I wanted to see it. The only nearby theatre showing the friggin' thing was the Union Square theatre... and it was only playing at 11am. Well, i work, so that was out of the question. I live in NYC, and the only reason i didn't see the movie is that no nearby theatre was showing it at a reasonable hour.
I've heard of ISPs doing this for years. When i worked for one, i heard of people yelling at users for being victims of DoS attacks all the time. Something to do with "if you didn't provoke them, this wouldn't happen." I don't remember any specific cases of accounts getting suspended in my particular company, but i always assumed it wasn't far off. I remember a few cases of this sort of thing from aol, and a couple from various ISPs around the US.
If this is what i've heard directly from victims, i'm sure this ordeal has been fairly widespread.
As to the use of the word "virus", I believe that Mr. Garfinkle was using the Windows world definitionm which from what I can tell is "any malicious piece of code that you accidently get on your computer somehow." Not a correct definition technically, but when writing it is a heck of a lot easier to refer to genreal "viruses" than to have to type out "viruses, trojans, worms, and other malicious code" everytime you want to make a general statement.
This is a pretty grave mistake (or omission) to make for a security consultant.
In regards to the virus idea in general, though... in windows, how many people will send you an attachment of a C file? Very few. They send binaries. It's almost the exact opposite in linux. Very few will send strictly binaries, because a very large portion of the linux community will not accept them, and many run different operating systems or architectures (which the same C program may compile and run on without a hitch). It seems actually _less_ likely for people to send each other binaries in linux than in, say, solaris or irix (due to closed source patches and licensing terms, along with the lack of a _good_ default-installed C compiler).
Unix (linux inclusive) software developers would not likely get away with installing macros into their word processors which can write to disk. The linux community would reject the program if it was commercial, and "correct" it if it was open source.
As for using the system as root... how many sun administrators do this? I've received countless e-mails from admins using dtmail as root. I'm almost tempted to insert a lecture about it into my signature. Linux is not alone in the user-stupidity area.
Many linux users will be susceptible to viruses, and many will not... but i think the reasons and the realities behind the situation need clarifying.
As a side note... how many experienced administrators will trust an anti-virus program to scan and clean files on their unix-based system?
Personally, i don't understand what people argue about. Let me give some analogies.
There's an operating system floating around called "Windows," created by a company named Microsoft. Since this name (Windows) is a rather generic one, the OS is usually referred to as Microsoft Windows, MS-Windows, or something of the like. This is mainly to ensure that when it is referred to in (possibly overheard) conversation, others don't get the wrong impression and assume that high(ish) intellectuals are indeed speaking of various sheets of glass.
As it happens, there is another operating system floating around called "MacOS," another wildly imaginative title, additionally descriptive, and referring to its own purpose in life, which is to act as the operating system for Macintosh machines. The company that makes this operating system and these machines is called Apple, and the machines themselves are oddly often referred to as Apple Macintosh machines (though Macintosh Apple is arguably better grammar). The Apple Macintosh machines have little to do with the point here; the main point is the name of the operating system MacOS. Rarely is MacOS referred to as Apple MacOS, as the name itself describes what it is. No one will mistake MacOS for an operating system that runs on macintosh apples, McDonald's Big Macs, MAC semis, or MAC machines. There is no need to call the OS Apple MacOS, so the Apple is left out of most conversations completely.
Yet another interesting, floating OS is something named "BeOS," equally as imaginitive a name as "MacOS," yet offering nicer slogans. This operating system was written by a company named Be, and was indeed named after the company itself -- along with the BeBoxes it was intended to operate. Here too, there is no "Be BeOS," as that would be tacky and annoyingly redundant. As far as mistaking the operating system for something unrelated, well, many people may not have an idea what the OS is, and most others may have not yet tried it, but rarely do people volunteer that you may have indeed meant "cabbage" or "beehive" or something similar.
Well, this brings us to the point of Linux. If you choose to think of the GNU community as... well, maybe not the creators, but at least partners in the development of Linux, you don't have to include the name. No one is going to mistake Linux for a geometric expression or a type of car (well, some might, but there's not a lot you can do if that's the case). Until someone replaces everything GNU on a linux system with other software and distributes it, there will be no need to add a GNU to the name of Linux. It is honestly understood.
If you'd like to be a little more argumentative about it, GNU utilities are not restricted to Linux. I run a number of GNU utilities on the Solaris systems i administer, and i much prefer them to those written by Sun. FreeBSD encorporates a number of GNU utilities into their distributions. I've even gutted windows and replaced its shell (explorer) with tcsh, using many GNU utilities for its interface, when i was stuck with a windows 95 machine. I suppose i could have called this GNU/Windows, but why? I honestly don't understand the argument.
If i remember correctly, the book includes an introduction by Larry Wall himself, stating that he has in fact learned a good amount from this book as well.
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I wanted to see it. The only nearby theatre showing the friggin' thing was the Union Square theatre... and it was only playing at 11am. Well, i work, so that was out of the question. I live in NYC, and the only reason i didn't see the movie is that no nearby theatre was showing it at a reasonable hour.
So, it flopped? Gee, i wonder why....
I've heard of ISPs doing this for years. When i worked for one, i heard of people yelling at users for being victims of DoS attacks all the time. Something to do with "if you didn't provoke them, this wouldn't happen." I don't remember any specific cases of accounts getting suspended in my particular company, but i always assumed it wasn't far off. I remember a few cases of this sort of thing from aol, and a couple from various ISPs around the US.
If this is what i've heard directly from victims, i'm sure this ordeal has been fairly widespread.
As to the use of the word "virus", I believe that Mr. Garfinkle was using the Windows world definitionm which from what I can tell is "any malicious piece of code that you accidently get on your computer somehow." Not a correct definition technically, but when writing it is a heck of a lot easier to refer to genreal "viruses" than to have to type out "viruses, trojans, worms, and other malicious code" everytime you want to make a general statement.
This is a pretty grave mistake (or omission) to make for a security consultant.
In regards to the virus idea in general, though... in windows, how many people will send you an attachment of a C file? Very few. They send binaries. It's almost the exact opposite in linux. Very few will send strictly binaries, because a very large portion of the linux community will not accept them, and many run different operating systems or architectures (which the same C program may compile and run on without a hitch). It seems actually _less_ likely for people to send each other binaries in linux than in, say, solaris or irix (due to closed source patches and licensing terms, along with the lack of a _good_ default-installed C compiler).
Unix (linux inclusive) software developers would not likely get away with installing macros into their word processors which can write to disk. The linux community would reject the program if it was commercial, and "correct" it if it was open source.
As for using the system as root... how many sun administrators do this? I've received countless e-mails from admins using dtmail as root. I'm almost tempted to insert a lecture about it into my signature. Linux is not alone in the user-stupidity area.
Many linux users will be susceptible to viruses, and many will not... but i think the reasons and the realities behind the situation need clarifying.
As a side note... how many experienced administrators will trust an anti-virus program to scan and clean files on their unix-based system?
I've always been fond of the movie 'sneakers'. It's not all _computer_ hacking/cracking, but it holds the full mindframe.
And it didn't lose my interest for a minute.
ari
Personally, i don't understand what people argue about. Let me give some analogies.
There's an operating system floating around called "Windows," created by a company named Microsoft. Since this name (Windows) is a rather generic one, the OS is usually referred to as Microsoft Windows, MS-Windows, or something of the like. This is mainly to ensure that when it is referred to in (possibly overheard) conversation, others don't get the wrong impression and assume that high(ish) intellectuals are indeed speaking of various sheets of glass.
As it happens, there is another operating system floating around called "MacOS," another wildly imaginative title, additionally descriptive, and referring to its own purpose in life, which is to act as the operating system for Macintosh machines. The company that makes this operating system and these machines is called Apple, and the machines themselves are oddly often referred to as Apple Macintosh machines (though Macintosh Apple is arguably better grammar). The Apple Macintosh machines have little to do with the point here; the main point is the name of the operating system MacOS. Rarely is MacOS referred to as Apple MacOS, as the name itself describes what it is. No one will mistake MacOS for an operating system that runs on macintosh apples, McDonald's Big Macs, MAC semis, or MAC machines. There is no need to call the OS Apple MacOS, so the Apple is left out of most conversations completely.
Yet another interesting, floating OS is something named "BeOS," equally as imaginitive a name as "MacOS," yet offering nicer slogans. This operating system was written by a company named Be, and was indeed named after the company itself -- along with the BeBoxes it was intended to operate. Here too, there is no "Be BeOS," as that would be tacky and annoyingly redundant. As far as mistaking the operating system for something unrelated, well, many people may not have an idea what the OS is, and most others may have not yet tried it, but rarely do people volunteer that you may have indeed meant "cabbage" or "beehive" or something similar.
Well, this brings us to the point of Linux. If you choose to think of the GNU community as... well, maybe not the creators, but at least partners in the development of Linux, you don't have to include the name. No one is going to mistake Linux for a geometric expression or a type of car (well, some might, but there's not a lot you can do if that's the case). Until someone replaces everything GNU on a linux system with other software and distributes it, there will be no need to add a GNU to the name of Linux. It is honestly understood.
If you'd like to be a little more argumentative about it, GNU utilities are not restricted to Linux. I run a number of GNU utilities on the Solaris systems i administer, and i much prefer them to those written by Sun. FreeBSD encorporates a number of GNU utilities into their distributions. I've even gutted windows and replaced its shell (explorer) with tcsh, using many GNU utilities for its interface, when i was stuck with a windows 95 machine. I suppose i could have called this GNU/Windows, but why? I honestly don't understand the argument.
If i remember correctly, the book includes an introduction by Larry Wall himself, stating that he has in fact learned a good amount from this book as well.