And, again, what is a 1024-bit cryptographic signature going to give me at work that the security guard at the front desk wouldn't have caught to begin with in terms of identification?
That card will give you the ability to fingerprint communications and documents digitally the same way a web server signs SSL web pages. It will also give information that security guard does not know off the top of his head, such as which classified doors you are allowed to enter and which you are not. If you had to ask the guard, he would just look it up in a centralized computer system anyway. This is how security clearances are handled in the real world -- there are centralized databases showing who has what clearance. All this card does is automate the process one step further.
I have to agree with your point in a way, that the best security involves pairs of attentive eyes and a brain with common sense behind them. Mr. Bruce Schneier reiterates this point over and over in his writing, and people still don't get it. Sigh.
Wow, similar IDs for government employees? This might prove as dangerous to our freedom as, say, Military IDs.
Exactly. This is not a federal ID for the masses, it is a combination ID card and access badge for secure facilities. It provides a single ID so checking IDs is easier.
Checking IDs at public places is retarded. Checking IDs at restricted access places like military bases, NASA, NSA, etc. makes a hell of a lot of sense. Joe Blow should not be allowed in the CIA headquarters. As it stands right now, each agency has its own ID card. Let's say the FBI is investigating a military member. The gate guard has to know what an FBI ID looks like if he is to provide effective entry control. By creating a common ID across the government, the gate guard knows where to look on the ID for the relevant information and what should be there.
I have one of the new military IDs. Military, civil service civilians, contractors, everyone uses the same damn ID but certain words are different, color coding is different (e.g. civil servants have a green stripe), etc. It has a microchip built in with RSA keys unlocked by a PIN. I can use it to log in to Windows NT and Solaris boxes with card readers. If this is the future of IDs for government workers, the government finally did something right for once.
Don't come in here ruining the joke with your logic and insight. We just won't be having it.
I know sarcasm when I see it, however, I know there are a few elitist assholes on Slashdot (just like any community or organization, online or real world). I figured someone else would take it seriously, so I may as well take it seriously too but in a positive way.
The problem with this logic is that the phishing scams are so good, many "educated" users can't tell the difference. Take for instance the phishing scams that pop-up an image over the URL bar (with no borders) that makes the page look like http://www.citibank.com/ with a login page identical to the real thing. Of course, in the real URL bar, www.hackers-r-us.com shows up, but it's covered with the image of a legitimate URL. You can't expect users to be able to identify this, and you can't really call this user ignorance...
I think the old advice from phone solicitations still holds true -- never give out personal information in a conversation you did not initiate. If I get a call claiming to be from Discover Card, for example, I will never give out my information. I ask what the problem is and call them back to fix it.
If I get an email from Discover about my account, I go to my bookmark to their account login page, skipping the URL in the email just in case it is a phishing scam. If it is legitimate, the information on my account page will corroborate the email.
Users need to learn not to assume their computer and the Internet are safe and instead educate themselves on how to recognize scams themselves.
Yes, but users don't always want to learn. The old saying "ignorance is bliss" is true. Maybe I am jaded from dealing with computer customers and users for so long, but I think most people really don't want to learn those skills. They would rather have someone else or the software do it.
Most people would rather have someone else change the oil in their cars, even though it takes 10 minutes and half the money than professionals charge. I have changed stuff like alternators, lights, belts, etc. for far less money than professionals would charge. However, most people do not want to spend the time to learn how. Just the same, people would rather trust the professionals to keep them safe in their web browser rather than learning how to do it themselves.
People who use firefox fall under those who don't really need it:)
Maybe for the time being. Right now, Firefox largely is a geek browser. However, recent news shows that it is becoming more popular and mainstream. Software can only do so much to curb user ignorance. Firefox is not perfect, nor does it stop phishing and other scams. Plugins, such as this toolbar, could help prevent Joe Sixpack from scammers and phishers. After seeing enough message boxes about malicious sites, hopefully he will learn the skills he needs so he will not need the toolbar anymore.
If Firefox does not keep the scammers and phishers away, new users will abandon it and go back to what they already know: IE.
Do the commercials say "Buy the movie now", though? Offhand, it seems to me that home video commercials tend to use phrases like "Available now on DVD", or "Bring the movie home for Christmas", neatly avoiding the issue of ownership vs. licensing.
Some do say this. For example, the commercials for the recently-released movie "Elf" chant "buy it now" to the tune of "Jingle Bells." The other side of the issue is paying money to see Will Ferrel try to act... blech.
I wonder what hardware they're using to run Tom's site?
Tom uses several of these. He has multiple dedicated boxes with this company (the same one I use, but I am on shared hosting). This host uses FreeBSD, so maybe his site died along with BSD?:-)
On a lighter note, it's nice to see that they will have an easily surveilled method to connect with family from abroad.
Any communication made through a government computer or network is subject to surveillence. Every time I log in to my computer at work I have to click through a long legalese dialog box that says everything I do may be monitored. This is no different from anything else a deployed Airmen might use -- DSN phone, satellite phone, email, or even this IM program. While it sounds like Uncle Sam is listening in on everything, it is very rare that someone gets in trouble for misusing the network. You have to do something really stupid, blatantly illegal, or both. For example, I read about an Airman who loaded kiddie porn onto his work computer. He used a CD-ROM so there was no network traffic, but when the LAN shop took his computer in for maintenance, they found his stash. Busted. That is the only time I've ever heard of someone getting in trouble for misusing the network. I am sure that this IM service, despite "being monitored," won't be a bad thing from a privacy standpoint.
Keep in mind this is the Air Force. We don't have Soldiers, we have Airmen. We don't fight on the front lines, for the most part we fly desks far far away from the bad guys. The closest I've been to combat is watching it on CNN from the comfort of my home on base.
Anyway, I have seen a few pictures from digital cameras from deployed Airmen. For the most part we all practice good OPSEC and I have yet to see a picture I shouldn't have.
Your homebrew setup is no better off than a stock GMail account. And I don't have to maintain my own SpamAssassin, GMail does it for me.
You might be amazed what you can do with a combination of SPF, SpamAssassin, and procmail. I cut out anywhere from 25% to 75% of my spam depending on the day, and all it took was an up-front time investment of a couple hours to save many many hours later on.
This attitude will change when the media stops portraying gamers the same way they portray internet child predators -- weird, pasty white guys with no lives who cause trouble, e.g. Columbine. Games are a scapegoat for the media, why give them any credit?
Well, it doesn't really matter in that the people were willing to download the movies, songs, or software rather than pay the known retail price for them. They knew they were downloading something with a known retail value, and that it was illegal.
This is the crux of the issue -- people were stealing copyrighted material. Notice that the police did not raid people's homes that develop BitTorrent clients, but the ones actually downloading protected content.
I find it refreshing to see content owners going after people stealing their content, rather than causing excessive collateral damage from attacking BitTorrent itself. If a server hosts trackers for protected content, its operators deserve to pay the price. If a server hosts trackers for Linux distros, for example, Hollywood should leave them the hell alone, to include leaving BitTorrent itself alone.
Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies
Why should I pay $20 or more (I usually get the super-hyper-extended ultimate editions) for a DVD movie, only to be bombarded with outdated advertisements EVERY fucking time I watch it? If I wanted advertisements, I would wait for it to appear on TNT or USA. That and if I wanted analog audio, low-definition, and a castrated (narrowscreen?) image.
After years of saving up and buying components, I finally have a HDTV, digital 5.1 surround sound, progressive scan DVD, etc. so I can have the ultimate home theater experience. What kind of home theater is it if I am forced to watch something other than the movie I put into my DVD player?
The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.
I find that ad funny. It shows some cameraman or keygrip talking about how movie pirating makes his family starve. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves made over $10,000,000 to jump around against a green background with cables and pullies to make The Matrix movies, and the suits who run the entertainment companies have personal jets, yachts, and other luxury items.
Piracy is not killing the entertainment industry, corporate greed is. Although much like BSD, rumors of the industry's death are greatly exaggerated.
I can't believe that McDonalds have trademarked the phrase "I'm lovin' it" (plus a dozen over translations of the phrase in other languages)... that is just so wrong.
It sounds stupid and trivial, but remember the frame of reference for trademarks. If I start my own fast food restaurant chain and use "I'm lovin' it" as a slogan, I think it is fair for McDonald's to sue me (and win) for trademark infringement. My use of the slogan would easily cause confusion with customers. Maybe they think my restaurant is sanctioned or supported by McDonald's when it is not.
If I started an amusement park and used that slogan, McDonald's would have a tough time getting me to stop unless I was also infringing other trademarks (e.g. the entrance to the park was a pair of golden arches).
9/11 was a direct attack. Bhopal was an accident. Analogies are dangerous when missused.
Blatant disregard for safety procedures and lax management make accidents? If I blatantly disregard the law and fail to secure my child in a seat belt, then get into an accident, I am criminally liable for his injuries. If I oversaw a chemical plant, failed to ensure safety systems were online and safety precautions were taken by my workers, and an "accident" occurred, I should be liable.
9/11 could be the same thing -- our government had information but failed to act on it. As far as I am concerned, our government is criminally liable for failing to do *anything* about 9/11 before it happened, even if just acknowledging the possibility and making a token gesture by alerting the FBI.
First of all, I like and use MySQL. I have it running on two public web sites and I use at home for my intranet. It is fast, easy to use, and works well for my purposes. It may not be perfect, but I think it is good. Anyway, on with the reply:
Constraints, triggers, and stored procedures are important to have in a database. While I can make up for MySQL's shortcomings in application code, this is not a good idea. I should not have to validate data in the application. If I could put that code in the database, it will be more robust. Not only would that provide a single point to validate from the application, it would also provide validation for scripts and console access.
Full joins and subqueries help, but in a different way. I should not have to execute two queries to get one result set (minus intermediate data). Queries should be atomic -- one piece of code that executes together. For example, let's say I have two queries that could be combined with a sub select. In between the queries running, something changes the data, invalidating my intermediate values and second query. While the underlying data is fine, it appears to the user that there is data corruption. The second query could return incorrect data or just error out for no valid reason. Sure, most nested selects are not necessary, but sometimes they are. Full joins are not usually necessary, but in about 0.0001% of the queries they are.
Maybe for the typical blog site these features are not all that critical, but for enterprise-class databases they are. The database application I use at work is bad enough in Oracle (poor DB design), it would fall apart at the seams in MySQL. Constraints, triggers, etc. help keep it working until we can reengineer it.
a) I don't know many women that visit porn sites on the internet. I know women that love vibrators and stuff like that, but porn usually isn't their thing.
Yeah, she has toys too. The key difference is the toys don't infect her with spyware;-)
It's very simple in my household: you use Firefox, don't touch IE and you're behind my OpenBSD firewall using the DSL connection I pay.
I think I am halfway there, but malware does pop up every once in a while. I think that after this next computer upgrade I will install FreeBSD on the spare parts lying around and set up a real firewall -- a machine with two NICs. That ought to keep her from fucking up her computer, assuming I know how to set up a proxy and firewall...
As a nerd, you should be able to keep years without sex. That's why you've got a right/left hand. My Girlfriend threathens with no sex and I'll laugh in her face saying "I've had no sex for 27 years... I can wait till you're horny and can't wait no more".
What's that old saying... just because I can doesn't mean I want to. It's not always about getting off... sometimes I need to get wet, too.
BULL SHIT!!! You know you don't get sex even on her good days.;)
How is this a troll? I did say "wife." Part of being married is growing complacent and realizing that there are more important things than sex -- such as spending your husband's money on cosmetics.
"Yeah, I don't know how many times I've said it, "Honey, if you MUST cruise sublimedirectory.com do it with Firefox!" Okay, ZERO! But how I wish she would....(sigh)"
I know what my wife does when I am at work. I've caught her a few times when I stopped at home during the day (not that I mind). Anyway, I finally broke her of using IE. She got tired of error boxes saying "hey, I can't dial this number in Europe because there is no modem installed," spyware, and the inevitable slowdown caused by those programs.
Some of the problems are caused by user error, but certainly the OS is to blame as well. For example, IE has the crappiest default security settings. Changing them breaks a lot of sites. Finally, IE is integrated into Windows, so security issues suddenly are ten times worse.
"As long as you don't download crap off the internet or don't do port forwarding to an internal server, your NAPT router is a good defense."
Which is why I was curious about its effectiveness for the typical user. I use Firefox, lock down the machine, don't install crap, and that machine is perfectly clean a year after its OS install.
My wife's machine, however, is the opposite. AdAware choked because there were thousands of items (of course each piece of spyware has hundreds of items, so AdAware's list is misleading) and some that tried to prevent AdAware from running. I gave her a good talking to about installing crap from msn.com and visiting porn sites using IE. So I wound up sacrificing sex for a week so I would get a break from cleaning her computer. Sigh. Women.
Anyway, my point is that I am not the typical user. NAT is an effective tool, but like any tool, it is only as good as the person wielding it.
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And, again, what is a 1024-bit cryptographic signature going to give me at work that the security guard at the front desk wouldn't have caught to begin with in terms of identification?
That card will give you the ability to fingerprint communications and documents digitally the same way a web server signs SSL web pages. It will also give information that security guard does not know off the top of his head, such as which classified doors you are allowed to enter and which you are not. If you had to ask the guard, he would just look it up in a centralized computer system anyway. This is how security clearances are handled in the real world -- there are centralized databases showing who has what clearance. All this card does is automate the process one step further.
I have to agree with your point in a way, that the best security involves pairs of attentive eyes and a brain with common sense behind them. Mr. Bruce Schneier reiterates this point over and over in his writing, and people still don't get it. Sigh.
Wow, similar IDs for government employees? This might prove as dangerous to our freedom as, say, Military IDs.
Exactly. This is not a federal ID for the masses, it is a combination ID card and access badge for secure facilities. It provides a single ID so checking IDs is easier.
Checking IDs at public places is retarded. Checking IDs at restricted access places like military bases, NASA, NSA, etc. makes a hell of a lot of sense. Joe Blow should not be allowed in the CIA headquarters. As it stands right now, each agency has its own ID card. Let's say the FBI is investigating a military member. The gate guard has to know what an FBI ID looks like if he is to provide effective entry control. By creating a common ID across the government, the gate guard knows where to look on the ID for the relevant information and what should be there.
I have one of the new military IDs. Military, civil service civilians, contractors, everyone uses the same damn ID but certain words are different, color coding is different (e.g. civil servants have a green stripe), etc. It has a microchip built in with RSA keys unlocked by a PIN. I can use it to log in to Windows NT and Solaris boxes with card readers. If this is the future of IDs for government workers, the government finally did something right for once.
Don't come in here ruining the joke with your logic and insight. We just won't be having it.
I know sarcasm when I see it, however, I know there are a few elitist assholes on Slashdot (just like any community or organization, online or real world). I figured someone else would take it seriously, so I may as well take it seriously too but in a positive way.
The problem with this logic is that the phishing scams are so good, many "educated" users can't tell the difference. Take for instance the phishing scams that pop-up an image over the URL bar (with no borders) that makes the page look like http://www.citibank.com/ with a login page identical to the real thing. Of course, in the real URL bar, www.hackers-r-us.com shows up, but it's covered with the image of a legitimate URL. You can't expect users to be able to identify this, and you can't really call this user ignorance...
I think the old advice from phone solicitations still holds true -- never give out personal information in a conversation you did not initiate. If I get a call claiming to be from Discover Card, for example, I will never give out my information. I ask what the problem is and call them back to fix it.
If I get an email from Discover about my account, I go to my bookmark to their account login page, skipping the URL in the email just in case it is a phishing scam. If it is legitimate, the information on my account page will corroborate the email.
Users need to learn not to assume their computer and the Internet are safe and instead educate themselves on how to recognize scams themselves.
Yes, but users don't always want to learn. The old saying "ignorance is bliss" is true. Maybe I am jaded from dealing with computer customers and users for so long, but I think most people really don't want to learn those skills. They would rather have someone else or the software do it.
Most people would rather have someone else change the oil in their cars, even though it takes 10 minutes and half the money than professionals charge. I have changed stuff like alternators, lights, belts, etc. for far less money than professionals would charge. However, most people do not want to spend the time to learn how. Just the same, people would rather trust the professionals to keep them safe in their web browser rather than learning how to do it themselves.
They really don't need a firefox version anyway..
People who use firefox fall under those who don't really need it :)
Maybe for the time being. Right now, Firefox largely is a geek browser. However, recent news shows that it is becoming more popular and mainstream. Software can only do so much to curb user ignorance. Firefox is not perfect, nor does it stop phishing and other scams. Plugins, such as this toolbar, could help prevent Joe Sixpack from scammers and phishers. After seeing enough message boxes about malicious sites, hopefully he will learn the skills he needs so he will not need the toolbar anymore.
If Firefox does not keep the scammers and phishers away, new users will abandon it and go back to what they already know: IE.
Do the commercials say "Buy the movie now", though? Offhand, it seems to me that home video commercials tend to use phrases like "Available now on DVD", or "Bring the movie home for Christmas", neatly avoiding the issue of ownership vs. licensing.
Some do say this. For example, the commercials for the recently-released movie "Elf" chant "buy it now" to the tune of "Jingle Bells." The other side of the issue is paying money to see Will Ferrel try to act... blech.
I wonder what hardware they're using to run Tom's site?
Tom uses several of these. He has multiple dedicated boxes with this company (the same one I use, but I am on shared hosting). This host uses FreeBSD, so maybe his site died along with BSD? :-)
On a lighter note, it's nice to see that they will have an easily surveilled method to connect with family from abroad.
Any communication made through a government computer or network is subject to surveillence. Every time I log in to my computer at work I have to click through a long legalese dialog box that says everything I do may be monitored. This is no different from anything else a deployed Airmen might use -- DSN phone, satellite phone, email, or even this IM program. While it sounds like Uncle Sam is listening in on everything, it is very rare that someone gets in trouble for misusing the network. You have to do something really stupid, blatantly illegal, or both. For example, I read about an Airman who loaded kiddie porn onto his work computer. He used a CD-ROM so there was no network traffic, but when the LAN shop took his computer in for maintenance, they found his stash. Busted. That is the only time I've ever heard of someone getting in trouble for misusing the network. I am sure that this IM service, despite "being monitored," won't be a bad thing from a privacy standpoint.
Keep in mind this is the Air Force. We don't have Soldiers, we have Airmen. We don't fight on the front lines, for the most part we fly desks far far away from the bad guys. The closest I've been to combat is watching it on CNN from the comfort of my home on base.
Anyway, I have seen a few pictures from digital cameras from deployed Airmen. For the most part we all practice good OPSEC and I have yet to see a picture I shouldn't have.
Ok, but what happens if someone buys the FSF.
How do you purchase a non-profit organization? It's not like they sell stock.
Your homebrew setup is no better off than a stock GMail account. And I don't have to maintain my own SpamAssassin, GMail does it for me.
You might be amazed what you can do with a combination of SPF, SpamAssassin, and procmail. I cut out anywhere from 25% to 75% of my spam depending on the day, and all it took was an up-front time investment of a couple hours to save many many hours later on.
This attitude will change when the media stops portraying gamers the same way they portray internet child predators -- weird, pasty white guys with no lives who cause trouble, e.g. Columbine. Games are a scapegoat for the media, why give them any credit?
Well, it doesn't really matter in that the people were willing to download the movies, songs, or software rather than pay the known retail price for them. They knew they were downloading something with a known retail value, and that it was illegal.
This is the crux of the issue -- people were stealing copyrighted material. Notice that the police did not raid people's homes that develop BitTorrent clients, but the ones actually downloading protected content.
I find it refreshing to see content owners going after people stealing their content, rather than causing excessive collateral damage from attacking BitTorrent itself. If a server hosts trackers for protected content, its operators deserve to pay the price. If a server hosts trackers for Linux distros, for example, Hollywood should leave them the hell alone, to include leaving BitTorrent itself alone.
Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies
Why should I pay $20 or more (I usually get the super-hyper-extended ultimate editions) for a DVD movie, only to be bombarded with outdated advertisements EVERY fucking time I watch it? If I wanted advertisements, I would wait for it to appear on TNT or USA. That and if I wanted analog audio, low-definition, and a castrated (narrowscreen?) image.
After years of saving up and buying components, I finally have a HDTV, digital 5.1 surround sound, progressive scan DVD, etc. so I can have the ultimate home theater experience. What kind of home theater is it if I am forced to watch something other than the movie I put into my DVD player?
The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.
I find that ad funny. It shows some cameraman or keygrip talking about how movie pirating makes his family starve. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves made over $10,000,000 to jump around against a green background with cables and pullies to make The Matrix movies, and the suits who run the entertainment companies have personal jets, yachts, and other luxury items.
Piracy is not killing the entertainment industry, corporate greed is. Although much like BSD, rumors of the industry's death are greatly exaggerated.
I can't believe that McDonalds have trademarked the phrase "I'm lovin' it" (plus a dozen over translations of the phrase in other languages)... that is just so wrong.
It sounds stupid and trivial, but remember the frame of reference for trademarks. If I start my own fast food restaurant chain and use "I'm lovin' it" as a slogan, I think it is fair for McDonald's to sue me (and win) for trademark infringement. My use of the slogan would easily cause confusion with customers. Maybe they think my restaurant is sanctioned or supported by McDonald's when it is not.
If I started an amusement park and used that slogan, McDonald's would have a tough time getting me to stop unless I was also infringing other trademarks (e.g. the entrance to the park was a pair of golden arches).
9/11 was a direct attack. Bhopal was an accident. Analogies are dangerous when missused.
Blatant disregard for safety procedures and lax management make accidents? If I blatantly disregard the law and fail to secure my child in a seat belt, then get into an accident, I am criminally liable for his injuries. If I oversaw a chemical plant, failed to ensure safety systems were online and safety precautions were taken by my workers, and an "accident" occurred, I should be liable.
9/11 could be the same thing -- our government had information but failed to act on it. As far as I am concerned, our government is criminally liable for failing to do *anything* about 9/11 before it happened, even if just acknowledging the possibility and making a token gesture by alerting the FBI.
First of all, I like and use MySQL. I have it running on two public web sites and I use at home for my intranet. It is fast, easy to use, and works well for my purposes. It may not be perfect, but I think it is good. Anyway, on with the reply:
Constraints, triggers, and stored procedures are important to have in a database. While I can make up for MySQL's shortcomings in application code, this is not a good idea. I should not have to validate data in the application. If I could put that code in the database, it will be more robust. Not only would that provide a single point to validate from the application, it would also provide validation for scripts and console access.
Full joins and subqueries help, but in a different way. I should not have to execute two queries to get one result set (minus intermediate data). Queries should be atomic -- one piece of code that executes together. For example, let's say I have two queries that could be combined with a sub select. In between the queries running, something changes the data, invalidating my intermediate values and second query. While the underlying data is fine, it appears to the user that there is data corruption. The second query could return incorrect data or just error out for no valid reason. Sure, most nested selects are not necessary, but sometimes they are. Full joins are not usually necessary, but in about 0.0001% of the queries they are.
Maybe for the typical blog site these features are not all that critical, but for enterprise-class databases they are. The database application I use at work is bad enough in Oracle (poor DB design), it would fall apart at the seams in MySQL. Constraints, triggers, etc. help keep it working until we can reengineer it.
In most cases the degree does have significant weight, and given two people who are more or less equal, the guy with paper will win.
Not to mention the degree will get you past the HR department.
a) I don't know many women that visit porn sites on the internet. I know women that love vibrators and stuff like that, but porn usually isn't their thing.
Yeah, she has toys too. The key difference is the toys don't infect her with spyware ;-)
It's very simple in my household: you use Firefox, don't touch IE and you're behind my OpenBSD firewall using the DSL connection I pay.
I think I am halfway there, but malware does pop up every once in a while. I think that after this next computer upgrade I will install FreeBSD on the spare parts lying around and set up a real firewall -- a machine with two NICs. That ought to keep her from fucking up her computer, assuming I know how to set up a proxy and firewall...
As a nerd, you should be able to keep years without sex. That's why you've got a right/left hand. My Girlfriend threathens with no sex and I'll laugh in her face saying "I've had no sex for 27 years... I can wait till you're horny and can't wait no more".
What's that old saying... just because I can doesn't mean I want to. It's not always about getting off... sometimes I need to get wet, too.
BULL SHIT!!! You know you don't get sex even on her good days. ;)
How is this a troll? I did say "wife." Part of being married is growing complacent and realizing that there are more important things than sex -- such as spending your husband's money on cosmetics.
So, what does she do when you are not around.... you can't leave out the good stuff like that.
Hey, Captain Obvious, some things are better left unsaid.
"Yeah, I don't know how many times I've said it, "Honey, if you MUST cruise sublimedirectory.com do it with Firefox!"
Okay, ZERO!
But how I wish she would....(sigh)"
I know what my wife does when I am at work. I've caught her a few times when I stopped at home during the day (not that I mind). Anyway, I finally broke her of using IE. She got tired of error boxes saying "hey, I can't dial this number in Europe because there is no modem installed," spyware, and the inevitable slowdown caused by those programs.
Some of the problems are caused by user error, but certainly the OS is to blame as well. For example, IE has the crappiest default security settings. Changing them breaks a lot of sites. Finally, IE is integrated into Windows, so security issues suddenly are ten times worse.
Now if only I could get her to use Linux...
"As long as you don't download crap off the internet or don't do port forwarding to an internal server, your NAPT router is a good defense."
Which is why I was curious about its effectiveness for the typical user. I use Firefox, lock down the machine, don't install crap, and that machine is perfectly clean a year after its OS install.
My wife's machine, however, is the opposite. AdAware choked because there were thousands of items (of course each piece of spyware has hundreds of items, so AdAware's list is misleading) and some that tried to prevent AdAware from running. I gave her a good talking to about installing crap from msn.com and visiting porn sites using IE. So I wound up sacrificing sex for a week so I would get a break from cleaning her computer. Sigh. Women.
Anyway, my point is that I am not the typical user. NAT is an effective tool, but like any tool, it is only as good as the person wielding it.