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Article on OpenBSD and Theo de Raadt
Marcos Lopez writes "Good article on Theo de Raadt and his developement of the OpenBSD system and why he is based in Canada due to crypto laws in the US. Well written article/interview, was printed todays in the Calgary Herald, Theo's home town.
" A generalist overview of OpenBSD and its security-conscious direction.
A local DOS is *not* an exploit. Come one, there are hundreds of ways local users can make life hell to the host OS, no matter what precautions you take. It's hard to stop people from abusing whatever you are offering, unless of course you are offering nothing. The essence of security is not only in minimizing those DOS's (I said minimizing, there is not way of removing them all). It's in getting a system out of the box that is secure. It's not that hard. OpenBSD has been doing it for two years in a row now. Why can't Linux distros do it? Why are there so many overflows and race conditions in a fresh Redhat install? Cause nobody cares about security. Because nobody minds getting screwed over every once in a while. These distros are giving UNIX a bad name. There is no excuse... having a fancy install is not a reason for having remote root holes.
OpenBSD also takes some of the userland enhancements from FreeBSD and includes them in their package. To some, it means that you get the best of both worlds (NetBSD and FreeBSD).
The Calgary Herald is his hometown?
I would imagine, it's a bit cramped in there.
What happens to him, when I fold up the paper or burn it?
The government has police, soldiers, judges, guns, tanks, jails, etc. Microsoft only has lawyers.
Microsoft's EULA is a voluntary agreement between Microsoft and you. The government on the other hand can involuntarily bind you to a law and throw you in jail if you violate it. This is hardly equivalent. If I don't like Microsoft's rules I can always go to Mac, Linux, OS/2, BSD, etc. If I don't like the laws, however, I'm SOL.
But you argue, Microsoft can still sue you. So what? I can sue them as well if they violate the EULA (my chances are slim, but I can do it). What Microsoft does NOT do is come to your house with guns.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
While it's true that we are much less fettered by export regulations than our neighbours to the south, we still do have some restrictions on the export of software here in Canada. For more information, see the following web pages:
Canada's Export Controls
Excerpts from the Export Control List of Canada
The Wassenaar Arrangement, which Canada has signed
Crypto Law Survey of Canada
And, more generally,
Electronic Frontier Canada
Before you fall off that high horse of yours, try re-reading your own original comment. You HEARD (rumors) that Theo has been critical of Linux. So you basically demanded that he come forward and defend himself.
Is it that shocking that some people might NOT like Linux? Does any person who has anything non-glowing about Linux automatically have to justify their opinion to you? I dislike Linux, will you expect me to explain why?
And just so you know, Theo has been critical of just about EVERY OS that isn't OpenBSD. He isn't exactly a person who holds back his opinion on things. He's even critiqued MY favorite OS, Solaris, but I haven't asked him to stand forward and defend himself yet.
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Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
I can't believe how long it took a local paper to recognize a local innovator.
I am a Calgary resiedent and actually I am not too shocked. The majority of the classified ads under technology are for Microsoft based products. Calgary, lately has been trying to pretend it is no longer an oil and gas town but a new technology mecca. I don't believe it.
The conservative attitudes of the aging oil elite prevail. The tone of the article was more a statement that OpenBSD exists rather than the glowing writing about another twit opening up a school to give people MSCE certificates for a really sick price. (That article I think was last week some time).
In fact I am shocked they even wrote about open bsd in a city where money talks - esspecially oil and gas money.
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I have near zero experience with OpenBSD so far, but I did try a couple installations.
Yeah, the OpenBSD disk layout program is really bizzare, at least to those of us who have used MS-DOS systems too much. When reading through the FreeBSD documentation that came with the Walnut Creek package, they shed some light on the *BSD disk model -- it appears to have been developed absolutely independantly of the IBM PC's HD layout, and they have different ideas about how things are done. When BSD was ported to the PC platform, the disk partitioning model was ported, too. Knowing FDISK probably hurts when laying out an OpenBSD system.
As I understand it, you basicly create a IBM/MS style partition which reserves space for OpenBSD. THIS becomes the BSD "disk". Now, this "disk" is partitioned. Kinda like "Extended partitions", but totally different 8)
My first attempt to load OpenBSD was on a generic clone, empty IDE hard disk, 3Com network card, FTP install. Worked great. I then tried putting it on a machine which I wanted to have it run on (Compaq Deskpro XL 575). Had more problems, as there was the infamous Compaq system maintence partition on the drive already, and a small DOS partition. But, the install appeared to go well. Until reboot. At which point, the system refused to boot, and upon investigation, the disk was blank, except for the OpenBSD boot loader. No OpenBSD partition, no DOS partition, no Compaq system partition (and those are a pain to reload).
I went back to FreeBSD after that. I'll try OpenBSD again, esp. once I found the explaination of the BSD disk concepts in the Walnut Creek FreeBSD book, but yes, for newbies, it would be best to practice on a BLANK hard disk at first. And of course, your backup are up to date, aren't they??
As someone else said, FreeBSD has a much nicer disk preparation program.
Nick.