Heh..this type of thing is actually pretty true. I remember when we first got cable tv (little redneck town at the top of a mountain). The 'information channel' (you know, the one that now uses windoze, likely used amiga in the past to show communitity bulletins and weather and such) was a camera inside of a cylinder. Within the cylinder, they had mounted a thermometer, barometer, and community notices in large type on paper. The camera would slowly revolve to show everything. Didn't really seem weird back then, but kind of funny now in retrospect (seeing as computers WERE around back then and I believe they were being used for those channels...guess they were still to expensive or the local cable co was just not that informed).
Hrm..I guess I'd date that to when I discovered usenet in 1992 (on PSUVM). Before that the only online that I knew was BBS's. TCP/IP? On my Modem? NEAT! (back when I did my first SLIP line on OS/2 back into PSU...I guess that was around 1993/1994)
'personal firewalls' are the wrong solution. The proper solution is to not run unnecessary services out of the box in the first place. Really, NONE. If a user needs to run a particular service, then they should know how to enable it and how to secure it. But to run things as part of a default install is silly. It's bad enough in the windows world that netbios is always-on (RPC vulns anybody?).
Your only friends and family must not use windows/outlook/msie then. I get tons of spam, mainly because of people I know getting infected with windows viruses (and I'm in their address books).
They should focus on the filer and stop trying to be an environment. I'm running an older version (don't like that the new versions don't use the root window for desktop icons, have their own big window that takes over everything.). I love the functionality, but some things of note(maybe fixed in recent versions *shrug*):
window sizes and positions should be remembered
style for each window (background image/color)
Heck with just those two things, I think rox has finally achieved being most of what my beloved WPS was on OS/2. The concept of AppDirs kicks ass. This made it very easy for me to extend rox using nothing but shell scripts. Some things I did:
Mail notification. I scan my maildir, and if I have new mail, just switch the rox app icon for my mail program
Network mount status. I have a folder for each of my remote hosts. By default, the Appdir launches an ssh session. A shift click allows me to mount dirs on that server. If a directory is mounted, the main AppIcon indicates it.
Image directories. Again, I have a ROX app that allows me to manipulate the icon on the desktop (random image selection). Other options on the fly-out menu include slideshows, view current image, view similar images, etc.
I wrote a quick filter object to be used with ROX. Using symlinks, I was able to have a filtered folder that only showed what I was interested in.
What makes rox so great is that it is such a simple and consistent concept, which makes it easy to build on it to create some very nice custom UI enhancements.
Maybe the DHS should send reps to usenix and blackat/defcon (if they haven't already) to actually learn something about security. This thing looks like nothing but another lobbying group. Worthless.
What good is a vulnerability database if you cannot get to it...especially if you want to use automated tools with it? If it can't handle slashdot, can it realistically handle clients all over the world trying to connect for automagic updates?
My guess is that they will screw it up. Anybody remember the OS/2 version of word perfect? The windoze version ran better on OS/2 than the OS/2 native version did.
That's the whole problem. They aren't getting the same quality of work for half the price or less. Most companies don't figure this out until it is too late, however. They should have listened to their skilled in-house staff that they just replaced. Oops.
I think it is fine that somebody (a lawyer) who can help you out gets notified. I mean, what does the average person charged with a crime know about their options? Especially for state-run fundraisers like DUI charges and such.
What is not acceptable is that the lawyers knew this kid was in trouble before the family did. Especially with a medical condition? That is just plain wrong.
What I find disturbing (or would if I was a supplier to grocery stores) is that usually the coupon they give you is a competing brand for the item that you bought. "We see that you like cheesy poofs...here, have a coupon for poofy cheese!"
wal-mart near where I live recently stopped allowing me to use the credit method of using my credit/debit card. They force you to use debit. What is the difference? Same account, same funds. Does the credit card not allow them to track you where the debit card does? Regardless, I try not to shop at wal-mart anymore because of this. My bank gives me refunds when I use 'credit' so that is what I prefer to use.
Linux Torvalds's autobiography is a great look into the past too. Funny how a lot of what he did early on is the same type of stuff that many of us did. He just took it a step further:)
If most web designers would publish to standards, then MSIE lusers would demand of microsoft that their browser render correctly, or they would use something else. Not that M$ really cares.
You get what you pay for. Being a security analyst at a rather large global company, I was indirectly involved in a "broadband user" rollout. We use client VPN software to get into our networks, but we mandated that all broadband users have a hardware firewall. I actually tested some of these at home on my own. Nothing but problems. And our end users have had problems as well. In the end, I went back to linux and iptables. I wish it were economical to do the same for all of our users. Then again, I guess we could make the business units pay the cost of a sonicwall at each location...
The easiest robust solution that I have found that I would recommend building for family and friends (not sure if it is quite easy enough for them to install themselves yet) is an old computer running smoothwall
With all due respect to the original poster, I am
not sure this is clearly an exceptional case. The servers, presumably, e-mail their notifications to a personal cell phone number @ some cellular company. Correct?
Using email for critical notifications is a pretty dumb idea. Email is guaranteed delivery. Not guaranteed speed. It can potentially take hours, or in extreme cases days, to deliver a message, especially now with corporate servers getting bogged down analyzing spam/viruses and such. And...what if it is the mail server(s) that went down?
I actually play my games by launching a second X server. That way I can still play the game full screen, but still check IM's and such on the other (virtual) display. Good stuff. Try that on windows!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Heh..this type of thing is actually pretty true. I remember when we first got cable tv (little redneck town at the top of a mountain). The 'information channel' (you know, the one that now uses windoze, likely used amiga in the past to show communitity bulletins and weather and such) was a camera inside of a cylinder. Within the cylinder, they had mounted a thermometer, barometer, and community notices in large type on paper. The camera would slowly revolve to show everything. Didn't really seem weird back then, but kind of funny now in retrospect (seeing as computers WERE around back then and I believe they were being used for those channels...guess they were still to expensive or the local cable co was just not that informed).
Hrm..I guess I'd date that to when I discovered usenet in 1992 (on PSUVM). Before that the only online that I knew was BBS's. TCP/IP? On my Modem? NEAT! (back when I did my first SLIP line on OS/2 back into PSU...I guess that was around 1993/1994)
http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2003-11-26/featur e.html/print.html
http://www.usedwigs.com/weekly_32.html0 01/0001.html
http://www.annoying.com/nightmares/obsessive/02/0
http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/002681.html
Or just google for 'bill watterson peeing OR pissing'
Take the time to read and understand the original comics, and you might see my point of view.
'personal firewalls' are the wrong solution. The proper solution is to not run unnecessary services out of the box in the first place. Really, NONE. If a user needs to run a particular service, then they should know how to enable it and how to secure it. But to run things as part of a default install is silly. It's bad enough in the windows world that netbios is always-on (RPC vulns anybody?).
Your only friends and family must not use windows/outlook/msie then. I get tons of spam, mainly because of people I know getting infected with windows viruses (and I'm in their address books).
- window sizes and positions should be remembered
- style for each window (background image/color)
Heck with just those two things, I think rox has finally achieved being most of what my beloved WPS was on OS/2. The concept of AppDirs kicks ass. This made it very easy for me to extend rox using nothing but shell scripts. Some things I did:- Mail notification. I scan my maildir, and if I have new mail, just switch the rox app icon for my mail program
- Network mount status. I have a folder for each of my remote hosts. By default, the Appdir launches an ssh session. A shift click allows me to mount dirs on that server. If a directory is mounted, the main AppIcon indicates it.
- Image directories. Again, I have a ROX app that allows me to manipulate the icon on the desktop (random image selection). Other options on the fly-out menu include slideshows, view current image, view similar images, etc.
- I wrote a quick filter object to be used with ROX. Using symlinks, I was able to have a filtered folder that only showed what I was interested in.
What makes rox so great is that it is such a simple and consistent concept, which makes it easy to build on it to create some very nice custom UI enhancements.you forgot CA and BSA. Quite the threesome there.
Maybe the DHS should send reps to usenix and blackat/defcon (if they haven't already) to actually learn something about security. This thing looks like nothing but another lobbying group. Worthless.
What good is a vulnerability database if you cannot get to it...especially if you want to use automated tools with it? If it can't handle slashdot, can it realistically handle clients all over the world trying to connect for automagic updates?
My guess is that they will screw it up. Anybody remember the OS/2 version of word perfect? The windoze version ran better on OS/2 than the OS/2 native version did.
That's the whole problem. They aren't getting the same quality of work for half the price or less. Most companies don't figure this out until it is too late, however. They should have listened to their skilled in-house staff that they just replaced. Oops.
Somebody mod the parent up please. This is exactly what I was thinking. Carrying digital media is hardly interesting.
Then you get to build from source, but can manage packages on those 10 linux servers much more easily.
What is not acceptable is that the lawyers knew this kid was in trouble before the family did. Especially with a medical condition? That is just plain wrong.
How fast was it already moving when the rocket separated and the scramjet took over?
What I find disturbing (or would if I was a supplier to grocery stores) is that usually the coupon they give you is a competing brand for the item that you bought. "We see that you like cheesy poofs...here, have a coupon for poofy cheese!"
wal-mart near where I live recently stopped allowing me to use the credit method of using my credit/debit card. They force you to use debit. What is the difference? Same account, same funds. Does the credit card not allow them to track you where the debit card does? Regardless, I try not to shop at wal-mart anymore because of this. My bank gives me refunds when I use 'credit' so that is what I prefer to use.
Linux Torvalds's autobiography is a great look into the past too. Funny how a lot of what he did early on is the same type of stuff that many of us did. He just took it a step further :)
So, you are adding to the problem.
The easiest robust solution that I have found that I would recommend building for family and friends (not sure if it is quite easy enough for them to install themselves yet) is an old computer running smoothwall
Has recently been kicked off of clearchannel stations. He has been ranting about this problem for the past few weeks.
um...anaconda + kickstart. I think it is suse that has some catching up to do.
Using email for critical notifications is a pretty dumb idea. Email is guaranteed delivery. Not guaranteed speed. It can potentially take hours, or in extreme cases days, to deliver a message, especially now with corporate servers getting bogged down analyzing spam/viruses and such. And...what if it is the mail server(s) that went down?
I actually play my games by launching a second X server. That way I can still play the game full screen, but still check IM's and such on the other (virtual) display. Good stuff. Try that on windows! :)