process lead to secure software.

Anyone designing a networkable operating system needs to adopt a similar development process, else risk the creation of an insecure operating system.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

filled with Pro-BSD, anti Microsoft garbage

that's exactly how.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[MyLongNickName]

Okay, let's analyze your post.

Such a system won't necessarily be insecure. But its level of security will depend heavily on how it is designed and implemented.

Wow. Security depends on the skill and proces by which it is implemented. I just crapped my pants at the insight.

It's no different that what we have today. Systems that aren't very well designed and poorly implemented, such as Microsoft Windows 98, are horribly insecure.

Okay, we reitterated... if it isn't designed well, it won't work well. I'm still impressed.

On the other hand, systems with a solid design and an effective development and testing process will turn out to be very secure (ala OpenBSD).

Okay... we have now established that if it IS designed well, it WILL work well.

Damn. I am humbled.

I watch crap like this get modded to +5 over and over. I am actually laughing right now at the fact that you are alreaddy modded up to +4.

However, all being said and done, I admire the way you get the sheep to follow... you should go into politics or religion.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Sure, other OSs, linux and BSD and what not, are a little less secure. But there's "a little less secure" and then there's "made by Microsoft".

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what exactly do you contribute to the conversation other than constantly complaining? Honestly, if you don't like this website leave and don't come back, nobody is forcing you to come here. This site would be a much better place if people like you would simply stop coming here.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Gothmolly]

Don't forget the fact that he "signed" his post with his username... in case you couldn't tell from the title of the post who had written it.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

you also can do a lot less with OpenBSD than Windows from a "things to run" perspective. Don't talk about there being thousands of open-source compilable/packages etc. unless they match up to the polish of something like, say, Photoshop.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

This site would be a much better place if people like you would simply stop coming here.

That won't happen any time soon. Ever since the addition of the Games section, a lot of Microsoft users have flooded this site. Most gamers don't give a damn about freedom or about the threats that M$ poses to computing. And why should they? Their entertainment depends on a vibrant Windows and Xbox platform.

In reality, the Microsoft users' mod points are the real problem at this site. Windows-critical posts are generally modded troll or flamebait, while Windows-friendly posts are almost always modded up. (You can spot them when they say "Why are you Slashdotters always picking on Windows!!11! *sniff*") Zonk doesn't help matters much with his numerous Xbox-pimping articles and generally corporate-friendly bias. So I guess we can just grin and bear the endless Microsoft fanboy posts, because they're pretty much here to stay.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[guet]

Congratulations - your content-free post, peppered with ersatz macho bluster and spelling errors, has been rated even higher. Does this prove your theory that crap gets rated highly?

The original point the poster made warrants discussion - he actually attempted to address the question, unlike yourself; you seem to be obsessed with the Slashdot moderation system, frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?

The design of such a system is important, and the people who brought you net send possibly aren't the ones you want to trust in creating a global network. Good design is important, and admitting that is the first step towards producing secure networks. Yes of course this is common sense if you've thought about the subject, but unfortunately most people haven't. Shame the original article is such a one-sided rant with very little factual information, because it could be an interesting discussion.

PS
I don't think anyone advocating BSD can be accused of getting 'sheep' to follow them - most of the people reading this page are using Windows to do so.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[tacocat]

Darn it.... For a second you had me thinking you actually had a point.

The problem isn't the OS, even under the best applications.

It ultimately is going to come down to a matter of giving the user the trust to run an application that they download from the internet. And the level of trust that the software accessing the internet will be able to actually identify or moderate the downloading of software for the user.

Today you have dumb people downloading bad programs all the time in forms of bots. None of them will run on my Linux machines because they aren't coded to do so. Similarly, none of my users have any kind of access sufficient that they could cause the machine to be rooted, barring any local security holes themselves. Under this construct, even with an application that is executable on Linux, the execution of that code should or could be considered secure.

Given that is the case today, I think it would suffice if the internet accessing software (ie: mozilla) would guarantee that anything written to the disk is written with a umask (default 022) to prevent anything being downloaded from being arbitrarily downloaded with executable permissions. This isn't a gaurantee but it makes the downloaded applications such that the user must consciously execute the application.

I will never consider the internet secure if there is the possibility that an arbitrary user can unwittingly download and execute application code. That's stupid.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?

Four words; signal to noise ratio. Lets cut down on the superfluous karma whoring, please, so the more interesting stuff (that makes slashdot what it is) has a chance.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Cal Paterson]

I've seen you use this example over and over again: OpenBSD is secure, Windows is not. Do you ever offer any insight at all?

Everyone knows this. You are just repeating facts that you probably don't entirely understand. It's not just because they audit code, there's far more to it than that. Checking for errors doesn't help is the system is poor by design! OpenBSD have made a number of design choices as they have created their OS (some of which have been made by the projects they have forked from); for example, they have everything organised in a logical and orderly way.

Many GNU/Linux distributions do not have this (including the one I use, in fact). Generally, this is less common on the GNU sections (with the exclusion of Gnome, which breaks every rule in the book) and is very common on sections written by others. Some distributions have tried to work at this, with varying degrees of success (Debian has a very standardised set of interfaces).

On some areas, there are sections that actually specific to the kernel that do not fit with Unix in general (eg; why the hell is it "hda1"? I would make more sense to use numbers, and to start from 0; like grub now does - hd(0,0)).

Overall, GNU/Linux is my prefered OS for workstation computers, for other reasons, but as an OS, BSD is currently far more advanced than we are. We should listen to what many of the BSD projects are saying: Linux is broken, and in some areas, very badly.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Uber Banker]

Four words; signal to noise ratio. Lets cut down on the superfluous karma whoring, please, so the more interesting stuff (that makes slashdot what it is) has a chance.

So perhaps you could stop posting off-topic replies with 'Karma Bonus' enabled, or, even better, actually add some ideas to discussion rather than dismissing statements in an ego-massaging way which adds no depth to the discussion.

Best regards,

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody forces you to refer to the first partition on the master disk on the primary IDE channel on a GNU/Linux system as /dev/hda1. Just rename the device file if you want to. Linux doesn't care. Some poorly written application may throw up when it doesn't find the device node it expects, instead of allowing you to tell it which device node to use, but all Linux cares about is the major and minor numbers on the device node used.

With udev, it's getting trivially easy to implement whatever naming scheme you want for devices. Don't like the usual Linux way? Use something else. All you need to do is add a bunch of lines to *one* configuration file, which can then be propagated to essentially as many systems as you like. That's it.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but why should he have to go through and change this by hand?

If I take a look at a linux system's /dev:

audio1, audio2, audio3
dsrp1, dsrp2, dsrp3
eda1, eda2, eda3
fb0, fb1, fb2
fd0, fd1
hda1, hda2, hda3
hdb1, hdb2, hdb3
ippp0, ippp1, ippp2
isdn0, isdn1, isdn2
isdnctrl0, isdnctrl1, isdnctrl2
loop0, loop1, loop2

... and the list goes on.

I don't know about you, but what I see is most number systems starting from 0, a few fucktarded ones starting from 1 and a lettering system used to number drives just to spice things up.

In my (not so) humble opinion, that is fucking broken. There is no reason a user should have to go in and fix that. If you Linux guys really want to number starting from 1, at least be consistent and number _everything_ starting from 1.

It's shit like this why I hate Linux and love BSD. BSD feels designed. BSD is consistent. Linux feels slapped-together in the way that everything does something a bit differently than everything else.

*dons flame-resistant suit*

ND

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a M$ luser and I don't give a damn about "freedom", that is your kind, that says "free yourself from this other kind of restrictive software license and ensnare yourself with my kind of restrictive software license." Freedom is not swapping types of bondage, and then adding a religion.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Best regards,

Oh fuck off you passive aggressive latte sipping pederast. I shit bigger than you.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[queef_latina]

Okay, let's analyze your post.

Just so you know, I don't read point-by-point rebuttals. I can't imagine you having anything worthwhile to say, if your ideas have to be propped up by every other sentence said by the guy before you. I suggest you take an english composition class- you'll learn how to organize and express your thoughts like a grown-up.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for proving that you're a retard.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[drsmithy]

The design of such a system is important, and the people who brought you net send possibly aren't the ones you want to trust in creating a global network.

By that measure, since pretty much every networked and/or multiuser OS in existence has an equivalent to 'net send', who could you trust ?

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Richard_J_N]

Not quite as illogical as it looks. The HDD partitions are numbered from 1 for consistency with the partition numbers.

The use of letters (hda,hdb...) isn't necessarily logical, but it does, I think, make it easier to make sense of. Eg "hda,hda1,hda2" are clearly the same device. Whereas "hd0,hd00,hd01" as you seem to propose would, I think, be harder to follow.

As for things like dsp and audio, these do essentially begin from 0, but the 0 is often omitted. That's probably due to the original assumption that no sane person would ever need more than one soundcard. Of course, nowadays, multiple soundcards are a reasonable proposition - but for illustration, consider having /dev/null0 and /dev/null1 ... !

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Fordiman]

The offtopic isn't fair; the referenced article isn't even really on topic.

Seriously; I can understand if the readers don't read TFA, but shouldn't the editors?

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Cal Paterson]

That's probably due to the original assumption that no sane person would ever need more than one soundcard.

These kind of assumptions are part of the problem. Don't make them. Start from 0, and don't use letters.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Richard_J_N]

I agree that the soundcards ought to be numbered /dev/dsp0 etc. It wouldn't be that hard to do so if needed, since udev can allow you to make whichever entries you like! /dev/dsp is by convention - and anyway, alsa has a new design altogether. I think that the special devices (null,zero,random,stdin,stdout...) can remain unique. But I disagree about non-lettered HDDs.
hda1 is much clearer to me than hd00. Besides which, things like hd110 would be ambiguous: is it hdb11 or hdk1 ?

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Cal Paterson]

Grub labels drives as (hdX,Y). X being the drive number (starting from 0) and Y being the partition number (starting from 0). This ends up making my /boot dir (hd0,0).

errrr....

[scenestar]

Wasn't UNIX designed to run off a main frame with network terminals connected to it?

Re:errrr....

[CyricZ]

UNIX was first implemented seriously on the PDP-11/20, which is best classed as a minicomputer. And while the system did indeed use terminals of a sort, they were dumb terminals. It's really not any different than how the keyboard, mouse and monitor are connected to your PC now.

What's being proposed in this article is a different scheme, or so I would gather. It's not so much about applications executing on a separate machine, rather than the operating system software being obtained on the fly. Of course, such ideas are hardly new, and people have been booting over networks for decades now.

Re:errrr....

[Zeinfeld]

UNIX was first implemented seriously on the PDP-11/20, which is best classed as a minicomputer. And while the system did indeed use terminals of a sort, they were dumb terminals. It's really not any different than how the keyboard, mouse and monitor are connected to your PC now.

It would have been quite a trick to design an operating system based on the principles of the network protocols later developed on it.

That said, the dumb terminal to mainframe concept was a big part of the UNIX legacy. UNIX was designed from the start as a multi-user environment for the individual user. The kernel supported multiple users but the tasks it was designed for were single user tasks, mostly programming. UNIX was a reaction against mainframe computing of its day.

The author is completely wrong when he says that Windows did not have any security until 2000. Windows NT was designed from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification. It would take a huge amount of work to get Linux to meet that criteria. It is generally considered to be 'B2 equivalent' but thats like saying that being ABD is the same thing as having a Phd, the only people who say that are ABD grad students.

Likewise the author is completely wrong about Microsoft being likely to take the O/S in that direction. Unix and VMS led the minicomputer revolution. Gates led the microcomputer revolution which was even more against the central processing store model of computing. If you look at all the early microcomputers you will find that they all ran Microsoft Basic. When IBM went to Microsoft while it was building the PC it was the BASIC they wanted. They only demanded a bootstrap loader when Kildal refused to deal with them for CPM.

The company that tried to make the network the operating system was Netscape. They failed for several reasons, the most important of which was you can't hire 5000 world class engineers in a year and even if you could that you would not end up with a world class team. MarcA's policy of never hiring anyone he thought might be smarter than him didn't help either.

The company that seems to be making the attempt now is Google. They might make it, at this point it is unclear.

Re:errrr....

[NixLuver]

I think that we're talking apples and oranges here, and our current 'security issue' on the internet outlines what I mean. Windows is the whipping boy of choice, and has demonstrated over and over that it's not secure. As nearly as I can tell, the "B2" rating you speak of doesn't validate security *at all*; it validates 'processes' and a 'model' designated by the military to be 'necessary for base security'. Again, after snooping the web for half an hour or so, it seems that B2 (and most of the other orange book/TPSPEC designations) are about security *from the local user*, and do not address security from external exploit. While that internal security is a necessary part of a secure system, I admit, I would submit that the current issues faced by windows in the wild prove that without intelligent attention to detail, 'B2' is completely irrelevant to *most* users...

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/security/Oran ge-Linux/refs/Orange/OrangeApp-3.html

In other words, it seems that B2 guarantees that you cannot gain control of a computer you have legal right to access, but doesn't speak to the design considerations that would keep a blackhat from taking control externally via things like buffer overflows and the like. Regardless, I'm still looking, but I think that SELinux might meet B2 if someone paid for it to be analyzed.

Re:errrr....

[NixLuver]

Nope, I was wrong... No B2 for linux, apparently.

Re:errrr....

[Cal Paterson]

"The author is completely wrong when he says that Windows did not have any security until 2000. Windows NT was designed from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification. It would take a huge amount of work to get Linux to meet that criteria. It is generally considered to be 'B2 equivalent' but thats like saying that being ABD is the same thing as having a Phd, the only people who say that are ABD grad students.

Meh. The whole "certification" theory seems to not tally with practice. Why does NT seem to have more security issues than Linux, even though Linux is, by the Orange Book, a less well designed system.

Seems to me like there is something important that the Orange Book fails to take into account.

Re:errrr....

[jZnat]

SELinux was created by the NSA primarily, so one would probably assume it was suitable for this B2 crap as well...

Re:errrr....

[temojen]

No, a mini (pdp-11)

Re:errrr....

[Anonymous Coward]

UNIX was first implemented seriously on the PDP-11/20, which is best classed as a minicomputer. And while the system did indeed use terminals of a sort, they were dumb terminals. It's really not any different than how the keyboard, mouse and monitor are connected to your PC now.

And mainframes also used and still use dumb terminals. There's really not much difference between the way an ADM3A connects to a PDP and the way a 3270 connects to a mainframe. Both would meet any reasonable definition of "dumb terminal."

Re:errrr....

[suitepotato]

Meh. The whole "certification" theory seems to not tally with practice. Why does NT seem to have more security issues than Linux, even though Linux is, by the Orange Book, a less well designed system.

Seems to me like there is something important that the Orange Book fails to take into account.

It's not necessarily what the Orange Book is failing to take into account, it's the observer. Microsoft Windows, thanks to Microsoft Visual Studio, and Microsoft's maximum documentation overkill mindset, is childishly easy to write apps for, apps which themselves are ignorant of security and stability standards and free to traipse across the memory and hard drive under the idea that anything not forbidden is compulsory. Also following this dictum of getting away with anything the OS will let you are the Windows users who will point and click their way to infection, compromise, and instability every chance they get.

Linux users on the other hand might for instance have to know how to read well enough to make us of a text editor like Vi or Emacs and edit yum.conf and include repositories that clash to begin fouling the system up with bad code. Linux doesn't make it easy to put good code on it never mind bad code.

Just wait though. If Linux adoption ever becomes what the wet dreams of the rabid partisans would have, then it will mean easy application writing and loading will have arrived along with technical specifics ignorant user base that doesn't care how it works, but just wants it to do whatever they imagine it should. "I thought that program would show me free porn movies. I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is."

Re:errrr....

[puhuri]

Orange book (and also later assurence evaluations) have very much focus on process to develop software, not for actual outcome. This is not so easy to do on OSS.

This is very similar to ISO 9000 certification: you can be ISO 9000 certified and still your products can be total crap. You just has to document how you produce this crap. I daily eat on cafeteria that is ISO 9000 certified. The food is probably safe, but if I want to enjoy my meal, I visit some other place.

Re:errrr....

[aminorex]

The Windows event model intrinsically is a security nightmare, and the service configuration of a default install is all that a script kiddie could dream -- althought there are specific Linux distributions which can rival Windows in the insecurty of their default installation, they are not the norm.

It is easier to develop code for Linux than for Windows. That is why there are so many more applications for Linux than there are for Windows, and it is also why developers, on the whole, prefer to use Linux when it is suitable. There are no evident alternative explanations for these facts.

Re:errrr....

[mallardtheduck]

Likewise the author is completely wrong about Microsoft being likely to take the O/S in that direction. Unix and VMS led the minicomputer revolution. Gates led the microcomputer revolution which was even more against the central processing store model of computing. If you look at all the early microcomputers you will find that they all ran Microsoft Basic. When IBM went to Microsoft while it was building the PC it was the BASIC they wanted. They only demanded a bootstrap loader when Kildal refused to deal with them for CPM.

Sooo many misconceptions...

Microsoft BASIC was one of many. There was no clear leader.
Kildall's DRI was the "Microsoft" of the early (8-bit) micros, CP/M was the prevailant OS, mainly because Lotus 123 and many other business apps ran on it.
IBM shafted DRI, not the other way around.

Re:errrr....

[pthisis]

Windows NT was designed from the obtain to have Orange book B2 certification

This is true, but:

1. Windows NT was only certified B2 secure when not connected to a network.

2. Orange book isn't related to the type of security we're talking about; the certification says nothing about whether there are bugs in the system allowing remote attacks or even local privilege escalations. It only talks about how the system is nominally designed, and even there it's more about logging who does what on the system and forbidding things like copying and pasting between applications running at different security levels.

Re:errrr....

[mophab]

A few issues with your mostly correct posting.

One is that there is a HUGE difference between Linux and Unix and the original poster said Unix. The design of networking and Unix was an iterative process, and the first versions of Unix had only a part of what is currently called Unix. So what people currently called Unix was designed around networking.

As far as network operating systems, it was Sun that first had the motto "The Network is the Computer." And this was for their Unix system, long before Mosaic, and the first HTTP RFC.

There were several Unix implementations that achieved Orange book B2 compliance long before anything Microsoft produced did. Furthermore, Micro$oft is likely to take the OS in any direction that will make them money. They seem to like the idea that people have to pay for a network service on a time/subscription basis, whereas they usually buy an OS for a given piece of hardware once.

Re:errrr....

[Agent Green]

MarcA's policy of never hiring anyone he thought might be smarter than him didn't help either.

Which is why Netscape went down into a firey inferno and MS was so easily able to advance their browser / email experience. Thank goodness some people with clue were able to take over the charred remains and truly make a superior product.

Re:errrr....

[Zeinfeld]

Windows is the whipping boy of choice, and has demonstrated over and over that it's not secure. As nearly as I can tell, the "B2" rating you speak of doesn't validate security *at all*; it validates 'processes' and a 'model' designated by the military to be 'necessary for base security'.

You are quite right in pointing out that B2 is not very relevant to today's security needs. But the fact remains that Windows NT was designed from the outset to meet a measurable security criteria that UNIX was not designed to meet.

Fifteen years ago we used to say exactly the same thing about UNIX. UNIX machines were always being broken into. Part of that was bad security design like the SETUID bit and the world readable password file. But the main reason for the frequency of attack was exposure to a much more risky threat environment. Very few VMS machines were on networks that were anywhere near as large.

The real security catastrophe came when millions of machines running operating systems designed for standalone use only were connected to the Internet. Windows 95 provides pretty decent security for the environment it was designed to be used in. The problem is that it is now used in a very different environment.

UNIX has done better because it has had longer exposure to the relevant risk environment. UNIX has been adapted to meet the type of security concerns that affect Internet servers. That does not mean that it meets the security needs of Internet users. So far I don't think any of the O/S out there meet that need.

, I'm still looking, but I think that SELinux might meet B2 if someone paid for it to be analyzed.

Thats a bit like saying that Woody Allen might become Pope if he became a Catholic. Nobody has ever got their system certified without having to make a lot of changes to close loopholes. A major security shortcomming of UNIX is that the original designers were never required to produce proper end user documentation or security document. There is no document called the system security guide as required by orange book. Not having to produce that book meant that the designers never had to think about all the security issues of the system as a whole.

Re:errrr....

[Zeinfeld]

It's not necessarily what the Orange Book is failing to take into account, it's the observer. Microsoft Windows, thanks to Microsoft Visual Studio, and Microsoft's maximum documentation overkill mindset, is childishly easy to write apps for, apps which themselves are ignorant of security and stability standards and free to traipse across the memory and hard drive under the idea that anything not forbidden is compulsory

The CAPTCHA test method of operating system security. Build an IQ test into the system so that the only people who will ever bother how to use it are wizards.

The MIT AI lab did this much better than Ken Thomson and co. Try OpenGenera (Lisp Machine). Very few people who didn't have an MIT Phd ever learned how to use it (and most of those were studding for their MIT Phd). Come to that very few people used Genera at all

Re:errrr....

[stuuf]

I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is.

"Swiss cheese" refers to a variety of cheese, such as the Emmantel cheese from Switzerland, known for the distinctive holes that appear throughout the cheese.

Re:errrr....

[Bios_Hakr]

Long, long ago in a college far, far away, I had a Unix class. The classroom consisted of keyboards on desks surrounding the walls. In the middle of the room, there was a teletype.

You would hand-write out the things you needed to do. Then you'd carefully type those into the keyboard. Once you were done, you could go to the teletype and look for the output line that corresponded to your login. And there was your output.

Re:errrr....

[Anonymous Coward]

> The author is completely wrong when he says that Windows did not have any security until 2000. Windows NT was designed
> from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification. It would take a huge amount of work to get Linux to meet that
> criteria. It is generally considered to be 'B2 equivalent' but thats like saying that being ABD is the same thing as
> having a Phd, the only people who say that are ABD grad students.

Actually it was C2 security then: http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/epl/entries/TTAP-C SC-EPL-99-001.html
A level of assurance basically every UNIX or UNIX like operating system had at that point - whether officially certified or not. It's really not that hard to have C2 certifiable security. OTOH all commercially available B2 certified Operating Systems were to my knowledge UNIX based.

Re:errrr....

[drsmithy]

Windows NT was only certified B2 secure when not connected to a network.

IIRC it was C2, and that certification _requires_ the system not to be networked.

Re:errrr....

[1u3hr]

You would hand-write out the things you needed to do. Then you'd carefully type those into the keyboard.

Luxury. When I were a lad, we had to write our programs on mark-sense cards with a pencil, then queue up to feed them into a card reader, which would randomly chew them up and send you back to the end of the line while you made new cards several times till you lucked out and it got through the entoer stack. Then you went to find your printout from a huge noisy line printer which spewed paper into a large canvas bag, when it didn't jam. Two years later we were allowed to use vi, and we were grateful for t'privilege.

Re:errrr....

[ClamIAm]

Windows NT was designed from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification.

Sounds like you're a bit behind the times on security certifications. Orange Book certifications have been deprecated in favor of Common Criteria EAL (Evaluation Assurance Level) certification. There are levels 1 through 7 of EAL certs, with 7 being the "most secure". It's worth noting that some of the lower levels don't require any actual code audits

More importantly, though, you state that Linux (I'm assuming you mean distributions of Linux) wouldn't be able to match the ratings that Windows NT was designed for. Well, the highest certification Microsoft has on its OSes (listed at the CC website) is EAL4+. Suse's SLES 9 also has EAL4+ certification, with some other distributions getting anywhere from EAL2 to EAL3+. Looks like your argument is complete horseshit.

Re:errrr....

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

and the service configuration of a default install is all that a script kiddie could dream

Agreed for XP, but WS2003 is considerably tighter out of the box, as will be Longhorn.

It is easier to develop code for Linux than for Windows.

You just spat out a pretty bold assertion without providing any supporting arguments.

I've worked with C# and with GTK+, and I can tell you that programming GUI apps on Linux leaves a lot to be desired. Qt designer is better, but Qt isn't LGPL - if you want to license your code under anything but the GPL, get ready to fork over a pretty substantial chunk of change to Qt.

Many other things are easier in Windows as well - Linux is just getting a real multimedia framework (GStreamer is still not quite ready for prime time), and even things like controlling the system mixer can be problematic (assuming you want compatibility with both OSS and ALSA). Add to that the fact that there is no standardized installation/packaging system, and you end up with an environment that is less than ready for commercial development.

Many closed-source Linux products are now certified to run on one and only one distro - generally Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Even worse, many are certified on only one version of RHEL (usually 3.x).

That is why there are so many more applications for Linux than there are for Windows

That's like saying that there a paperclip company makes more paperclips per year than Toyota makes cars. Perhaps true, but completely misleading.

What's important is the number of quality applications. Where's QuickBooks, ACT, TurboTax, Office, Photoshop, or any of the other applications that business use every day?

In that sense, even Mac OS X has better software support than Linux.

Re:errrr....

[00lmz]

It is easier to develop code for Linux than for Windows. That is why there are so many more applications for Linux than there are for Windows,

I don't know what kind of code you write. For me, it is very easy to develop code using Windows. Try using Delphi or VB. I don't think you're going to develop the next big programming language or the next hot network security tool using those (at least, not using VB), but for writing everyday small business/database apps it is very easy. (In fact, the slashdot crowd often complains that it is too easy).

Also, maybe your second assertion is true (although I doubt it (see above, writing programs for Windows is very easy)). There's certainly a lot of apps to choose from when I run aptitude (Debian Sarge here). Most of the apps there I really don't think I need (or ever will need). But people often can't switch to Linux because of one or two essential applications that they can't leave behind (yes, even though there are thousands of applications doesn't mean that there's one that does what you need).

Re:errrr....

[Cal Paterson]

Orange book (and also later assurence evaluations) have very much focus on process to develop software, not for actual outcome. This is not so easy to do on OSS.
This is very similar to ISO 9000 certification: you can be ISO 9000 certified and still your products can be total crap. You just has to document how you produce this crap. I daily eat on cafeteria that is ISO 9000 certified. The food is probably safe, but if I want to enjoy my meal, I visit some other place.

Agreed. The point I'm making is that Orange book ratings are a useless way of rating an Operating System.

Re:errrr....

[ScrewMaster]

Orange you glad that Microsoft managed to get that B2 rating? I know I am.

Re:errrr....

[aminorex]

It's more like saying that Ferrari produces more Testarossas each year than Kia will produce in a millenium. The economic incentive to deliver consumer-oriented applications on the most prevalent consumer-oriented platforms is obvious. Most people don't want or need Ferraris.

Forget it

[BadDoggie]

We gave up on the idea of centralised systems a long time ago with good reason. I remember coding COBOL on 3270s which had to connect to some computer center elsewhere. Can't connect? Can't work.

Local apps give us a lot of freedom. It might be nice to be able to also have such a centralised system available, but even with access on planes, there are always times and places you'll be cut off.

woof.

Re:Forget it

[gvc]

And we should all have our own electric generators, wells, septic tanks, oil patches, gardens, dairies, and so on. And perhaps we should dine in our bomb shelters, eating whatever we can take out of a can and cook on sterno. Just in case.

Re:Forget it

[cyber-vandal]

Yep that's why no-one uses X, Citrix or Windows Terminal Server.

Re:Forget it

[finnif]

but even with access on planes, there are always times and places you'll be cut off.

Like when there's snakes on a plane?

Re:Forget it

[i]

Local apps works only if your target data is local. If it's not - as it is for most large systems - local apps are meaningless.

How fun is it using Mozilla or IE whithout connection to internet ?

Re:Forget it

[MikeFM]

All such things come in cycles as systems evolve. Fully centralized had problems that fully uncentralized helped with but fully uncentralized had it's own set of problems. Right now we're sort of the pendulum swinging back and forth in a shrinking arc trying to home in on the correct in-between position.

I think the right position is probably to store our apps and data, in encrypted form, on shared servers and access them, with caching, from our local machines. There is no decent reasons to have to install a program on every machine we use. The idea is just silly outside of the OS. There is no reason to store files where we can't get to them from any computer with a Net connection.

We don't need one centralized computer but client-server based computing is a great idea.

Re:Forget it

[vertinox]

Local apps give us a lot of freedom. It might be nice to be able to also have such a centralised system available, but even with access on planes, there are always times and places you'll be cut off.

I couldn't work without email or internet access (i use google for 50% of my job) and if nothing else I need intranet access.

So if I don't have network access I'm pretty much dead in the water. I can run my apps fine locally, but I might as well be go take a coffee break when the internet is down. And come to think of it... The 2 years I've worked there, the internet has never been down. Maybe because heads would roll if it ever did.

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

"No reason" might be a bit extreme. We used to have whatever apps would run properly on the network, the rest local. Problem with the network? Running slow today? Massive virus attack (on the PCs) slowing everything down? Well, you might as well go play outside because you're not going to get any work done today.

I quite like the ability to take my notebook and go work in the mountains for the day, thank you.

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

We have batteries, water bottles, chemical toilets (or bushes), gas tanks, ziplock baggies, milk cartons and so on specifically so that we can make all those things portable.

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

Note that both Mozilla and IE are local apps. I LIKE local apps. They're faster, more reliable, better designed, easier to work with and easier to write. Plus you get to save if your network connection goes down, even if, as with web browsers, you can't continue to do new things.

I quite frequently load up a bunch of stuff to read in Safari to take with me when I'm offline.

Re:Forget it

[MikeFM]

That's the reason for caching. It could download apps and data as needed when you connect and then remove them as they went disused and space was needed or if you were using a shared machine where you didn't want cached data to persist. It'd be a hybrid of centralized and personal that way. You'd only have to connect for apps and data that weren't cached or for apps that just required a network (online chat) or that had some special network function to intense to be done on your PC.

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

Hm... good idea. You could write nice apps then too, not these "web apps" that are so awkward and slow to use. May I suggest keeping the apps you use all the time permanently in cache then, and only downloading updates for them when needed? Should minimize your bandwidth usage (cost) and it would also give you a little independence from both the connection and the provider. Wait... this is starting to sound familiar....

Re:Forget it

[MikeFM]

Maybe something as simple as a cache tuner config that let you mark apps and data you did want to persist or didn't want to persist with the rest left to the system to manage by space available?

Familiar?

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

Familiar. It sounds a lot like what we have today. Apps (and OS) that reside in local storage (cached if you will) and check the network to see if there are newer versions available (it's been a while since I saw a major app that doesn't do this).

What exactly is the (desirable) difference between "network computing" and, say, a Linux package repository?

Re:Forget it

[MikeFM]

It's about the same as the difference between Gopher and the web.

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

A little bit of refinement to make things easier then?

I don't want to pay to use my OS by the hour, if that's the improvement you're suggesting. I don't really want to have "cheap" by the hour access to a bunch of different apps because then I have to learn how to use each one of them. Cheaper hardware would be nice, but I suspect the savings would be more than made up by said usage fees a la cell phone companies. Hey, free phone! Heh heh.

Not to mention an online OS would probably hurt small developers. MS: yeah, we're not going to host your app unless you have at least a thousand employees and you pay us $10,000/year. No more hacking either. Don't like DRM? Too bad. Want to produce open content? Too bad.

I'd like to keep my hardware, thanks. You guys can have your computer feudalism, paying rent perpetually to the lord of the manor.

Re:Forget it

[MikeFM]

You can have your own server y'know. ;)

Re:Forget it

[ceoyoyo]

Somehow I expect Microsoft isn't going to be all that interested in licensing me a copy of Windows Server Server 2010 to run on my own hardware.

Re:Forget it

[MikeFM]

Use a real OS like Linux or FreeBSD. ;)

Affinity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why say no? I really enjoy the freedom I have with my web based OS. I use Affinity - http://www.oceanworksuk.net/products/affinity_cust omer_relationship_management/ It's a nice web based "os" of sorts. I have access to email, task list, calendar, IM, newsfeeds, contact list, and much more. They're currently integrating a nice VOIP client into it. Screen shots: http://www.oceanworksuk.net/news/show_story42.htm

Anyone RTFA?

[MyLongNickName]

Sheesh. This was more a "Microsoft Suck0rs, Linux RULZ" article. Very little in the way of actual content and analysis. How did something like this make it on Slashdot? Ooops never mind

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[rylin]

Wait a second, you expected interesting or meaninful *content* from a blog?

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Yeah, it doesn't even have really anything to do with the the summary (internet OS)! Does this count as a dupe since the "article" is just a poorly written summary of your average /. post on MS/Linux?

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[MyLongNickName]

Wait a second, you expected interesting or meaninful *content* from a blog?

Is that what we call Slashdot now?

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[rylin]

Your point?

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[Vellmont]

Wait a second, you expected interesting or meaninful *content* from a blog?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the blog. That's really irrelevent. I do expect something beyond the level of "m1kr0$0ft sUx0Rz t|-|3 b1G 0n3!!" from slashdot. Taco should know better than to post this utter drivel.

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[jZnat]

I think it's in response to Microsoft's "Lunix sux0rz Windoze r0x0rz lawl" marketing and PR. Fight fire with fire and whatnot...

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Microsoft's "Lunix sux0rz Windoze r0x0rz lawl" marketing

This is something your walnut-sized brain imagined.

Microsoft's anti-Linux marketing is targetted against enterprise systems (Oracle, mainframes, etc), which, if anything, validates Linux as something that doesn't 'sux0rz' even though it might be more expensive.

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is something your walnut-sized brain imagined."

I'm not the parent poster but I'm curious why you felt the need to add the insult into your comment. Your comment was otherwise quite reasonable and if it wasn't for your insult you probably would have been modded up. Are you really that pathetic that you need to make such a comment to validate your own existence? Is your life really that bad? Does insulting another person in such a way make you feel better about yourself? In most cases, people who throw around insults so easily have serious mental or emotional problems. Please do tell.

Say "No" to Executable Internet, but

[layer3switch]

We all know "no" means "yes"... Yes... you.. dirty filth... yes... daddy like... daddy like...

Forget it-LTSP

[Anonymous Coward]

"We gave up on the idea of centralised systems a long time ago with good reason."

Sez you

Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[DrSkwid]

plan9 boots across the internet since forever, the networked file system is delightful, none of this NFS idiocy.

I was horrified when I went back to set up networking booting in Un*xville, yes, horrified. "These people are dumb, not the terminals" is about the most polite I could be about the state of "the network IS the computer".

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[diverscuba023]

But for the 98% of people^H^H^H^H^H^H sheeple out there they are just plain dumb. Even most of the ones who work with computers are dumb. They don't know anything outside of thier one little area and have no desire to learn either. Of course the terminals are just as dumb so I guess this is a no win.

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[Hosiah]

Ah...plan9. I liked trying the live CD, it was fun, I got some gnarly screenshots out of it. It has a lot going for it. But seriously, the learning curve on this sucker is vertical. I have a hard enough time convincing people that they *can* *too* draw a straight line in Gimp, I run screaming from the scenario where I'm explaining the whole plan9 system!!!

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[Anonymous Coward]

Pet peeves #1:

Learning curve is how much information is learned graphed against time. A steep learning curve is good (lots of stuff learned in little time), a shallow learning is bad (not much learned, long time).

Tune in again tomorrow when we will be dealing with "Begs the question"... and for all you ignorant Americans we will be doing a remedial course on why "could care less" is fucking moronic.

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[heinousjay]

HAHAH. Sheeple!! Did you come up with that all by yourself? It's so clever. I'm going to use it all the time from now on! Do you have anything else I should do? Let me know, because you're so smart I'll follow you forever!!

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[killjoe]

Whatever happened to plan9 anyway. I guess it went the way of LISP and Smalltak to the "truly innovative and superior technology nobody uses" bin.

This industry is a hoot.

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on now, talking about plan9 like it actually could have ever been a practical (usable) OS, and then bashing Unix and NFS? Then you have the nerve to call Unix people dumb? Yeah... keep dreaming buddy... And where is your "cute" little plan9 now? How many big businesses or important Internet resources depend on it (like they depend on Unix) to keep things running smoothly? Oh... that's right... NONE! Some OS ya got there... REAL usefull... LOL

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[DrSkwid]

worse is better

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[Anonymous Coward]

So how does this work out where every post I make as "anonymous coward" gets a 0 score and yet even the most basic comment (usefull or not) from any registered user gets at least a score of 2? Do all you registered /. users just use your points to vote for your own posts or what?!? ;)

Interesting response, "worse is better", and I get where you are going with that. While I would not agree with you that plan9 is better, or that Unix is a terrible OS concept (you seem to very much dislike it), I can appreciate the comment. Because we are both screwed by the fact that Windows is THE most popular OS right now, and it is hands down THE worst. Would you at least agree with that? And answer me this, would you rather setup a *nix network or a windows network? I know I would much rather deal with unix than windows, even though I will admit there are things about unix I dislike (such as the user:group:guest style file permission scheme). Nothings perfect, not even plan9... heh

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[hab136]

>o how does this work out where every post I make as "anonymous coward" gets a 0 score and yet even the most basic comment (usefull or not) from any registered user gets at least a score of 2? Do all you registered /. users just use your points to vote for your own posts or what?!? ;)

ACs post at 0. Registered users post at 1. Users with high karma post at 2. The comment is then moderated higher or lower.

"Worse is better" refers to http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[Anonymous Coward]

I think thats the point, you have to learn an incredible amount in a very short period of time in order to be able to do anything. A shallow learning curve might not be as efficient in terms of gaining knowledge but it is certainly easier on the user.

The article

[CaptainFork]

The article is poorly written and filled with unnecessary attacks on Microsoft.

Huh?

[Otter]

This reads like the author took twelve completely unrelated +3 comments from Slashdot articles and stuck them together.

Basically, his point is that Lunix rulz and Microsoft is teh sux and such will continue to be the case with AJAX apps. That doesn't make sense even if you concede all the author's idiotic premises.

Re:Huh?

[Dylan Knight Rogers]

It is an opinion piece. The concept itself can be viewed as idiotic by anyone, which doesn't really phase me too much. The fact that someone actually read the article before you and thought it was good enough to be included on Slashdot is good enough for me.

Re:Huh?

[someone1234]

You mean Taco?

Re:Huh?

[generic-man]

Have you ever heard of proofreading? The word is faze , not "phase." You have about a hundred spelling and grammar errors like that in your opinion piece whose stream-of-consciousness style seems excessive even by blog standards. You make no cogent points and only parrot the "Microsoft is teh suck, Windows users are idiots, using Linux makes you smart" line that got old years ago. I pity your English teachers for having to read your longer works.

It's all about the service model

[AndroidCat]

No need to keep selling updates to keep the cash stream going. Just sell a service via the Internet. And you don't even have to make money directly off the people using to service if you can sell their eyes for advertising or tracking data.

Which is fine is the service doesn't disappear or go evil.

Re:It's all about the service model

[jZnat]

I think you've got a point. It makes more sense from a business point of view to offer a literal service via the Internet like this than to sell software which increasingly shows its obsolesence as more and more fields of software are superceded by Free or Open alternatives. Sure, there are still some fields where non-Free software is best, but a lot of types of software have great Free software for immediate use.

Somewhat like a "OMFG look at how much money Google is making! Let's jump on the bandwagon!!!"

This article is one big troll.

[Vellmont]

Strangely I thought I was going to read an article about operating systems that run from the web (whatever that means). So I happily click on the article and start reading, wondering what an internet executable operating system is. Ok, history of windows, vast over-simplifications.. read read read.. but yet still no content. Turns out, there really is no content.

Taco, you should be embarrassed for posting the article. There's nothing here but a bad rant about how Windows is a terrible OS, and microsoft sucks. You may agree or disagree with that statement, but rants against Windows aren't news.

Re:This article is one big troll.

[msobkow]

The article may be a troll, but I notice no one is actually talking about network operating systems in response.

J2EE is a network OS programming kit. DotNet is another. QNX was designed as a networked/RPC version of *nix.

Given the market share the first two of that last have, I think the argument about whether network-bootable OS components/updates are viable is a moot point -- they've been here for years. Someone else just finally realized the fact.

Re:This article is one big troll.

[jZnat]

Taco, you should be embarrassed for posting the article.

You can't shame the shameless. ;)

Re:This article is one big troll.

[Karma Farmer]

Taco, you should be embarrassed for posting the article.

We've both clicked the links and read the ads, smart boy. And over the years, we've both probably given taco a couple of dollars worth of eyeballs. You can't tell someone "don't be a whore" when you're dropping $5 on the dresser on your way out.

The Point?

[generic-man]

I read through that article and it just sounds like one pretentious blogger's disdain for Microsoft. Let's run through all the things that got this fast-tracked to Slashdot:

• Early mention of Steve Ballmer throwing a chair as a microcosm of Microsoft's supposed corporate culture
• Rampant grammer* and spelling errors overshadowed by a blind sense of faith in the Linux community. Example: "The Linux community will publish every vulnerability, regardless of it's criticality, but the chances that a hacker will even choose to expliot those vulnerabilities is very low, (unnecessary comma) since most of them are of low criticality and it would be stupid to do so, anyways." So people don't attack Linux because "it would be stupid to do so." Thank you.
• The actual "Executable Internet" isn't mentioned until the second-to-last paragraph: "The only reason a version of Windows that runs from the Internet would even exist would be because there is competition. Microsoft simply does not have enough fists to punch every opponent; resulting in a poorly designed operating platform and ignorant users who don't know the difference between WEP and WPA and those who are also accustomed to having Viagara advertisements greet them every time they boot their computers." Seems like this man is more upset that the hoi polloi use Linux than that Microsoft doesn't care about security.

This is pure Linux-user elitism, the sort of smug "Our Opponent Just Doesn't Get It; We Do; and We're Smarter Than You" attitude that loses political battles and makes the arguer only look like a pretentious fool in the eyes of the skeptic.

I dislike Microsoft as much as the next Slashdot user but this article is awful: it simply slams Microsoft as the Big Corporate Machine with quotes like "Microsoft does not publish all their security vulnerabilities because other executive stockholders, whom are also ignorant would become worried and eventually begin to question the platform's security." If I wanted to hear ramblings about the willfully ignorant I'd listen to a David Cross album.

* Intentional typo used to point out how correcting grammar on Slashdot usually leads to a spelling error, or vice versa

Re:The Point?

[generic-man]

How silly. "...this man is more upset that the hoi polloi use Windows..."

Bzzt! Wrong! I lose! Good day sir!

Re:The Point?

[Dylan Knight Rogers]

Sure, that is my point exactly. The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm. Excuse me, but I did not know that every person who reads Slashdot is an English instructor.

Re:The Point?

[generic-man]

Please learn to proofread. I know that 89 wpm is a good score in Mario Teaches Typing but articles should be filled with well-formed, coherent sentences. Pick up a book some time and see what a touch-typist can produce when he actually reads what he's written.

Your grammar and spelling problems aside, your article was nothing more than the same "Linux is better because everyone who uses Windows is an idiot" elitism I've seen for years. It brings nothing new to the table. I'm sorry that you had to hear this from the boards at Slashdot since by all qualitative standards this article should have been rejected.

Re:The Point?

[BuR4N]

"The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm."

You should put that in your CV.

Re:The Point?

[Tim Browse]

I think this is the kind of attitude that people are annoyed by. Receiving criticism with "Yeah, I make mistakes, but that's because I'm so 1337z0rs that I type at 89wpm!" is not really going to cut it. Because if nothing else, if that's the case, then, hey, guess what, you can't type at 89wpm! To paraphrase Gerald Weinberg, I can type at 120wpm if I don't have to get the words right.

And they're not English instructors - some posters can just speak English and find mistakes glaring and detract from the message (see Marshall McLuhan). But go ahead with your arrogant responses. It just makes it easier for the rest of us to filter you out.

People will mostly accept honest mistakes. When the offender instead tries to make out that their mistakes aren't mistakes at all, for whatever reason, when clearly they are, this is what tries people's patience.

Re:The Point?

[cyber-vandal]

I type at about 80wpm and I don't have a problem with either my grammar or my spelling. Of course I also take a couple of seconds to check what I type too because I'd rather my point was read than have it drowned by English language trolls. You might want to consider that ;)

Re:The Point?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty damn good for a 15 year old. Atta boy!

Re:The Point?

[Anonymous Coward]

The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm.

Is that gross or net?

Re:The Point?

[Vellmont]

The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm.


Judging by the content you posted, maybe you should slow down a little and think about what you're typing. I find this comment of yours about "89 wpm" very insightfull into your general attitude toward writing. It's as if getting it out of your head is the most important thing, rather than actually trying to make a point. That's what editing, and reading what you've written are about. Have you read any of the top rated responses? Most people think your post was a fetid load of dingoes kidneys.

I don't even blame you for this article making it on slashdot, even though you submitted this horseshit. Taco is the one who posted it, and he's the one to blame for it appearing on slashdot.

Re:The Point?

[Karma Farmer]

The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm.

I was going to refrain from insulting your lame ass, but I click submit at nearly 300 clicks a minute.

Re:The Point?

[xmedar]

He's 15 so it's "Like totally gross" you insensitive clod!

Re:The Point?

[aminorex]

I think it was PeeWee Herman who made a pretty good living saying "I meant to do that".

Re:The Point?

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

I completely agree.

I was unemployed in 2001, and tested at a Nebraska Employment Center. They scored me at 101 WPM, or 98 WPM after errors. I even received a test score sheet with the state seal on it and everything.

That's not impressive. That's pathetic. That's evidence that I spend far too much time socializing by computer, and less time socializing in person. When I try to post on message boards, my fast typing speed means I can just let thoughts fly, building these huge multiple-page posts in the space of 20 or 30 minutes. Some people don't want to read all that.

Even I stop to correct my spelling and grammar errors. If you type quickly, that means each keystroke has LESS time-cost to you, so it costs you even less than average to stop and correct your errors.

So in my opinion, and based on my experiences, if you can type very quickly but still fail to correct the spelling and grammar mistakes everyone makes occasionally, you've shown evidence of being even more inconsiderate. A freakishly high WPM score condemns you even more.

I can read through spelling and grammar mistakes just fine. If I'm interested in the message, I have no problem understanding the poster's intent.

Good spelling and grammar are important for other reasons. Remember how they say that 99% of everything on the Internet is crap? People must develop personal filters, and learn to skip over probably-meaningless messages, in order to get to good content. Some people are unaffected by spelling or grammar errors. Others will count errors against their personal, automatic 'crap filter' score for that message, and will stop reading and skip to the next message. A rare minority feels they should try to help the poster by pointing out why their errors are hurting them; or perhaps are negative about it, and feel they must abuse the original poster because of their errors.

If you take the time to write a message, remember that the public Internet doesn't know you by name. You may have a reputation for meaningful, insightful comment among your circle of friends, but everybody else will filter you out unless you give them cause not to. If you take the time to write a message, take a bit more time to make it look good. If it's a long message, take even more time to make sure your thoughts are organized well, and consider adding an 'executive summary' if it won't get you laughed at. If you can type quickly, this extra work should be even less of a burden, and it makes your post more valuable because more people will be willing to read and appreciate it.

By the way, I'm writing this to add my experiences to Tim Browse's. I browse at +5, and I haven't even seen the message Tim was replying to. I don't *care* that much. I hope that this helps other readers who aren't emotionally invested in some kind of childish argument.

Re:The Point?

[Tim C]

The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm.

Hint: it should be "The spelling errors are due in part to the fact that I type at 89 wpm."

Keep it up, and we'll get your spelling and grammatical skills rivaling your typing speed in no time!

article summary

[homer_s]

Windows sucks
Linux rulez
and , oh.. .executable internet...something...something...

Cross-Platform?

[Sr. Pato]

If implemented properly, over-all, I think things like this really add a lot to the functionality of PCs. Eventually, it wouldn't matter what Operating System you ran in terms of what applications you'd be restricted to run.

Security? Well, that's why I say "If implemented properly,"

Re:Cross-Platform?

[Eli Gottlieb]

Wrong. It would no longer matter what Local OS you ran as long as it could connect to the Network OS, but which applications you could run would be restricted by which Network OS you ran.

It would just move the application/OS problem off the PC and onto the network. Developers have to face that the only real solution for that problem is writing portable code.

Parent took the words right out of my mouth.

[IAAP]

I'm going to go back to work now ... and then watch a stupid movie. Especially, if this is going to be the quality of aritcles on /. today.

Technically *nix started out single-user

[msobkow]

The very first iteration of what eventually became Unix was a simple task switcher to allow a game to run at the same time as actual work. Technically it wasn't multi-user, because there was only a system console.

Re:Technically *nix started out single-user

[mallardtheduck]

No, the first iteration of UNIX (originally spelt Unics), was a single-tasking command-line based OS. Users, multitasking and games all came later.

See: http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/

Who forgot to change the battery?

[3seas]

Damn'it my access to the internet OS comes up as Jan. 1 1980....

You need to do better than that

[BadDoggie]

Electricity, sewage and oil only work efficiently in huge, centralised systems and aren't feasible in small scale. Likewise subsistance farming (there's not enough land for each person to farm enough for himself).

There are few apps which can't run locally. They might run faster on the massive centralised hardware but if you can't connect, you're fucked. Anyone who can't afford to be fucked by the loss of a connection to any centralised system (like, say, a hospital) has a localised back-up already in place. It's not efficient but it keeps things working.

And you're also ignoring the cost. You'll pay for usage, either flat rate per time period or per-minute. Microsoft's been talking about working Office into this sort of model for more than five years now. Clearly they believe it would earn them more money.

woof.

Re:You need to do better than that

[gvc]

Anyone who can't afford to be fucked by the loss of a connection to any centralised system (like, say, a hospital) has a localised back-up already in place. It's not efficient but it keeps things working.

Exactly. Their primary source is the grid. For backup only, they have an inferior, expensive, hard-to-maintain alternative.

If I would be seriously fucked by loss of my computing, I wouldn't be using my laptop, or a home desktop, or any sort of consumer-grade solution. In terms of availability, I have done no serious study, but I think I've spent more time waiting for my personal computers to come up (or be updated, reconfigured, repaired, etc.) than for my internet connection. At least in the last five years. And that's not to mention actual and potential loss of data, or the administrative time spent trying to mitigate these. Then there's version control. Which one of these fifty Word documents on various machines and media is the current draft? Where are the notes from that meeting?

Re:You need to do better than that

[jacksonj04]

Companies such as Google try to centralise data, and people go off on one about privacy issues. There's just no winning.

Re:You need to do better than that

[Mistshadow2k4]

"but if you can't connect, you're fucked

I believe that was the parent poster's point, and all these other comparisons about electric generators and such are just plain silly. I have a fast connection, but I've seen a bad storm knock out the lines so no one in my area could connect with any internet service, and it took the companies days to fix them all. So if I can't connect to the net I can at least still use the Gimp, use swriter to read/work on stuff, play games or listen to music. But if the OS and most of the apps I want to use are completely internet-based? What then?

Re:You need to do better than that

[GregWebb]

And there are a great many database applications that need to be shared between users, at which point hosting them on the Internet makes a lot more sense than trying to host them on a single PC, or even single network.

The net isn't right for everything but it's not bad for everything either and we've not uncovered that much of its potential yet either.

Re:You need to do better than that

[Jeremi]

There are few apps which can't run locally.

More to the point, with software it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. There's no reason apps can't be designed to make use of centralized resources when they are available, and yet still handle their absence gracefully and remain useful in stand-alone mode.

Of course it would be up to Microsoft whether to make their apps work like that or not... but then it's also up to people whether or not to buy or use Microsoft's apps.

Re:You need to do better than that

[BluenoseJake]

"Electricity, sewage and oil only work efficiently in huge, centralised systems and aren't feasible in small scale. That's not always true, sewage, water aned oil in most rural areas are decentralized, my own house has it's own well and septic tank, as it is impractical to build large rural sewer/water systems, and in my area, most oil is delivered to tanks attached to the house. Please don't believe that your circumstances are universal, they are not.

Re:You need to do better than that

[Sepodati]

But if the OS and most of the apps I want to use are completely internet-based? What then?

You pop in your personalized LiveCD and mess around with the programs on there, save 'em to your USB pen drive and wait until you can get back online. Simple.

---John Holmes...

Re:You need to do better than that

[Ex-MislTech]

Likewise subsistance farming (there's not enough land for each person to farm enough for himself).

The rest of your point was good, this part is horribly wrong .

The majority of US farm land has been idled due to the low cost of foreign food,
and the influx of huge Corporate farms like ADM(Archer Daniels Midland).

During Depression/World War II the people were told to grow a garden in there back yards
to deal with the situation .

My Grandparents still had this habit when I was growing up as a kid thru the 70's and 80's .

We had so much food we canned it, froze it, and gave it away .

The large cities of the east and left coast this is not practical, but there are large
patches of land throughout the mid west that were crushed due to Globalization and
Willy Nelson and Friends held a series of concerts called Farm Aid for all the farmers
whose families and lives were ruined by the globalization of food .

http://www.farmaid.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ab outus_history

While it is good and great that we help the poor outside our borders, it is bad
that we make our nation vulnerable to shipping embargos and eat food from countries
that do not have the same pesticide rules as we do in the US .

Soil and water pollution levels in these countires are not monitored like they are here .

The taxes on land, the equipment, and the fuel are not on equal footing either, so the
US farmer cannot compete and a large number of small farms went broke .

The cost of living is higher here, as is the cost of doing business .

Outourcing our food will be something that will come back to haunt us in the future .

I was born and raised on a farm, and I dare say you were not .

Ex-MislTech

Re:You need to do better than that

[ultranova]

You pop in your personalized LiveCD and mess around with the programs on there, save 'em to your USB pen drive and wait until you can get back online. Simple.

As opposed to simply using your personal hard drive to store all that info. Yes, I can see that this is a revolutionary idea ;).

Re:You need to do better than that

[Sepodati]

As opposed to simply using your personal hard drive to store all that info. Yes, I can see that this is a revolutionary idea ;).

Well of course it won't appeal to everyone. You can continue to run your own OS. On the other hand, some company can offer a $50 thin-client terminal that runs WebOS or GoogleOS or whatever and for an extra $10 you get a LiveCD to use in times of web outages. Or businesses that don't want to give people the opportunity to store anything local... Just saying that you have an option. :)

---John Holmes...

Accuracy of article.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article states that microsoft has ingnored gaming consoles, and portable music devices. Ever heard of the Xbox? Or playsforsure?

uh

[icepick72]

The article says: Other factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to and still don't today would be gaming consoles, advertising, portable music devices, and computer security.

Um, Can anybody say "XBOX"?

What is Microsoft's advertising revenue? I see many M$ adverts all around, but have yet to remember seeing the competition advertising. I think I don't want more M$ advertising thank you very much. Funny how they're doing such a good job of it without paying attention whatsoever!

This blog article is screwed. I stopped reading at this point. Next Slashdot article please ...

Re:uh

[Dylan Knight Rogers]

Ignored until they feel the need to put their foot in the market. Did you fail to see that portion of the sentence? Are you simply on the bandwagon with what everybody else is saying about my post? Jeez...

Re:uh

[generic-man]

Let's examine this sentence again.

Other factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to and still don't today would be gaming consoles, advertising, portable music devices, and computer security.

I'll expand this to include both clauses separately.

Other factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to would be gaming consoles, advertising, portable music devices, and computer security. Other factors that Microsoft still doesn't pay attention to today would be gaming consoles, advertising, portable music devices, and computer security.

It's that second sentence where the problem comes in. You see, Microsoft spends a ton of money on advertising and actually intends to make money off the Xbox 360 after taking a bath on the Xbox. Likewise they are still aggressively courting the iPod's music share by allowing more than one music store to work with Plays For Sure devices. Among the reasons why Vista was delayed: an active effort to include more security features into the operating system, some of which should be familiar to any Linux or Mac OS X user, at the expense of some of the glitzier features that were promised earlier. If that's not attention, what is?

I appreciate your skepticism about the Xbox 360's prospects, but that sentence just seems like a flippant remark that you use to ignore any positive effort Microsoft tries to make. It is but one of dozens of remarks made throughout the article with no citation, a blatant disregard for any facts with which you disagree, and a blind show of support for anybody but Microsoft. Have you considered a writing career with the Colbert Report?

Re:uh

[Anonymous Coward]

GP is right. I stopped reading once I got to that point too.

Are you simply on the bandwagon with what everybody else is saying about my post?

Well, maybe you should think about expressing your thoughts more clearly, if so many people got it wrong.

Re:uh

[the argonaut]

Are you simply on the bandwagon with what everybody else is saying about my post?

Well, I can't comment much on the content of your article itself as all I get is a 404 when I click on the link. Aside from that, much of the outrage over your "opinion piece" seems to be because this looks like nothing more than whoring for publicity for your little blog. The high UID and lack of any comments in your history prior to today doesn't help either. In addition, anytime somebody validly criticizes you, you get unnecessarily defensive and start beating your chest (it really isn't unreasonable to expect an article to be spell and grammar checked before being published for the world to see. And the previous poster was correct, you do not type at 89 wpm if you can't do so accurately). So grow a thicker skin, learn to accept valid criticism, and by all means take an grammar refresher course (judging from your comments, you could use one), it will only help your future career.

Re:uh

[Overly Critical Guy]

According to his profile at OSNews, the kid is only 15, which explains a lot.

Basically, Slashdot accepted a pro-Linux/anti-Microsoft blog post from a 15-year-old. Ha.

Re:uh

[ClamIAm]

He's not talking about Microsoft running ads. He's talking about Microsoft not making money off of ads. Also, the "competition" advertises all the time (iPod, IBM, etc).

Um, Can anybody say "XBOX"?

I realize that the article is crap, but if you look at MS historically, they often don't go into new markets unless A) there's tons of money in it, or B) there is a potential threat to their monopoly. Game consoles is a case of A, and things like the web, Google, and the iPod are cases of B.

Is Everybody that runs Slashdot a Stoner?

[Anonymous Coward]

This article, as well as Slashdot in itself seems like it was created by Stoners. I am sure if I packed a bowl and went to Slashdot it would be awesome.

The economies of scale

[Anonymous Coward]

don't usually apply to software in the same way they apply to physical processes/things.

Re:The economies of scale

[gvc]

The economies of scale don't usually apply to software in the same way they apply to physical processes/things.

That's exactly what Thomas Alva Edison said (in addition to frying small and large mammals with the dread alternating current) in an effort to discredit George Westinghouse's electical grid.

May I suggest instead ...

[icepick72]

Just say 'No' to This Article

Thanks.

Great. bring back the good old days

[nurb432]

Where users were controllable and things worked properly because WE managed things.

A user doesnt need any more then just a terminal. Anything else is waste of resources.

Re:Great. bring back the good old days

[aminorex]

This is very true, but it leaves out the reason why the world changed: The server operators fucked up. People got more done with simple, cheap devices under their own control. Now circumstances have changed again. Suitable techniques and protocols are ubiquitous, which enable centralization of applications to servers which offer a value-add by virtue of central management. But if you think of it as regaining control, you've already screwed the goose that laid the golden egg, because nobody is going to let your control interfere with their productivity.

The concept isn't bad, but the application stinks

[v1]

The idea of web based applications is actually very handy, and offers access to the program from a variety of locations, which is good.

Unfortunately, a huge majority of these applications are going active-x or other proprietary format, and are limiting users' access on a more fundamental level - they expand the coverage range but limit you by your access point. Our ticket system has just gone to an active-x system. Now I cannot access it from my laptop anymore. So instead of making things more flexible for me and being able to access the system from any of the 200 machines in the building that I used to be able to use, I now can access it from less than two dozen machines, only one of which I have convenient access to.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

.NET objective.....

[3seas]

soooo, isn't teh whole point of .net that of internet based application development?

Re:.NET objective.....

[TheNetAvenger]

soooo, isn't teh whole point of .net that of internet based application development?

Um, no. .NET is about managed code, langauge independance, messaging technologies inside a closed network or across the internet, and about 50 other things not related to Internet Applications.

However, this really has no relevance, as this article is crap...

Maybe I should write an article about monkey DNA, and devote ten pages to how Windows is perfect, Linux is the devil and then put in the last paragraph, "Monkeys have DNA." Then I could get an insightful article on Monkey DNA posted on Slashdot.

What has happened to this site? It used to stand for something, now it is becoming the Enquirer of the Internet world.

What next, "Two headed Linux user from Mars proclaims Windows obsolete?"

Re:.NET objective.....

[3seas]

Actually the truth about .NET is that this marketing company thought that they would take a look at what everyone else was doing, collect it up, put it all in the same pot, cook it to boil it down to hopefully a product or product line that would do most all of what everyone else was doing. What amounts to programming concepts and datatypes in a non-conflicting application...

This is not an uncommon practice in the world of competition.

In doing so they stumbled into doing something that should already have been done as a mater of computer science. But remember they did not do it as a matter of science, but of marketing competition.

Once they did this, they then had to figure out what they had and how to market it. And they stumbled their way thru this.

Due to the primarily marketing mindset and resulting insecurities of microsoft products in general, the .net platform is no exception. Where any growing demand for .net platform developers is equaled to the growing QA demand.

As the many things MS tried to market the .NET as, internet applications was a part that took hold and even developed out side of MS .NET in the form of portable.net (dotGNU) and MONO.

I'm glad you're aware.

[CyricZ]

I'm glad you're already aware of what I pointed out. You likely read one of my other posts in which I've pointed out such facts, and thus were already in the know.

Good for you! I'm happy that you might have a clue as to how to write solid, secure software. Indeed, it is true that we can all use OpenBSD as a development model to emulate. Doing so will help us write secure, quality code. And if we run it on OpenBSD, all the better!

Now if only Microsoft were to wake up to the benefits offered by a development process such as that used by OpenBSD. They are getting far better, we have to admit, but there's still a long way to go before they rival OpenBSD's level of security.

Re:I'm glad you're aware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Different people have different priorities.

OpenBSD prioritises security. As a result, they have a secure OS.

Microsoft prioritises compatibility. As a result, they have an OS that actually runs the applications people want to use, and is therefore useful in the real world for tasks other than the simple web servers and firewalls that are about all you can use OpenBSD for.

The perfect system for a real-world organisation is a Windows network with an OpenBSD firewall protecting it from the internet.

Re:I'm glad you're aware.

[CyricZ]

I would tend to agree. But we see administrators and network designers who do not understand such a basic concept, and have Windows systems directly facing the Internet. Of course, they're the ones who end up running into trouble. For an example of that you can read the story below this one, which is about a hospital's network going down because of spyware.

Nevertheless, there is no reason why Microsoft can't draw from the OpenBSD development model. It shouldn't conflict with their desire to remain compatible with existing applications, while vastly increasing the stability and security of their platform. There have been claims that Microsoft has been parkating in serious code audits, so they might be on the right track. It's still a matter of making sure that new code doesn't contain serious flaws. That may be the weak point in their development system.

Re:I'm glad you're aware.

[Vellmont]

I'm glad you're already aware of what I pointed out. You likely read one of my other posts in which I've pointed out such facts, and thus were already in the know.


Uhh.. I think he was trying to say that your entire post was blatantly obvious to anyone that has more than 3 brain cells. You entire post can be summed up with the statement "If we do things right, we won't have problems!" Uhh. duh. The comments about going into politics or religion are spot on. You don't need to be smart, or right to suceed in either field. You just need people to blindly follow you.

Re:I'm glad you're aware.

[Cal Paterson]

I'm glad you're already aware of what I pointed out. You likely read one of my other posts in which I've pointed out such facts, and thus were already in the know.

Unlikely. He probably just knows a thing or two about the computing field.

I can't believe how arrogant you are. You're not the one source of world knowledge; you're simply relating a piece of common knowledge (in the computing field). Even worse, you're portraying it as some kind of new development or insight.

Re:I'm glad you're aware.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've been following Microsoft, they HAVE adopted most or all of the OpenBSD religion:

+ Services disabled by default
+ Code audits
+ ABI changes to minimized exploits

And when you look at Windows 2003, you can see this stuff already paying off.

Of course, Windows is actually useful for stuff other than routing packets, unlike OpenBSD.

Re:I'm glad you're aware.

[slugstone]

Anonymous Coward,

Oh please. Game playing dose not count as useful.

Worst Article EVER

[pyite]

This is the worst article ever linked to on Slashdot. I'd tell you read it and see for yourself, but I really don't want to put anyone else through that experience. Can I have my five minutes back?

Re:Worst Article EVER

[Dylan Knight Rogers]

That is your opinion. I appreciate the feedback, as it is feedback nevertheless. I find your signature very ironic to your feedback, however. ([...]You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman)

Re:Worst Article EVER

[Anonymous Coward]

I want my 5 minutes back too. What is this author, 15 years old and just discovered Linux or what? Embarassingly bad writing, both in terms of content (is there even any?) and presentation (hello grammar mistakes).

Re:Worst Article EVER

[BuR4N]

If its any comfort, no one else risk to lose 5 minutes of their life, the page is down/gone...

Re:Worst Article EVER

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have mine? That link is dead like most postings on Slashdot! FUCK you guys

Re:Worst Article EVER

[heinousjay]

Dude, you pulled your article. I feel robbed. Care to reproduce it here in a comment so I can ridicule it properly?

Re:Worst Article EVER

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3 c7cc58ef2009982/index.html

Re:Worst Article EVER

[Achoi77]

If its any comfort, no one else risk to lose 5 minutes of their life, the page is down/gone...

Unless he was looking at a 404 page for the past 5 minutes, confusing that for content. I would probably be pissed too. :-)

Disclaimer: site was down for me, so I only spent around 20 seconds waiting for the page to load.

Re:Worst Article EVER

[heinousjay]

Okay, I've read your article. I'll try to save the obvious jokes, and instead give you honest feedback.

1. It's really hard to stay interested. You wander from paragraph to paragraph without being cohesive.
2. Your grasp of the English language is... lacking. Your grammar and vocabulary usage remind me of reading high school assignments, and not from the smart class.
3. You take enormous liberties with the facts. For instance, this sentence: 'As experience tells us, "easily used" operating systems such as Windows are notorious for poor security, both local and remote because they allow the ignorant user to do virtually anything, even delete important system files.' is actually completely opposite to the truth. Windows actively prevents the user from deleting system files, while in Unix (or Unixish systems), root can completely wipe the file system.
4. You don't actually address the idea of an 'executable internet' anywhere, aside from the title.

There are more, but I'm already tired of reading this closely. Basically, your blog post is a poorly worded, excessively long bitch about an operating system you don't use. Or understand.

Congratulations on making Slashdot, though. Shame the bar is apparently so low.

Re:Worst Article EVER

[pyite]

Well, I understand your stance, but I must point out that you took Feynman's quote out of context. That said, yes I can still be wrong. My opinion stands as it is. I don't think you're playing with a full deck when you submit an article without mentioning that you wrote it yourself.

Re:Worst Article EVER

[MickDownUnder]

This comment should be read with the Simpsons Comic Book Guy voice.

Thank you for the article.

[CyricZ]

I just wanted to thank you for writing that article. I know you have taken a lot of flack because of it, but I enjoyed it. It brought up serious issues that we need to consider these days.

The front page story before this one focuses on how a hospital suffered a network failure because of spyware. That just goes to show that we do need to take your points about security and the Internet very seriously.

But as that story shows, apparently those who are designing mission-critical networks aren't using software that promotes security. Why they're resorting to knowingly insecure software for such applications is questionable, especially when alternatives like Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris and Mac OS X are so prevalent (if not free).

Re:Thank you for the article.

[wed128]

If somewhere as critical as a hospital suffers a failure because of spyware, somebody somewhere isn't doing their job.

Re:Thank you for the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

the kid is fifteen. i don't even want to think about what you and your GNAA buddies are going to do to him. ew

suspicious Cache files too?

[FudRucker]

i have seen some shell scripts in my SeaMonkey's Cache directory, i am not sure what they did so i made a shell script to delete the cache files automatically...

it may be nothing but on the otherhand it may be an Evil shell script, next time i find one i will examine it closer...

Too early on Sunday morning

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the headline was "Say no to an Executive Internet". Immediately I had a vision of news sites where you didn't have to invest time reading the articles, but instead could proceed immediately to concise summaries, commentaries, links, and jokes.

Oh wait...

be happy

[Anonymous Coward]

even tho its a lil' hasterating. i like it.

let them invent their business. let them fetch new coward targets.

the net and the way you use it is still your thing...
so stop whimper - you'll still have fun

Re:be happy

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a "shift" key on your keyboard. Use it.

Bandwidth will stop this

[a_greer2005]

Bandwidth on the WAN side is too expencive for anything more than what we have now - for Christs sake, a T1 is nearly 500$/mo. The baby bells are screwing us, they promised us hundreds of times the bandwith of today at a fraction of the price if only we "pay it forward" in user fees in the 90s, we did, they didnt keep their end, so no...cant happen.

Re:Bandwidth will stop this

[AC-x]

T1, $500 a month? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, what is this the late 90's? T1 is what, 1.5mbit? I get 10mbit, cable TV and phone line rental for £45 a month. I'm sure there are internet only deals that are better still then that. (ok it's only 384kbit up, but if the focus of the internet changes I can see them putting more upload bandwidth aside).

Of course this is assuming that broadband in the US is cheaper then the UK, which most things normally are.

Re:Bandwidth will stop this

[xmedar]

That is contended, though uncontended bandwidth to a London DC is nearly as cheap now, you can get a gig-e for about £5K/month (8KUSD) these days if you shop around I expect even cheaper BW as people move over to 10gig-e.

Re:Bandwidth will stop this

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you run a business with that? T1 lines are intended to be used by businesses, shared among many users, and are subject to less bandwidth restrictions than residential subscriptions. A T1 is about 1.5 Mbps up and down, but you actually do get 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. My experience with "10 Mbps" cable modem service was that the total bandwidth was significantly less than that.

Re:Bandwidth will stop this

[Anonymous Coward]

You moron. A T1 is 1.5 Mb/s full-duplex, meaning you can listen and talk at the full rate. 0.3 Mb/s up and 10 Mb/s down is like having good hearing but being mute. How do you think you can receive data at 10 Mb/s? Somebody else has at least 10 Mb/s upstream! YOU CAN'T DO WHAT THEY'RE DOING!! You're also limited to 0.3 Mb/s whenever you're communicating with someone else who has your service. When everyone is limited to 0.3 Mb/s up, 10 Mb/s down becomes worthless.

You also failed to take into account TOS and AUP contracts of cable and DSL providers. With a T1 you can saturate the connection up and down 24 hours a day. There are no secret bandwidth usage caps, port blocks, or clauses prohibiting running network services. Hopefully now you understand how the telcos are screwing us.

This article misses the point.

[nesabishii]

First let me point out a few odd statements in this article:

"factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to and still don't today would be gaming consoles..."

The X-Box and the X-Box 360? Microsoft put billions of dollars into those gaming consoles.

"As experience tells us, 'easily used' operating systems such as Windows are notorious for poor security..."

What about Apple's Unix-based OS X? That's often considered easier to use than Windows for new computer users.

"resulting in a poorly designed operating platform and ignorant users who don't know the difference between WEP and WPA..."

It seems like he's arguing that the users of an operating system determine the quality of that operating system.

Really, I think this article misses the point. Internet-based OSes will not be feasible now or in the near future, I agree; however, that has more to do with bandwidth limitations, and the enormous variety of hardware out there, than security flaws in Windows (Live?). Security will always be a big issue--especially when distributed to a network of hundreds of millions of computers--but the hardware and infrastructure issues will derail the process much earlier and more severely, IMO.

Connectivity is everywhere

[Colin Smith]

Wireless, GPRS, 3G etc are all pushing us back to the centralised model, it's cheaper, simpler and more efficient than fully distributed.

Mark my words... Google VNC servers... You saw it here first.

Re:Connectivity is everywhere

[wed128]

Although your ideas make sense, and i'm being nitpicky here, if a company like google were to host a service like this, they would need to come up with a much less "fat" protocal than VNC...

Anyone have any experience in Graphical Terminal Protocal design that would like to shed some light on the subject?

Re:Connectivity is everywhere

[ceoyoyo]

You can have your centralized computing. I'll keep my independent device so I don't have to pay by the minute, can still watch movies as many times as I want for the same price and it will still work when I go visit my parents out in the middle of nowhere.

404 - Page not found

[limegreen]

Judging by all the negative comments, the flaming article has been pulled.

Re:404 - Page not found

[ettlz]

Damn shame, too. If something's really that bad, it's got to be worth a look. The whole F blog's been taken down along with it.

Re:404 - Page not found

[Gobelet]

Say thanks to Mirrordot: http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3 c7cc58ef2009982/index.html

Re:404 - Page not found

[general_re]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled bashing :)

Re:404 - Page not found

[thelost]

This story should be pulled too. What a waste of space. Slow sunday.

Re:404 - Page not found

[limegreen]

Thanks!

Now I have lost another 5 minutes of my life to actually reading the diatribe. It really has been a slow Sunday.

Far from perfect

[Maxmin]

Probably perfect for the world you live in. But there are many worlds - designers with their fancy OSX workstations, software developers running Linux and Windows, secretaries using Office, etc.

Windows is definitely not appropriate for all real-world organizations, it just happens to be ubiquitous. But so us *nix, in the web world.

And for the record, if the only thing you can make out of an OpenBSD installation is a firewall, then you deserve to be stuck on Windows. OpenBSD also makes a swell webserver and mailserver, and runs many, many sites.

That link has died.

[supasam]

So it's at least a little hard to follow the story right now.

Executable Internet = AI

[Anonymous Coward]

AI Algorithms already exist to turn the Internet into a global thinking Artificial Intelligence.

It will resemble the Mainframe/Dumb Terminal world

[saridder]

This type of model can be inherently secure as most of the processing, policies and intelligence for these types of applications will be in a central data center. The main difference between this new world and the old is the ability to access the compute resources from anywhere or virtually any device on any network. So if we use a lot of the lessons learned from the "olden days," we can create the best of both worlds.

Karma Whoring

[DoddyUK]

Mirror for TFA.

Well...

[Comatose51]

Saying 'No' to an Executable Internet

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

Sure told them!

No.

[Stan Vassilev]

No.

Article Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!

Thanks Mirrordot!

[Gobelet]

http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3 c7cc58ef2009982/index.html

Poetic... Blogger: 404 - Page not found...

[advocate_one]

Poetic, judging from some of the early comments... the article comes up as:

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

Questions for the blogger...

[Rob_Warwick]

I notice that the blogger is reading this thread, so I was wondering if he'd answer a question.

Being the author of the original piece and the guy who submitted the summary, I'd expect him to have a fairly good grasp on how to summarize it. However the summary reads as if a Web based OS would be a bad thing, yet he states in the blog post:

A web based operating system would be really neat, and Jason Kottke wrote about it a while ago.

So do you think it's a good idea or a bad idea?

Also, why is the Slashdot summary focussed on the idea of a web based OS when you only mention the term once, and refer to a 'Web Windows' one time?

Re:Questions for the blogger...

[JackDW]

Additionally, what IS a web-based OS? Apart from being a buzzword, anyway.

Is this an OS that boots over a network? Is it a framework for building applications that are partly server-side and partly client-side? How is this different from present-day web applications like Google Maps?

And, most importantly, what is the benefit of a web-based OS?

Re:Questions for the blogger...

[Anonymous Coward]

And, most importantly, what is the benefit of a web-based OS?

Compared to locally-hosted OSes, it's over 400 times more gee-whizzable.

IT Phone Home!

[Paraplex]

Well we all know that only assholes have opinions (which leaves only assholes to make decisions.. great) but I thought I'd throw in my two cents

Gmail updates whether I like it or not. I'm always using the latest version, so now i'm stuck with a fking IM client for a mail host.

Hamachi doesn't run online, but phones home constantly and nags you relentlessly to "update to version X.X" every time they release a minor bug fix. When you give in and click "update" the thing is riddled with new bugs the previous version didn't have.

iTunes is similar. I never wanted all the bloat the latest versions give me. Thank christ its not an online prog. I can run the version I choose.

I spent $99 on HalfLife 2 and *cannot* play it anymore because of the very poor "Phone Home" code in steam that refuses to contact the server.

I got locked out of *my own* computer once for a day after an XP update. That wasn't cheap
I'm desparately trying to swap to linux to avoid the Vista DRM hell.

I love accessing my software from this computer remotely (using hamachi at present, but this seems to be an under developed tech) & would love to use a web interface to access info & software from my home PC from any device at any time, but I would like to retain the power over what runs on *my* pc & where that info is stored.

Re:IT Phone Home!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love accessing my software from this computer remotely (using hamachi at present, but this seems to be an under developed tech) & would love to use a web interface to access info & software from my home PC from any device at any time, but I would like to retain the power over what runs on *my* pc & where that info is stored.

Even as I write this, I have a browser window open where I'm using my desktop XP computer at work through Windows Terminal Services. Depending on what's most convenient at home, I access it using either my XP laptop or one of a couple of Macs. It's a lot better than calling up the mainframe on the terminal used to be -- for one thing, I don't have to run computer paper that's already been printed on both sides through already through the terminal one more time to do my work...

Re:IT Phone Home!

[Ndiin]

Gmail updates whether I like it or not. I'm always using the latest version, so now i'm stuck with a fking IM client for a mail host.

Click the link at the bottom that selects the "Gmail mode"; change it from "standard with chat" to "standard without chat". Problem solved.

-- Eric

Re:IT Phone Home!

[heinousjay]

Well we all know that only assholes have opinions

Sorry for being a douche, correcting you and whatnot.

It's 'opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.'

Your opinions match the paradigm, though. They stink :P

Re:IT Phone Home!

[aminorex]

> I would like to retain the power over what runs on *my* pc & where that info is stored.

Indeed, this is one of the best arguments for software as a service. I don't want to install 500MB of bloated crapware on my computer to view a spreadsheet, thank you very much. Windows is just a badly debugged collection of device drivers, and I don't want to trust my data to it. I would much prefer an audited, open-source service which stores my data in a cryptographically secure manner, and operates a data-center than can take a nuclear hit.

This is especially, emphatically, true when I am mobile.

InternetOS

[JWSmythe]

    Ummmm...

    Can't you run thin clients (of some variety) over the Internet? Like the variety that consist of a boot disk (floppy, CD, or boot ROM) and pull the rest from elsewhere?

Yuck

[Nazmun]

Working through existing wireless networks in real time for serious apps. It's one thing to move a little bit of data here and there but the entire application on the server. THeres so many problems with that.

Article text

[c0d3h4x0r]

Blogger

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

Home | About | Knowledge | Help | Developers | Gear | Privacy | Copyright © 1999 - 2005 Google

ROFLMAO

[marafa]

the guy's had his website torn down by blogger. roflmao

Off topic but

[tlynch001]

What's with the word 'usage'? Why not just say 'use'? As in

Applications are constantly being ported for use on the Internet

Did the whole blog die?

[Hosiah]

I keep getting "not found" errors. I finally Googled "dylanknightrogersblog" and was able to read the cache, but no evidence of the TFA on executable internet - obviously the page was indexed prior to the post.

Dumb Idea?

[Bombula]

OK, I'm not a computer guy, but here's an idea - it's probably not new, but even so it may be worth thinking about:

What about having the network augment the user's computer? I mean, there are a lot of idle CPUs out there, right? What if your apps were designed to run on your own system just fine, but could tap into free CPU time as needed, SETI@home-style?

Now even to a non-computer person like me, security is obviously an issue here, but it seems like this could work pretty well on a company's in-house network, or over a LAN in your house, or whatever. Assuming the bandwidth was there in the network connections and the software could support it, couldn't you sort of turn your desktop and laptop into a dual-CPU machine - at least partly anyway?

And what about all those idle GPUs out there? They could be put to use in the same way too.

Just a thought.

Re:Dumb Idea?

[croddy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster

Re:Dumb Idea?

[merreborn]

I proposed the same idea to my father when I was in highschool. The thing is internet latency is very, very high compared to the latency involved in hitting your own processor/memory. This ends up severely limiting the type of applications you can run in this sort of setting.

Botnets are an interesting example of this sort of computing, though. In fact, botnets are the closest thing we have to this sort of idea being implemented right now.

Anyway, the point is that real time applications such as gaming wouldn't really see much benefit from this. By the time someone else could execute part of your processing, and send the result back to you, you character is already a foot from where you were when you requested the work, and the old work is now completely irrelevant. Even more, I can't think of a single use for GPUs that *isn't* realtime -- distributed GPU use over the net is almost certainly 100% impractical. It's not uncommon for gamers to play at and above 100 FPS -- that leaves your system 10 milliseconds to render every frame; you can hardly ping someone a block away in that time -- severely limiting the number of computers available to your 'cluster'. Also latency is NOT garanteed on the net, much less successful, in order delivery.

It works for apps like SETI@home because seti just sends you a chunk of work every few minutes or hours, and doesn't particularly care if and when you finish it. There's no 10 ms deadline on SETI -- the project will finish when it finishes.

Internet wide cluster computing is most suitable for applications that are primarily about converting a very large input (years of SETI data, protein folding data, massive mailing lists for bot nets) into very large output (analyzed data, folded proteins, spam) over a long, unpredictable period of time.

Re:Dumb Idea?

[BobPaul]

What about having the network augment the user's computer? I mean, there are a lot of idle CPUs out there, right? What if your apps were designed to run on your own system just fine, but could tap into free CPU time as needed, SETI@home-style?

As my assembly language instructor once said, "The time difference between loading something out of the local cache and access the computer's RAM is like the difference between taking a paper off the top of your desk and looking at it, and finding a paper in a filling cabinent, and then looking at it. Accessing the hard disk is like calling your friend in the Philippians and asking him to mail something to you."
Now, if the HardDrive, which is in your comptuer, is like recieving post from the Philippians, accessing something off a network share must be collecting something from the moon.

The only applications that would benifit from your suggestion are things like encoding video or scanning an audio feed for signs of intelligent life: things that would take hours to complete and don't need to be finished asap. Most tasks on your computer (scanning currently accessed files for viruses, rendering a PDF on screen, playing a video game or dvd, rendering HTML on a webpage) really need to be executed on the local machine. The only exception would be if only the keyboard and display were remote, like when using VNC or Windows Remote Desktop, but even then you aren't combining the processors potential, more just wasting the one at the viewing end.

It's not a bad idea, just not very practical unfortunately.

Re:Dumb Idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I'm not a computer guy,

get out, now

Re:Dumb Idea?

[Bombula]

Wow, that wikipedia article about clusters is really informative. Thanks to whoever posted it.

Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be practical for things like gaming, but for example I have database crunching stuff for the stock market that takes quite a while (few minutes) to process, and I often split it up manually between laptop and desktop to save time, but it is a pain in the ass. For things like video rendering, ripping audio and video, and that kind of thing this could be useful - and I guess that's exactly why big companies use clusters.

Well, at least now I know what Lucas is talking about when he refers to the ILM render farm! Sorry to waste everyone's time ...

Re:Dumb Idea?

[SanityInAnarchy]

You're looking for mosix, assuming you have an app that knows how to multithread. Those should at least get more common as we see more dual-cores, though.

Re:Dumb Idea?

[ClamIAm]

I can't think of a single use for GPUs that *isn't* realtime

Rendering CG or special effects comes to mind.

The problem with all of this

[The FooMiester]

If it's not open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a proprietary interface trusted computing bla bla bla.

If it is open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a huge security risk and will lead to the death of the internet bla bla bla.

The real fear

[Anonymous Coward]

My fear is not the idea of a subscription based OS, or even accessing your apps online. Thanks to KRUD we have a subscription based GNU/Linux distribution, and thanks to ZeroInstall we have a system of on the fly internet apps in GNU/Linux. I just really doubt that the windows version will be that nicely developed. With ZeroInstall I keep my local copy of my apps no matter how long I go without internet access, and with KRUD I still have my OS if I stop the service I just don't get any more updates.

Re:The real fear

[westlake]

Thanks to KRUD we have a subscription based GNU/Linux distribution... and with KRUD I still have my OS if I stop the service I just don't get any more updates.

I see we have a new candidate here for the worst acronym ever to emerge from the bowels of Linux and Open Source.

Re:The concept isn't bad, but the application stin

[16K Ram Pack]

I really can't think of many benefits of doing something with ActiveX when browsers are so rich now. It suggests to me that someone is just lazy now.

MS underestimated the internet ...

[ben_1432]

So what? Why does every anti-MS article need to reflect that? MS didn't think the internet would be a trillion dollar industry. Not many things turn into trillion dollar industries.

And now it's 404!

[DerCed]

Apparently even the writer realized how lame the article is :)

Re:It will resemble the Mainframe/Dumb Terminal wo

[16K Ram Pack]

I'm noticing that a lot of companies are moving away from desktop apps to browser-based apps. It's just so much easier to manage. Users can work at home, making changes is simple to manage.

No, Just apply common sense

[istartedi]

I'm no fan of network centric computing being used everywhere eiither; one of my favorite quips to use against advocates is: "I can't use my word processor, the network is down".

That said, I think it would be foolish to ignore the potential. Common sense applies. Obviously a web browser is an inherently network-oriented app. Anything DB-driven, where the DB is updated frequently and is too large to store locally is also a candidate. The word processor could even pull modules from the internet--as long as they were cached locally for when the network is not available.

Common sense and good design can give us the best of both worlds. It's just a question of finding the time, and the brains with the common sense; but isn't that always the problem.

Re:No, Just apply common sense

[SanityInAnarchy]

I can't use my word processor, the network is down

So cache it locally.

The same applies to network FSes. Set it up so that you can cache files locally, even reserve a chunk of the tree to be yours (read-only when you're disconnected) so you can work on stuff on a laptop, then have it automatically re-sync when you plug back in.

We want network-based apps for other reasons: word processor update? No problem, just close it and open it again.

Written by a 16-year-old?

[Evro]

According to these pages: http://www.osnews.com/user.php?uid=2668 , http://jenett.org/ageless/1990s/ Dylan Knight Rogers is 16 years old. That would explain many of the criticisms in this thread. Both his site and his "blog" are now giving 404 errors so I can't even read the article myself.

Re:Written by a 16-year-old?

[generic-man]

As a former 16-year-old Internet loudmouth, I would hope that we can disconnect Dylan's age from his opinions. It is in fact possible to be mature and communicate well at that age, but unfortunately this article is not very mature at all. To be fair, though, there are significantly older people with similarly narrow world views who get a ton of press on Slashdot.

Re:Written by a 16-year-old?

[damsa]

Why not? I am willing to be that most viruses are probably written by 16 year olds, or at least people with the emotional age of a 16 year old.

Re:Written by a 16-year-old?

[Eli Gottlieb]

As a 16 year old who knows when to shut up about technical topics he doesn't know about, I agree with the parent poster. TFA is immature, but that shouldn't reflect on all 16 year olds.

Web Applications

[johndmann]

Someone forgot to run his - I'm getting a 404 Error on his blog lol.

Security Ratings

[raftpeople]

Something to keep in mind on these security ratings is that there are certain features required such that, if missing, the OS cannot be certified at that level, regardless of how secure the OS actually is.

For example, I believe tagging objects as something along the lines of "Secret" and "Top Secret" (seriously) is a requirement for some level (C2?).

So we should let Mensa take over the world?

[nietsch]

The percentile you desribed as 'smart' is IIRC the same percentile you have to score in to be allowed as a member.
But if we are going to have those people do all the actual work, what shall we do with the rest of them? maybe store them in some cubeville office and have them look at pr0n on the their tellies all day?

rm -rf /../*

[gomel]

rm -rf /../*

what's above root dir? Does anbybody know?

Re:rm -rf /../*

[ToasterofDOOM]

FSM@yourbox

Re:rm -rf /../*

[Anonymous Coward]

In case your question is serious, the root dir parents itself.

Re:rm -rf /../*

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't that tickle?

Connectivity, maybe. Bandwidth? No.

[quanticle]

/*Wireless, GPRS, 3G etc are all pushing us back to the centralised model, it's cheaper, simpler and more efficient than fully distributed.*/

First of all, the majority of solutions you've described are nowhere near fully deployed.  802.11b/g is spreading, but you're still tethered to within a 100ft. or so of the nearest access point (discounting the few places that have city-wide wi-fi).  3G/GPRS are being deployed in a select few cities, but, again, is nowhere near providing full coverage.  The big cities may get the fancy broadband wireless, but what about the boonies?

Secondly, there's still no guarantee that these technologies will be robust enough to provide guaranteed bandwidth in all areas.  I see this everytime my cell phone loses its connection as I step into the basement.  Its one thing to boast of providing 100Mbps at 100m across a clear field, but quite another thing to pull it off when there's buildings, cars and other electronics providing interference.

Third, even if you can get to 100% coverage with 100% bandwidth, you're still losing scalability by switching to a centralized system.  Cell phones and other mobile devices are becoming more powerful every year.  It'd be a huge waste to treat these devices are mere dumb terminals.  Ideally, distributed applications would be best for this sort of an environment, as there'd be spare CPU cycles all around for you to use.

Absolutely Inccorrect

[raftpeople]

Enterprise applications have centralized data and applications (database, stored procs, servlets, etc.). You can't easily escape this fact and thus centralized computing will continue to thrive for the foreseeable future.

The backlash against the mainframe had more to do with the niche of applications that did not require the data center. Word processing, spreadsheets, etc. where the data can be local for X amount of time before being shared with others in the enterprise.

Internet applications are the current direction for a few reasons:
1) Centralized apps are still a must for multi-user, shared transaction processing.
2) Maintaining client applications on local computing resources is a logistical problem with zero gain. It's a drain of time and money.
3) The browser is the standardized client that is ubiquitous, no need to worry about whether the client is loaded with 3270, 5250, telnet, etc.

censorship

[mdman]

Censorship at its best! that sure did not last long

Re:The concept isn't bad, but the application stin

[shmlco]

"Unfortunately, a huge majority of these applications are going active-x ..."

Okay, your application did, but a "huge majority"? I work in the technical field, and I don't get that sense at all. Any stats to back up your "majority" claim?

Incorrect

[nurb432]

We didnt screw up, we just didnt adapt fast enough ( didnt take the PC market seriously ).

Not having control does intefere with users productivity, since they are incapable of doing it themselves.. The only way to regain that state of productivity is to go back to the old model, and take the 'comptuer' away from them so it can be managed properly. Then they can get back to actually doing THEIR work, and not pretending to be an admin.

Re:Incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed.

I didn't grow up in the mainframe era, but I can appreciate what it meant as far as conrtol over the stupid (and becoming ever more so each day) end users. I did grow up during the very beginning of the PC revolution, and I would say this same trend even happend with in the PC industry. Looking back I don't remember running into as many end user created problems in the 386 era as I do these days.

It seems the trend to make the PC more "user friendly" has simply created a large number of "click first ask qeustions later" end users. And the poor design of windows security which basically forces you to practically make every user an admin (or their software won't work for some stupid reason!) hasn't helped matters. I mean think about it, back in the DOS era you had to at least be smart enough to type "edit c:\config.sys" to really start messing up your systems boot settings. Now you can point-and-click your way to failure in no time! So I have often had similar thoughts about taking away many levels of privilege from ends users, at least in business environments. (which is where I work. working in the consumer market was HELL, never again!)

Some times I wonder about some of these end users, seems they mess things up just so they can spend a few hours messing around trying to fix it them selves. After all, telling your boss your work is not done on time because of computer problems is a commonly accepted excuse. And let's face it, from an end users point of view messing around in the world of IT is more fun than getting your boring document typed up...

Power To The Admins!! Down With End Users!! ;)

Self-standing web apps

[Tablizer]

Perhaps it is the reverse of what the article is suggesting, but often times one wants to be able to distribute web apps as EXE's that work just like older-style apps where you install EXE's and other do-dads all the in same directory and just run the main EXE.

More tools are focusing on web app techniques instead of traditional GUI's, ao it makes sense to have ways to distribute web apps for individual machines.

zeh

[Anonymous Coward]

this is the most boring post ever.
as far as remote applications go microsoft allready has a solution.
Vista and windows server 2003 R2 = remote applications.
They run off the server act as a normal application on your desktop and allow you to save your files on the server or localy.
so yeah...microsoft is way ahead here.

The ke¥ to console supremac¥

[tepples]

The X-Box and the X-Box 360? Microsoft put billions of dollars into those gaming consoles.

But how many yen? Microsoft has catastrophically failed to win over the part of the console gaming market with allegedly the most mone¥ spent per person: Japan.

Re:The concept isn't bad, but the application stin

[v1]

Sorry I didn't waste my time gathering stats for you, you'll need to go find them yourself. I'm merely relaying personal experience, like you just did. (I didn't see any "stats" from you to support your experience?) Not having a windows XP machine here I am fully aware of all the things that can't run without active-x. You probably use quite a few of them without even knowing it.

Try disabling javascript for a week and see how your web browsing goes. Same efffect, though admittedly on a larger scale. It appears that every little startup that's trying to publish a web-based internal company tool is using active-x. It's hard to find one that isn't using active-x. It's not a bad idea in concept - you get to push your program to the host machine with no installation (short of active-x anyway) and have a wide degree of fredom and tools at your disposal. Updates are centralized. Unfortunately this means you have a high degree of control over the client computer, and are highly dependent on it having active-x (proprietary) installed on the client. You can also easily waste a day browsing all the active-x security problems. (patched and unpatched) The spyware authors must just looove active-x being installed on so many machines.

Java VNC anyone?

[lightversusdark]

Disclaimer: didn't RTFA.
So:
I'm going to be able to access not just applications in my browser, but a whole OS?
Gosh, think of the security implications - where are my files being stored, blahblah.
FUCKING DYNDNS, APACHE & a JAVA VNC CLIENT
Although the rest of the posts seem to suggest that the article actually has sweet F.A. to do with anything.
As an aside, I have heard it mentioned that it is possible to pay for a subscription to slashdot, is the posting of this article some kind of incentive?

Re:The concept isn't bad, but the application stin

[shmlco]

"You probably use quite a few of them without even knowing it."

Nice try, but I'm running Safari on OS X. ;)

And not to disrupt your screed, but email trojans are by far the most used tool of "spyware authors". Second seems to be buffer overruns aimed at ports, and third is bad data contained within theoretically benign files (images, movies). ActiveX is pretty far down the list.

Bottleneck?

[Jozer99]

Wasn't the decenteralization of computers (from dumb terminals and mainframes to desktops) a reaction to the bottlenecks of processing power, in that it was cheaper and faster (performancewise) to stuff a processor into the terminal, than to add more processing power to mainframes? I would think in todays atmosphere, this would be just as big a problem. At this point, we are at a wall in terms of processing power. Current processors are as fast as we can make them without melting (using current tech). In fact, we have to resort to multiple processors on one chip as a workaround. I would think that internet based applications owuld have the same problem with getting enough processing power to handle 1,000's of users into a small and economical space. For this reason, I can see things like MS word being web based, but Photoshop and Windows itself? I don't think so.

Article?

[abcxyz]

what article? -- looks like it's missing to me, but this is /. so reading it is actually a secondary requirement.

Why not ?

[Yvanhoe]

That throws the basis of Shadowrun's Matrix! Now get me an excalibur cyberdeck and let's try to hack those fraggin telco companies...

Operating Systems that run from the web?

[rinkjustice]

If someone could give me just give me one good example of this. Are we talking "netcentric" software and API's? Are we talking proprietary or open source? Are we talking Google OS? I'm sure we/they are not talking about Plan 9 (which still needs a floppy disk to install), so what are we talking about?

Right result, wrong reason

[danaris]

Microsoft prioritises compatibility. As a result, they have an OS that actually runs the applications people want to use...

Everything in this is true, except for the connector you use.

Windows running all the applications has little to do with Microsoft prioritizing compatibility, and everything to do with Microsoft's jealously (and illegally) defended monopoly position in the OS market.

Dan Aris

He just got his driver's license

[mattbot 5000]

The submitter appears to be 15, maybe 16 years old.

Here's to hoping Slashdot forms a content partner alliance with LiveJournal soon.

AKA genes

[StikyPad]

a parasite shown to alter the brain function of rats, inducing them into behavior that benefits the parasite but is suicidal for the rat.

I thought we called those "chromasomes in an XY arrangement."

Re:AKA genes

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. how did my post get attached to this topic? Bizarre..

You gave up on it, but many businesses haven't.

[Richard Steiner]

Many major airlines, for example, are still almost completely driven by centralized computer systems (with many of them still running on traditional mainframe platforms), and that includes software in almost every area from reservations to flight planning to aircraft parts inventory to payroll.

Yes, there are web-based front-ends galore, and a number of less critical systems have been broken out into clusters of smaller servers from a single large one over the years, but in the end you're still talking about a traditional centralized server design.

Distibuted systems work well in some areas, but they aren't a good solution for everything, and there are a number of reasons why centralization has advantages in a number of situations.

Executable INternet

[bejiitas_wrath]

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\>C:\>start "Look, I'm online!" "C:\Program Files\Accessories\Teh Intarweb.lnk
"
'C:\' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\>

Worst...

[SisyphusShrugged]

OSQ (Obligatory Simpsons Quote) "Worst Slashdot Article....Ever!"

This is so lame

[dscruggs]

On Space Giants they turned into rockets!

Well, I'm just too scared to try what would happen

[gomel]

my bet was it wouldn't work.

Or...

[koko775]

ln -s internet serious business

Dylan Knight Rogers blogspot mirror

[storem]

How else can you still RTFA?

http://mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3c7cc 58ef2009982/index.html

Yum Yum - NOT!!!

[aybiss]

ActiveX control, anyone?

Seriously, when is someone going to make a non executable GUI language for doing this stuff with? Can it be that hard to make a VM that's constrained to drawing in one window?

I for one think our new internet overlords should consider that most people either are or soon will be equipped with an arsenal of software designed to foist attempts to take over a browser window in the kind of way this sort of thing will require.

That's more than 2c, but I'm feeling generous today.

Why? try ls -d /../*

[Anonymous Coward]

Try ls -d /../*

See?

He was right, the root dir parents itself.

And the question is... did Adam parent himself?

Don't verlook risks and costs of local computing

[gvc]

Apparently to be heard (i.e. not modded down) in this forum one must use small words and avoid metaphor, while repeating learned wisdom.

The parent says that the granparent is excessively dismissive of network computing, and ignores the cost, effort, and risks involved with maintaining and using one's own computer system.

The parent uses a device called allegory to make this point.

Re:It will resemble the Mainframe/Dumb Terminal wo

[Arimus]

Yep, at my place our major document repository is... browser based, bugzilla does our bug tracking (albeit on a closed server in our comms room), our test case database is web based, our system model has a web version for read-only use, our expenses and time card system is web based.

"Windows NT" is not "Orange Book Certified"

[Old Man Kensey]

You're forgetting that the Orange Book criteria are very strict. You can't get a blanket certification for an operating system family, or even a single version running on all hardware. Only a complete PC configuration can be certified.

Windows NT 3.5, Service Pack 3, running on one of three specific PC configurations with no external communications (and no floppy drive, as I recall), reached C2 certification. NT 4.0 managed to get C2 certified running at Service Pack 6a with a special C2 update, again only on certain configurations. 3.51 was never certified at all. To the best of my knowledge, no Microsoft OS ever achieved or even began the process for B2 certification.

If you want more details, look at the C2 evaluation reports.