Why, GenToo of course. Go whole hog here... Make them build everything from scratch...
[Yes, I'm joking..... ]
Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat/CentOS, Debian, BSD.. You name one.. I'd bet that any of them would work for 90% of what desktop users need. Unless you are a gamer, or need compatibility with Office on all fronts, Linux will do just fine. Personally, I'd send them home with a USB stick that has a live image of something configured to run like things at work....
You are mixing modes and comparing apples to oranges here.
If you are using a Linux box as a remote desktop server, you don't run the X server on the box in question, it runs on the machine that has the user's display. The "issue" in question is about applications that share the same X server, which in this case, each user has their own. However, this is rarely done anymore. If you have a LInux desktop running X, you don't usually run your applications on another box anyway, it runs locally, so you never open up the XHOST restriction and nobody can connect.
The privilege separation issue is a valid complaint, but again, I don't manage my servers using a GUI in the first place so I don't have X running, much less loaded so I don't have to worry about this issue. If you insist on running X, don't use it to administrate the box and you don't have this issue.
So, though my security practice, I avoid this issue. But we are talking ONE issue now which has long been known and easily avoided. There has been a raft of issues with Windows which where not so easy to avoid, detect and eliminate. Ever wonder why they picked the [CTL][ALT][DEL] key sequence in Windows NT? Think about it... Windows has the same kinds of issues, you just don't want to think about it. Ever Since TSR's where introduced in DOS, you've had this problem.
So, do you deny the apparent political content of her appointment? Do you always wear rose colored glasses or is it a condition you where born with?
I'm not saying she's not qualified she is (I'd be qualified too, but that's not what we are debating), I'm saying that there are far more qualified people out there, folks who already are CTO's of large businesses so why did they choose her? Political Optics of course.
The choice was drive by the political reality of who she is in private life not her professional skills. I'm not trying to slight her professional experience in saying this though, she can do the job, but she fits the political profile, the desired optics, the media facade of this administration, but she's not the most qualified person available. She's a political appointee and her appointment is about politics, not who's the Chief Technology Officer of the Federal Government. Appointments for political reasons is a very common occurrence in Washington DC, please take off the rose colored glasses.
You do understand that it takes ROOT to set the SUID bit on a file right? This is why you will find all SUID programs set to read only and owned by an administrative user (such as root). It is why you instruct your sysadmin staff to NEVER SUID anything w/o good reason and permission and It is also why you scan systems for SUID binaries and scripts regularly so you can find and remove such nonsense as SUID security holes.
Further, you NEVER let anybody change "passwd" and if they do, you NEVER let it run SUID. And if you find any unexplained SUID stuff on your box, you pull the plug on everything and start looking for where the break in happened because you've been compromised and your whole network is suspect. But you'd do the same thing in the windows world if someone managed to get your administrator's password, because it's the same thing.
The comment moderation message on that was pretty interesting. It drew nearly 20 votes in both directions in the few hours it's been up, so I think I hit a hot button on that post. Opinion seems pretty divided, but so is the country...
And one more thing... It may require a bit of critical thinking on your part, because with all political moves, they are designed to impress the willing and deceive the rest. This is above all politics, but it usually is with this bunch, despite what they may be saying..
I started reading that rant thinking.. OK, they are nuts for sure... BUT
I think you are on to something here. Now I don't agree with your examples for drug use, nor do I think we should just go after users, traffickers should be targets of prosecutions too, your ideas on personal ID have merit.
Actually, this is the kind of thing the credit watching companies do but I like your idea of making it a legal responsibility of the credit issuer to prove they are dealing with the person in question or be unable to legally collect debts incurred. I would suggest that they use some kind of biometric, finger prints, iris scans or something to validate identities before giving credit, but there is something more you need to enforce.
If you use biometrics, then you have to somehow store them encrypted and somehow only allow them to be decrypted for enforcement of legal terms (such as in court, or to a credit agency when trying to get paid). I'm not sure how you do that without creating yet again another treasure trove of value for people to steal. How you then use them to verify a persons identity without decrypting them is beyond me. Somebody will have to know that John Smith, SSN 555-55-5555 has this unalterable ID, picture, biometric and validate that the John Smith in front of you is the right guy. I don't know how you do that without having the same problem we have now.
Actually, the NEWS is that it was reported. We all knew this site was messed up functionally as well as insecure as a bare NT box running IIS from 1995.
CTO of what is the question. You do understand that there is no CTO position in the Federal government right? They just invented this for her. She will have ZERO authority to make any day to day technology decisions.
Dig a bit and figure out why they are doing this. This is about politics, not fixing anything more than the next election.
She only fits this "job" as far as politics is concerned. There is no CTO of the federal government position, they just invented it, so they could appoint her to it so she fits as well as anybody could who has a position invented for them.
You got that right. She's a Gorden Gekko in real life. Her activities involved managing buying other companies for the giant Google NOT the development of technology. She's into the acquisition side of Google's business, not the technical development or management side.
Also, understand that this is a BRAND NEW position. They just invented it. She will have no legislated authority, no budget, no staff, no legal mandate. Just an executive order. She can advise the administrative branch at the president's pleasure, but this position has no power of law. Not that this administration couldn't use some knowledgeable technical advice to avoid things like the HealthCare.gov mess. But why her? Why, politics of course.
The political angle is that she's a woman AND very prominent member of GLAAD. (Not that this matters to me, but it does to the left.)
She's not a horrible choice for this brand spanking new Federal Government's CTO position, but it's pretty obvious this is about political reality and not fixing anything in the government. We have an invented position, a politically expedient appointee in the face of a serious election challenge to the party in power. DC business as usual. This is about politics, and she's just a political hack appointee being used to throw a group of supporters a bone.
I wish her luck, but this whole thing is a waste. Government CTO? Why on earth do we need a CTO at the federal level?
First she"s dead, then she's alive, finally she's dead again. Who? Eva Parone in the musical Evita.
So goes Argentina.
History repeats, over and over.... Peronism didn't work in the 50's and 60's, it's successor won't work now and the results will be the same as before.
At that rate, I bet there's a market for Argentinians to mail me cash, which I'll use to establish them a Paypal account. Hell, if Paypal and I both take 10% they still come out on top.
Well, that would be great, if they could send you cash. If you want to take Argentina's currency, you are a fool, and if you require dollars, they cannot legally get them to send to you. If they could, they'd all be out moving all their local currency into dollars already.
Slashdot Mirror
Why, GenToo of course. Go whole hog here... Make them build everything from scratch...
[Yes, I'm joking..... ]
Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat/CentOS, Debian, BSD.. You name one.. I'd bet that any of them would work for 90% of what desktop users need. Unless you are a gamer, or need compatibility with Office on all fronts, Linux will do just fine. Personally, I'd send them home with a USB stick that has a live image of something configured to run like things at work....
It is and Ad for Kolab... If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck.... Shoot it!
You are mixing modes and comparing apples to oranges here.
If you are using a Linux box as a remote desktop server, you don't run the X server on the box in question, it runs on the machine that has the user's display. The "issue" in question is about applications that share the same X server, which in this case, each user has their own. However, this is rarely done anymore. If you have a LInux desktop running X, you don't usually run your applications on another box anyway, it runs locally, so you never open up the XHOST restriction and nobody can connect.
The privilege separation issue is a valid complaint, but again, I don't manage my servers using a GUI in the first place so I don't have X running, much less loaded so I don't have to worry about this issue. If you insist on running X, don't use it to administrate the box and you don't have this issue.
So, though my security practice, I avoid this issue. But we are talking ONE issue now which has long been known and easily avoided. There has been a raft of issues with Windows which where not so easy to avoid, detect and eliminate. Ever wonder why they picked the [CTL][ALT][DEL] key sequence in Windows NT? Think about it... Windows has the same kinds of issues, you just don't want to think about it. Ever Since TSR's where introduced in DOS, you've had this problem.
That pesky ";" statement terminator... I guess you had to uses something, but it causes me the most trouble..
C, C++, Pascal, Perl, Java, C#, bash/sh, ksh, JavaScript..... The list goes on..
So, do you deny the apparent political content of her appointment? Do you always wear rose colored glasses or is it a condition you where born with?
I'm not saying she's not qualified she is (I'd be qualified too, but that's not what we are debating), I'm saying that there are far more qualified people out there, folks who already are CTO's of large businesses so why did they choose her? Political Optics of course.
The choice was drive by the political reality of who she is in private life not her professional skills. I'm not trying to slight her professional experience in saying this though, she can do the job, but she fits the political profile, the desired optics, the media facade of this administration, but she's not the most qualified person available. She's a political appointee and her appointment is about politics, not who's the Chief Technology Officer of the Federal Government. Appointments for political reasons is a very common occurrence in Washington DC, please take off the rose colored glasses.
Argentina needs SOMETHING to sell and pay off the national debt.
You do understand that it takes ROOT to set the SUID bit on a file right? This is why you will find all SUID programs set to read only and owned by an administrative user (such as root). It is why you instruct your sysadmin staff to NEVER SUID anything w/o good reason and permission and It is also why you scan systems for SUID binaries and scripts regularly so you can find and remove such nonsense as SUID security holes.
Further, you NEVER let anybody change "passwd" and if they do, you NEVER let it run SUID. And if you find any unexplained SUID stuff on your box, you pull the plug on everything and start looking for where the break in happened because you've been compromised and your whole network is suspect. But you'd do the same thing in the windows world if someone managed to get your administrator's password, because it's the same thing.
The comment moderation message on that was pretty interesting. It drew nearly 20 votes in both directions in the few hours it's been up, so I think I hit a hot button on that post. Opinion seems pretty divided, but so is the country...
And one more thing... It may require a bit of critical thinking on your part, because with all political moves, they are designed to impress the willing and deceive the rest. This is above all politics, but it usually is with this bunch, despite what they may be saying..
If they could, they'd all be out moving all their local currency into dollars already.
That's what friends who travel internationally are for :D
Don't tell customs any lies when they ask you if you have anything to declare then.. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Wikipedia isn't that hard and she does show up in Google searches still, even if she may be quitting there soon.
Think politics, think about which groups support the current administration and you tell me why they picked her...
Look, I've posted it elsewhere and I'm getting modded down for it, so I'm going to be a bit obtuse for now..
I started reading that rant thinking.. OK, they are nuts for sure... BUT
I think you are on to something here. Now I don't agree with your examples for drug use, nor do I think we should just go after users, traffickers should be targets of prosecutions too, your ideas on personal ID have merit.
Actually, this is the kind of thing the credit watching companies do but I like your idea of making it a legal responsibility of the credit issuer to prove they are dealing with the person in question or be unable to legally collect debts incurred. I would suggest that they use some kind of biometric, finger prints, iris scans or something to validate identities before giving credit, but there is something more you need to enforce.
If you use biometrics, then you have to somehow store them encrypted and somehow only allow them to be decrypted for enforcement of legal terms (such as in court, or to a credit agency when trying to get paid). I'm not sure how you do that without creating yet again another treasure trove of value for people to steal. How you then use them to verify a persons identity without decrypting them is beyond me. Somebody will have to know that John Smith, SSN 555-55-5555 has this unalterable ID, picture, biometric and validate that the John Smith in front of you is the right guy. I don't know how you do that without having the same problem we have now.
Actually, the NEWS is that it was reported. We all knew this site was messed up functionally as well as insecure as a bare NT box running IIS from 1995.
Give the job of fixing this to the newly minted Federal Government CTO announced on SlashDot just today! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Oh wait, problem, that's not her job, that falls under the Secretary of Health and Human Services control... Washington DC is broken, very broken...
Have they yet?
I LIKE the way you think....
CTO of what is the question. You do understand that there is no CTO position in the Federal government right? They just invented this for her. She will have ZERO authority to make any day to day technology decisions.
Dig a bit and figure out why they are doing this. This is about politics, not fixing anything more than the next election.
She only fits this "job" as far as politics is concerned. There is no CTO of the federal government position, they just invented it, so they could appoint her to it so she fits as well as anybody could who has a position invented for them.
Take a look at her Wikipedia page and it's pretty clear what's going on here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
You got that right. She's a Gorden Gekko in real life. Her activities involved managing buying other companies for the giant Google NOT the development of technology. She's into the acquisition side of Google's business, not the technical development or management side.
Also, understand that this is a BRAND NEW position. They just invented it. She will have no legislated authority, no budget, no staff, no legal mandate. Just an executive order. She can advise the administrative branch at the president's pleasure, but this position has no power of law. Not that this administration couldn't use some knowledgeable technical advice to avoid things like the HealthCare.gov mess. But why her? Why, politics of course.
The political angle is that she's a woman AND very prominent member of GLAAD. (Not that this matters to me, but it does to the left.)
She's not a horrible choice for this brand spanking new Federal Government's CTO position, but it's pretty obvious this is about political reality and not fixing anything in the government. We have an invented position, a politically expedient appointee in the face of a serious election challenge to the party in power. DC business as usual. This is about politics, and she's just a political hack appointee being used to throw a group of supporters a bone.
I wish her luck, but this whole thing is a waste. Government CTO? Why on earth do we need a CTO at the federal level?
You think he's going to take Argentine Pesos? I don't think so.... Pretty soon it's going to cost more to ship it than it's worth.
Yep, that is pretty much what is going on. And all with comu--, I mean, socialists in all spheres of power.
Call it by it's Argentinian name... Peronism. (You remember Eva Peron? What here husband started.. It's here again, world wide. )
Ok, Ok, Call it liberal progressive, it's the PC name of it today.
First she"s dead, then she's alive, finally she's dead again. Who? Eva Parone in the musical Evita.
So goes Argentina.
History repeats, over and over.... Peronism didn't work in the 50's and 60's, it's successor won't work now and the results will be the same as before.
At that rate, I bet there's a market for Argentinians to mail me cash, which I'll use to establish them a Paypal account. Hell, if Paypal and I both take 10% they still come out on top.
Well, that would be great, if they could send you cash. If you want to take Argentina's currency, you are a fool, and if you require dollars, they cannot legally get them to send to you. If they could, they'd all be out moving all their local currency into dollars already.
Cuba is becoming?
The guys on top should switch to Pepsi.
No, Royal Crown!