They're important, but your home directory being destroyed doesn't leave you with an unusable machine. If you've got backups of your important data, as everyone should, you simply restore that data and continue doing what you were doing before. Does that mean the data isn't important? Certainly not. It also doesn't mean that people couldn't get you to run something that executed as a background process, but the amount of things it's going to do will still be negligible, aside from being able to give the user a hard time.
But being a stupid user and running stupid things is not a security flaw. That's a user flaw, and the whole point of TFA was that the OS isn't really that secure, and people should rush out to buy software to make it secure. My point is that it is reasonably secure so that a clueful person probably will never have an issue with infection, malware, etc.
The "security" of NT stemming from it being 32-bit when most viruses were written to target 16-bit DOS/Windows applications is different than securty offered by OS X. I'm not going to say that it's immune to all threats, impossible to infect, all of that stuff. I'm sure there are exploits here and there as there are always coding mistakes in software. However, I do not feel the threat is unavoidable, nor do I think it's something to panic over and rush out and buy software to "protect" myself.
Windows is inherently insecure. Hell, in unpatched machines you can even infect it remotely! Their ancient code, silly way of doing things, etc., make it much more vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. OS X is not Windows, it's not anywhere near Windows, and it has much more in common with FreeBSD than anything else.
It isn't invulnerable, but it's safer than any other desktop solution out there at the moment (aside from running Knoppix off a Live CD).
And if there is a local root exploit, I don't think there will be any protection from it unless Apple releases a fix. Is it a possibility? Of course. Is it something I should run out and buy a lot of "feel good" A/V programs for? Hardly.
As a Mac user, I'm not that worried about viruses, trojans, all that stuff. I felt the same when I was a Linux or a FreeBSD user. Why? The design of the operating systems makes the risk of infection very low. There may be a bug or two that come along at some point where a virus writer can exploit them to do something bad. Even with all that, the most it would probably be able to do is screw up stuff in my home directory. It's not something I'm going to worry about, and definitely not something I'm going to pay money to avoid when there's such a slim chance of anything happening. I use good judgement to determine what I should or shouldn't run, and I go from there.
I've never figured out why it is that IRC is so popular. It tends to be unstable, it's architecture lends itself to takeover attempts where services aren't in place (and even then if services goes down), and the noise level is pretty high. It's just always amazed me that it's still so popular today despite being so, well, crappy.
I'm not really trying to plug a project here, but I do think it's somewhat relevent to the discussion. I've been messing around with PSYC, the Protocol for Synchronous Communication. I have to say it's pretty promising, and it even has an IRC interface so legacy IRC clients can connect and use its services. There's also a PSYC client, access via telnet, XMPP/Jabber, SMTP, NNTP, POP3, and even a few things using SIP. I'd urge anyone who is interested in communication and collaboration to check it out. Basically you end up with a more or less decentralized network for IRC. It works in some ways like Jabber, as rooms/channels exist on certain servers, but there can never be any nick collisions or takeover attempts, rooms can't be taken over, no splits, etc. It's pretty interesting, at least IMHO.:)
I think the engineers often have the best intentions when it comes to their software ideas. Gmail is no exception. I'm confident the engineers really wanted to change the currently accepted webmail paradigm, and they've done a pretty good job with it.
The management would be the ones interested in making the money, and they usually pick some fairly unobtrusive ways to do it when it comes to Google. If them showing me small text ads relevent to the e-mails I send means I get 2.5+ GB of storage, searchability, encrypted access, etc., I say more power to them. I understand they have to make money, but at least they're not doing it in the traditional ways.
I just logged in using my account information and noticed that it's not letting me connect to other Jabber servers/services. Perhaps they're not planning on supporting server-to-server and allowing their Jabber server to talk to others? Hopefully that won't be the case.
Also, does anyone have any idea which Jabber server they're using? Did they roll their own or are they using an already available one?
Actually, I know of several companies that can provide DSL without you actually having to purchase a phone line. The CLEC takes care of it all and you just get an Internet connection. I know the equipment isn't PPPoE or PPPoA, so I'm pretty sure there's no dialtone.
Well, if you ignore up2date, I would like to point something out here. As I understand it, apt in Debian does *not* install things. Apt calls dpkg to install packages, and dpkg does not handle dependencies. Sure, it'll tell you what you need, but it doesn't install them for you (wow, like rpm!). However, if you put apt in the equation, apt determines what packages need to be installed and then downloads them, then calls dpkg to install them. So in all actually, rpm needs a front-end like apt... wait, doesn't that already exist? apt? up2date? apt2rpm? There are quite a few, if I'm not mistaken. Sure, it doesn't do it automatically, but... c'mon. It's not *that* hard to either install them using rpm by itself, or to use a front-end to it.
Begging? No, public radio and public television stations ask for money because they're supported by the listeners or viewers. Because of this, they give you what you want and cut the crap. Of course, they also have corporate sponsorship/underwriters, but that isn't nearly as profitable for public stations as it would be for commercial stations. But that's okay, because they have us, the listeners, to support them. In turn, we get what we want... quality.
As for music radio... I haven't listened in years. So whatever happens to it doesn't matter much to me. Commercial music stations can shove it for all I care.
Hmmmm... well, sorry, but you can't rape the willing. So if we've spread ourselves throughout the world, it can only happen because somebody wanted it.
There isn't any way the government is going to be able to monitor these communications and what not and get any advantage over terrorists. With regard to back doors in encryption, I would venture to say this is similar to gun control. While law-abiding citizens would have encryption methods the government has the ability to access, criminals, terrorists, etc., will be using illegal methods. What's one more law to break? Just like gun control, law-abiding citizens won't have guns, yet the criminals will.
While I think what happened in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pensylvania is absolutely terrible, I feel that if we start giving up these freedoms, the terrorists have won the war. I seriously doubt once any of these methods is approved (unlimited wire-tapping, backdoors in encryption, and so on and so forth) the freedoms will never be given back to the people. Isn't this what terrorists want?
So, I will agree that Mozilla is still in its alpha/beta stages, but I'm sorry, more than half the Internet runs off Apache web servers, that sounds pretty complete to me, so how can it be considered any more unfinished than Microsoft's IIS? Is it because they don't use version numbers to try and make it sound liek their product is more mature? Gah, and databases? I'm sorry, what about PostgreSQL, mySQL, etc? I think the author of this article was just a bit uninformed.:P
However, it seems that you're missing the primary reason of the open source movement. I don't expect every open source program to work completely free of and bugs, be more featureful than anything I'd ever seen before, etc. However, look at the number of times that something like Linux pulls a BSOD (or equivalent crash... kernel panic maybe) compared to Windows.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, didn't RedHat beat expectations on Wall Street? I think VA did as well. These are still extremely young companies, whereas Microsoft has been around a while. Once your overhead expenses are met, you start turning a profit. RedHat, VA, etc., are still paying on all their fancy new pieces of equipment, and most businesses lose money within the first few years. But, they ARE surviving!
Anyway, back to my original statement. Open source is about having the code to modify and work with as you please. Free software takes this a step further. I don't mind paying for my software, but by God I better be able to do with what I purchase as I please. Do you think Microsoft will do this any time soon? What would it be like if when you bought a lawnmower, you were only allowed to mow certain types of grass? Or perhaps it ran not on the fuel you could purchase at most any gas station, but only fuel that the manufacturer sold? Microsoft will eventually run itself into the ground, and I will celebrate the day that software development and usage runs free.
and all these developers seem to forget it. It doesn't matter how easy it is to develop with it, if the final interface looks ugly. I'm sorry, Motif is *ugly*. Even more so than Qt.:P~ While I agree that the widgets and what not need to be easy and practical to use, appearance is important.
this isn't the seifried that I know! He didn't use the word 'moron' even once in that article... at least, not that I found. Someone must have installed a binary RPM as root on him and it overwrote his 'moron' libs.
Well, since you've chosen to remain anonymous, I'm going to just have to assume you're using Linux. If you are, the majority of applications, tools, etc., in Linux were created in other people's free time. They weren't coding for money, they were coding for the good of the community and the advancement of Linux or any other UNIX-like operating system. Hmmmm, if I remember correctly, even the forums you're typing in were coded by CmdrTaco in his spare time, back before/. was owned by any company.
Well, running an IRC network is standard to a certain excent. But, when you look at all the possible ways people can DoS the networks and how you have to have some pretty good resources for a large number of users, it gets a little more tricky. "Mr Toad's Wild Ride", at least to my knowledge, is simply the codename given to the project of rewriting the current IRC server code, which includes new network modifications (such as IP/host masking), different announcement modes, and so on and so forth to make OPN even more helpful to those who need it.
Why does *everyone* refer to ham radio as HAM radio? It is *not* an acronym! Okay, I feel better now that I've said it. Please, people, you look stupid when you type it like that:P~
I think there's one single thing that not only has everyone failed to notice, but which shows that the author of this original article isn't very educated. T. Lee, having a satellite does not automagically reduce the number of frequencies used. Umm, you know you still have to use radio to GET to the satellite in the first place:P The only thing, as far as I know, that the ham sats effectively do is allow hams to talk to others around the world using line of site frequencies (i.e. 2 meters) or simply act as a VERY wide converage repeater. It doesn't lessen the frequencies used at all...
Plus, I agree with what everyone else here has pointed out. Amateurs started the radio revolution, and continue to revolutionize portions of the spectrum today. Amateur radio operators serve extremely important roles in times of natural emergencies, as I have first hand experience with during nearly every hurricane we have had here in Panama City, Florida.
Oh, one other thing... perhaps if you had the intelligence to pass the tests, much less write a factually acurate post, you would feel differently about this issue.
Months ago, I visited Gilat2Home's web site to express my interest in 2-way satellite Inet access. I live in the middle of nowhere, and dialup is just too slow. 28.8 connections are almost unheard of here. Anyway, to beta test the Gilat2Home system, they wanted $499 up front, which entered me in a contract to subscribe to their service at a cost of $69.95/month after the trial period. What if I don't want the service afterwards? Well, that's just another measly $400 to get out of the contract. Hmmm, seems like a great way to win people over, eh?
Oh! Also, for those of you out there who haven't realized it yet, Gilat2Home and DirecPC are their own companies and provide Internet access completely independent of MSN or AOL. That's just a new twist:/
Could someone clarify something for me? Why does EVERY Net Censoring product out there have encrypted software lists? I mean, shouldn't they at least be viewable from within an administrative section of the program that requires passwords and what not to get into? Or is it because the corporations don't want people seeing all their mistakes and what not in the list?
Any study like this one will have inconclusive results. Just because you use the Inet more than "average" doesn't mean you don't enjoy good times with friends at the local bar or occasional Linux Expo. I personally meet people on the Inet, with my goal being to meet them in person if I like them. I can communicate my thoughts in the written word better than I can verbally (I still don't know why that is, though), so it's easier for me to meet and discuss with people on IRC,/., etc., instead of in person. Besides, how do they know that the majority of these people aren't anti-social in the first place? Rather than the Inet substituting for their real life meetings, it isn't even related, as they wouldn't have those meetings to begin with? Just my daily rambling...
This just goes to show you how people bend numbers and statistics to show what they want you to see. For some reason, though, I don't understand how you can impose your morals (i.e., the stuff that librarian guy is doing) on everyone else. Just because you think the Offspring is an immoral band and their web page isn't appropriate doesn't mean I feel the same way. Also, cryptographic software needs to be censored? That makes no sense either. Since, last time I looked, PGP FAQs didn't have any porn or inappropriate language. I betcha more people would read them if they did. Anyway, this is always going to happen, and should just be expected. Long gone is the idea of "If you don't like it, don't look..." We are now in the age of "If I don't like it, you can't do it." "Back off your rules, back off your jive.. Cause I'm sick of not living, to stay alive..." -- Offspring, "All I want"
in my opinion is that Congressmen disregard their supporters more and more. Part of their job, and they know this when they run for election, is to represent the people and try to do what's best for the country by way of what the people say. Obviously it's difficult to answer 100+ emails a day, but it would probably be easier if they spent less time campaigning for their re-election. Representatives, for example, are elected every 2 years. What good can they accomplish in 2 years, when at least half the time they're running for re-election? Senators aren't as bad, but it's the same thing. Our Congressmen are more worried about re-election than actually doing their jobs. Perhaps if everyone got term limits, we'd see e-mail usage pick up a bit more.
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They're important, but your home directory being destroyed doesn't leave you with an unusable machine. If you've got backups of your important data, as everyone should, you simply restore that data and continue doing what you were doing before. Does that mean the data isn't important? Certainly not. It also doesn't mean that people couldn't get you to run something that executed as a background process, but the amount of things it's going to do will still be negligible, aside from being able to give the user a hard time.
But being a stupid user and running stupid things is not a security flaw. That's a user flaw, and the whole point of TFA was that the OS isn't really that secure, and people should rush out to buy software to make it secure. My point is that it is reasonably secure so that a clueful person probably will never have an issue with infection, malware, etc.
The "security" of NT stemming from it being 32-bit when most viruses were written to target 16-bit DOS/Windows applications is different than securty offered by OS X. I'm not going to say that it's immune to all threats, impossible to infect, all of that stuff. I'm sure there are exploits here and there as there are always coding mistakes in software. However, I do not feel the threat is unavoidable, nor do I think it's something to panic over and rush out and buy software to "protect" myself.
Windows is inherently insecure. Hell, in unpatched machines you can even infect it remotely! Their ancient code, silly way of doing things, etc., make it much more vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. OS X is not Windows, it's not anywhere near Windows, and it has much more in common with FreeBSD than anything else.
It isn't invulnerable, but it's safer than any other desktop solution out there at the moment (aside from running Knoppix off a Live CD).
And if there is a local root exploit, I don't think there will be any protection from it unless Apple releases a fix. Is it a possibility? Of course. Is it something I should run out and buy a lot of "feel good" A/V programs for? Hardly.
As a Mac user, I'm not that worried about viruses, trojans, all that stuff. I felt the same when I was a Linux or a FreeBSD user. Why? The design of the operating systems makes the risk of infection very low. There may be a bug or two that come along at some point where a virus writer can exploit them to do something bad. Even with all that, the most it would probably be able to do is screw up stuff in my home directory. It's not something I'm going to worry about, and definitely not something I'm going to pay money to avoid when there's such a slim chance of anything happening. I use good judgement to determine what I should or shouldn't run, and I go from there.
I've never figured out why it is that IRC is so popular. It tends to be unstable, it's architecture lends itself to takeover attempts where services aren't in place (and even then if services goes down), and the noise level is pretty high. It's just always amazed me that it's still so popular today despite being so, well, crappy. I'm not really trying to plug a project here, but I do think it's somewhat relevent to the discussion. I've been messing around with PSYC, the Protocol for Synchronous Communication. I have to say it's pretty promising, and it even has an IRC interface so legacy IRC clients can connect and use its services. There's also a PSYC client, access via telnet, XMPP/Jabber, SMTP, NNTP, POP3, and even a few things using SIP. I'd urge anyone who is interested in communication and collaboration to check it out. Basically you end up with a more or less decentralized network for IRC. It works in some ways like Jabber, as rooms/channels exist on certain servers, but there can never be any nick collisions or takeover attempts, rooms can't be taken over, no splits, etc. It's pretty interesting, at least IMHO. :)
I think the engineers often have the best intentions when it comes to their software ideas. Gmail is no exception. I'm confident the engineers really wanted to change the currently accepted webmail paradigm, and they've done a pretty good job with it.
The management would be the ones interested in making the money, and they usually pick some fairly unobtrusive ways to do it when it comes to Google. If them showing me small text ads relevent to the e-mails I send means I get 2.5+ GB of storage, searchability, encrypted access, etc., I say more power to them. I understand they have to make money, but at least they're not doing it in the traditional ways.
I just logged in using my account information and noticed that it's not letting me connect to other Jabber servers/services. Perhaps they're not planning on supporting server-to-server and allowing their Jabber server to talk to others? Hopefully that won't be the case.
Also, does anyone have any idea which Jabber server they're using? Did they roll their own or are they using an already available one?
Actually, I know of several companies that can provide DSL without you actually having to purchase a phone line. The CLEC takes care of it all and you just get an Internet connection. I know the equipment isn't PPPoE or PPPoA, so I'm pretty sure there's no dialtone.
Well, if you ignore up2date, I would like to point something out here. As I understand it, apt in Debian does *not* install things. Apt calls dpkg to install packages, and dpkg does not handle dependencies. Sure, it'll tell you what you need, but it doesn't install them for you (wow, like rpm!). However, if you put apt in the equation, apt determines what packages need to be installed and then downloads them, then calls dpkg to install them. So in all actually, rpm needs a front-end like apt ... wait, doesn't that already exist? apt? up2date? apt2rpm? There are quite a few, if I'm not mistaken. Sure, it doesn't do it automatically, but ... c'mon. It's not *that* hard to either install them using rpm by itself, or to use a front-end to it.
Begging? No, public radio and public television stations ask for money because they're supported by the listeners or viewers. Because of this, they give you what you want and cut the crap. Of course, they also have corporate sponsorship/underwriters, but that isn't nearly as profitable for public stations as it would be for commercial stations. But that's okay, because they have us, the listeners, to support them. In turn, we get what we want ... quality.
As for music radio... I haven't listened in years. So whatever happens to it doesn't matter much to me. Commercial music stations can shove it for all I care.
Hmmmm ... well, sorry, but you can't rape the willing. So if we've spread ourselves throughout the world, it can only happen because somebody wanted it.
There isn't any way the government is going to be able to monitor these communications and what not and get any advantage over terrorists. With regard to back doors in encryption, I would venture to say this is similar to gun control. While law-abiding citizens would have encryption methods the government has the ability to access, criminals, terrorists, etc., will be using illegal methods. What's one more law to break? Just like gun control, law-abiding citizens won't have guns, yet the criminals will.
While I think what happened in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pensylvania is absolutely terrible, I feel that if we start giving up these freedoms, the terrorists have won the war. I seriously doubt once any of these methods is approved (unlimited wire-tapping, backdoors in encryption, and so on and so forth) the freedoms will never be given back to the people. Isn't this what terrorists want?
So, I will agree that Mozilla is still in its alpha/beta stages, but I'm sorry, more than half the Internet runs off Apache web servers, that sounds pretty complete to me, so how can it be considered any more unfinished than Microsoft's IIS? Is it because they don't use version numbers to try and make it sound liek their product is more mature? Gah, and databases? I'm sorry, what about PostgreSQL, mySQL, etc? I think the author of this article was just a bit uninformed. :P
However, it seems that you're missing the primary reason of the open source movement. I don't expect every open source program to work completely free of and bugs, be more featureful than anything I'd ever seen before, etc. However, look at the number of times that something like Linux pulls a BSOD (or equivalent crash ... kernel panic maybe) compared to Windows.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, didn't RedHat beat expectations on Wall Street? I think VA did as well. These are still extremely young companies, whereas Microsoft has been around a while. Once your overhead expenses are met, you start turning a profit. RedHat, VA, etc., are still paying on all their fancy new pieces of equipment, and most businesses lose money within the first few years. But, they ARE surviving!
Anyway, back to my original statement. Open source is about having the code to modify and work with as you please. Free software takes this a step further. I don't mind paying for my software, but by God I better be able to do with what I purchase as I please. Do you think Microsoft will do this any time soon? What would it be like if when you bought a lawnmower, you were only allowed to mow certain types of grass? Or perhaps it ran not on the fuel you could purchase at most any gas station, but only fuel that the manufacturer sold? Microsoft will eventually run itself into the ground, and I will celebrate the day that software development and usage runs free.
and all these developers seem to forget it. It doesn't matter how easy it is to develop with it, if the final interface looks ugly. I'm sorry, Motif is *ugly*. Even more so than Qt. :P~ While I agree that the widgets and what not need to be easy and practical to use, appearance is important.
this isn't the seifried that I know! He didn't use the word 'moron' even once in that article ... at least, not that I found. Someone must have installed a binary RPM as root on him and it overwrote his 'moron' libs.
Well, since you've chosen to remain anonymous, I'm going to just have to assume you're using Linux. If you are, the majority of applications, tools, etc., in Linux were created in other people's free time. They weren't coding for money, they were coding for the good of the community and the advancement of Linux or any other UNIX-like operating system. Hmmmm, if I remember correctly, even the forums you're typing in were coded by CmdrTaco in his spare time, back before /. was owned by any company.
Well, running an IRC network is standard to a certain excent. But, when you look at all the possible ways people can DoS the networks and how you have to have some pretty good resources for a large number of users, it gets a little more tricky. "Mr Toad's Wild Ride", at least to my knowledge, is simply the codename given to the project of rewriting the current IRC server code, which includes new network modifications (such as IP/host masking), different announcement modes, and so on and so forth to make OPN even more helpful to those who need it.
Why does *everyone* refer to ham radio as HAM radio? It is *not* an acronym! Okay, I feel better now that I've said it. Please, people, you look stupid when you type it like that :P~
I think there's one single thing that not only has everyone failed to notice, but which shows that the author of this original article isn't very educated. T. Lee, having a satellite does not automagically reduce the number of frequencies used. Umm, you know you still have to use radio to GET to the satellite in the first place :P The only thing, as far as I know, that the ham sats effectively do is allow hams to talk to others around the world using line of site frequencies (i.e. 2 meters) or simply act as a VERY wide converage repeater. It doesn't lessen the frequencies used at all ...
Plus, I agree with what everyone else here has pointed out. Amateurs started the radio revolution, and continue to revolutionize portions of the spectrum today. Amateur radio operators serve extremely important roles in times of natural emergencies, as I have first hand experience with during nearly every hurricane we have had here in Panama City, Florida.
Oh, one other thing ... perhaps if you had the intelligence to pass the tests, much less write a factually acurate post, you would feel differently about this issue.
Months ago, I visited Gilat2Home's web site to express my interest in 2-way satellite Inet access. I live in the middle of nowhere, and dialup is just too slow. 28.8 connections are almost unheard of here. Anyway, to beta test the Gilat2Home system, they wanted $499 up front, which entered me in a contract to subscribe to their service at a cost of $69.95/month after the trial period. What if I don't want the service afterwards? Well, that's just another measly $400 to get out of the contract. Hmmm, seems like a great way to win people over, eh? Oh! Also, for those of you out there who haven't realized it yet, Gilat2Home and DirecPC are their own companies and provide Internet access completely independent of MSN or AOL. That's just a new twist :/
Could someone clarify something for me? Why does EVERY Net Censoring product out there have encrypted software lists? I mean, shouldn't they at least be viewable from within an administrative section of the program that requires passwords and what not to get into? Or is it because the corporations don't want people seeing all their mistakes and what not in the list?
Any study like this one will have inconclusive results. Just because you use the Inet more than "average" doesn't mean you don't enjoy good times with friends at the local bar or occasional Linux Expo. I personally meet people on the Inet, with my goal being to meet them in person if I like them. I can communicate my thoughts in the written word better than I can verbally (I still don't know why that is, though), so it's easier for me to meet and discuss with people on IRC,
This just goes to show you how people bend numbers and statistics to show what they want you to see. For some reason, though, I don't understand how you can impose your morals (i.e., the stuff that librarian guy is doing) on everyone else. Just because you think the Offspring is an immoral band and their web page isn't appropriate doesn't mean I feel the same way. Also, cryptographic software needs to be censored? That makes no sense either. Since, last time I looked, PGP FAQs didn't have any porn or inappropriate language. I betcha more people would read them if they did. Anyway, this is always going to happen, and should just be expected. Long gone is the idea of "If you don't like it, don't look..." We are now in the age of "If I don't like it, you can't do it." "Back off your rules, back off your jive.. Cause I'm sick of not living, to stay alive..." -- Offspring, "All I want"
in my opinion is that Congressmen disregard their supporters more and more. Part of their job, and they know this when they run for election, is to represent the people and try to do what's best for the country by way of what the people say. Obviously it's difficult to answer 100+ emails a day, but it would probably be easier if they spent less time campaigning for their re-election. Representatives, for example, are elected every 2 years. What good can they accomplish in 2 years, when at least half the time they're running for re-election? Senators aren't as bad, but it's the same thing. Our Congressmen are more worried about re-election than actually doing their jobs. Perhaps if everyone got term limits, we'd see e-mail usage pick up a bit more.