Its a choice weather to do the drugs or not. The first time and every time after that, its still a choice. Many people choose not to do them, many more quit after becoming addicted. Choice.
People have the right to choice. Good or bad. You take away choice, you take away freedom. You wanna do that... move to china. Or keep voting for people like Bush.
Because for certain applications bigger boxes (8 or more CPU's) are better suited than a bunch of smaller boxes. Not to mention that standard intel and AMD (not including opteron) proc's just dont hold up compared to higher end CPU's. However for most applications smaller and cheaper by the dozen does work better.
That doesnt change the point that swapping out a CPU has nothing to do with swapping out a node of a cluster. They are not even close to the same.
Pull your head out of your ass you self indulgent jackass. I was merely making a recomendation. I know nothing more about your needs than you know about anyone else's yet you were making the EXACT same type of recomendation.
You claim features are lacking ? Like what ? I have had to use both, not extensivly (ie day to day) but I most certainly have had to deal with them repeatedly. Both of them are bloated pieces of shit. Neither one is cross-compatible, at least not as much as they should be.
If you have enough time to stress over a fucking office suite, and bitch about a column not lining up right - your job is fucking useless, and you probably are to.
Well that of course depends on what exactly they are typing. Obviously sitting anyone down at any of the solutions available without teaching them what they are doing will lead to some mess-ups.
I have spoken to two lawyers that use OOo. Not including the lawyers who are involved in opensource.
Most people have a major problem paying $500 dollars to use something they know. Especially if 'knowing it' is the sole reason for paying $500. When they can learn something new and save that $500 dollars.
P.S. Please spare me the lectures about 'time is money'. Cause its complete crap. The average person spends so much time doing useless shit that bitching about reading a few docs is like pissing into the wind.
"I wonder just how people who think its just as good as Microsoft Office use Microsoft Office, because I've found it to be useless."
Well I am going to take a stab in the dark here.... Perhaps they use MS office the same way that you use OOo. Without knowing how to use it.
I have never had any need to use either on a regular basis but given the limited experience with both they seem eerily similar in function and form.
Re:Right tool for the right job
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Cooking With Linux
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Have you ever used openoffice ? Given my personal experience OOo performs just about the same as MO.
Can't speak about Gimp vs paint/photoshop since I am about has graphic savvy as a brick. Linux is clearly the worst for end-user graphic/video stuff although there are tons of high end packages availible for it. OSX is clearly tops in this catagory (I assume we are talking 'home user' here ?)
"can afford the time configuring it correctly."
The average person doesnt spend any time configuring their windows system "properly" they just use the defaults. Linux would be no different. To be quite blunt about it.... you wouldnt need to be a poweruser, linux is a lot more friendly in the "set it and forget it" department. It seems like most people hold a double standard here. The average user still calls the monitor "computer" and the tower "cpu". They dont know anything about windows or linux. They are about as likely to know how to edit the registry has they are to be able to mess around in/proc.
I have switched probably 2 dozen friends/family over to linux in the past 2 years. The vast majority were your standard "web, email, IM" users. None of them have had any major issues. Surely no more problems than they had with windows prior to my switching them over.
"Using Linux for running office software is like using a saw to hammer in a nail"
So that would make using windows for the same purpose like using a screwdriver to hammer the same nail ? Linux works fine for the majority of office use. The only things it is majorly lacking in is games and graphics stuff. Thats a big thing for some. However the average law office (example) could use openoffice with little problem.
Re:At least what apps I needed available on linux
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Cooking With Linux
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Can't speak for everyone... but even way back when I was using windows I only had 5 or 6 games. They are all sitting next to me, and half of them run better under wine than natively on windows. Dont laugh, its true. The only one that doesnt run is Age Of Empires. Although I am sure if I wanted to fiddle with it..... I could make it work.
At this point I would guess that 50% of all major PC games run fine either natively (ID games, UT etc) or through wine. Given the target market and the other advantages using linux thats a good enough statistic for now.
Well using your logic any vote that doesnt go to the winning party was wasted. It doesnt matter who finished second, or third and so on. There is only one president.
"You see, in 2000, I tried that approach."
Oh... sorry. Didnt know that everything was supposed to change overnight. Did you talk to anyone about who they were voting for, and why ? How about holding rally's for disgruntled voters ?
"Because I'm a moderate with leanings towards both ends of the current political spectrum."
Depends on what you classify as moderate. To me both the republicans and democrats are conservative. Something that historically never helped this country. Something that I loathe. They are currently of the opinion that the horse and buggy industry was a great business and should have had countless laws made to keep it around. Also they seem to think the whole "freedom" thing was just for show.
"Then you have the libertarians who go just a smidgin too far over the edge"
How so ? If you believe in what the founding fathers believed in... you more likely than not agree with the majority of the libertarian parties beliefs. They are no different than any other political party. Standing in the middle of every issue wont get you votes... and wont accomplish anything. You have to take a stand, be definitive.
Let's say you agree with a little bit of the dems platform and a little of the reps platform. Yet you agree with the libertarians on the more important issues (importance of each issue to you personally is essentially what decides your political standing). You would be a fool to vote for the dems or the reps REGARDLESS of weather they will win the big races or not. You would be a moron to vote against your believes and then bitch about the system not working, or you not having options.
Here is a scary concept: Republicans are mainstream. It might be true. In this post 9/11 world the majority of people place an unhealthy emphasis on "security" or the perception of such. To the majority of people in this country the republicans are the best political party for security.
What exactly is it that you believe in ? Or more specifically what of your core beliefs do you think no party follows ? Politics is about compromise. There are 300 million mini political parties in this country. No way that any party system will satisfy the majority of people the majority of the time. You have to place value on the few major things you think are most important and vote based on those. No way a political party can satisfy every single one of anybodies beliefs.
I agree that a change must be made. Sitting around taking minimal action will not provoke a change.
I could go on a rant about how the majority doesnt mean squat since bush didnt have it in 2000. Or about how tons of votes werent counted, voter fraud, intimidation... etc etc
Instead I will just say that the people have failed. Not the system, because the system is a product of the people. The average american does not want to spend time being involved in politics. They dont want to spend 10 hours over the months leading up to the elections to read up on the various canidate's that are not on TV. You seem to be a shining example of this. I can rattle off 6 people who were running for president. The majority of whom were on most states ballots. How many do you know of ? What didnt you like about them ?
Now is the time to do what you can. Leave. Or shut up. Those are your choices. Expecting everything to change without hard work is like expecting to meet a hot woman on/...... it just aint going to happen.
Join a party and help them. Influence their decisions. You will never have a president who you agree 100% with, unless you get elected. You can however have one that you believe in, and agree with on core issues.
I voted for Badnarik, because I think FREEDOM is what this country is all about.
I know its a bad thing to word like this... but I wasnt counting the mcveigh thing as terrorism in the same sense as what al-qieuda (sp?) did. McVeigh was by all accounts attacking the government. OBL and his people were attacking citizens. Minor difference since the people in oklahoma city were mostly clerks and what not. It is however the way I think of it. I dont think of people fighting their own government as terrorism.
"Is it because Americans really, really think they are Christ's army in the war against a false god, or at least against dark people far away, and no torture, no suspension of the constitution is too much if we kill some more?"
I'm with you. The over-reaction of the people in this country is making things worse. Even if they cannot see it. Yet. George Carlin said it best "We kill brown people. Every war we have had in the past hundred years was about brown people. Killing them, or killing the people who were cutting in on the action" or something to that effect. Sad but true.
"We need to wake up."
Allow me to play Van Gogh and paint a picture for you:
Time: Early november, 2004.
Location: Someplace U.S.A
Why: This takes place once every 4 years
What: The vote for predident.
Final outcome: The country (the majority of voters anyway) collectively pressed the 'snooze' button.
If this country ever wakes up, it wont be the same country. Perhaps not even in name or size/place anymore. Osama Bin Laden accomplished what he set out to do, weather he was the one who performed the actions or not.
There is no more to worry about than before, that doesnt mean there is nothing, but no more than before when they hit the same target less effectively. Claiming that the sky is falling because of a few incidents is nuts.
"The then current laws prevented the exchange of information you speak of."
Really ? Care to back that up ? There were indeed laws preventing us from sharing information with foriegn governments, but us giving them info was never the problem, them supplying us with the info was the problem and wont change regardless of what laws we pass in this country. I would also question exactly what is to be gained by giving away to much information, which we likely are doing since the people that currently populate the intelligence sector are about as bright as a 10 watt lightbulb. Which has been proven repeatedly in the past few years. The sharing of information between agencies was never legally constrained. It was all a pissing contest.
And correct me if I am wrong but there was only 1 attack prior to 9/11. Its not exactly like this was a common occurance either way. Perhaps what we needed to do was enforce the current laws better and allow more communication both internally and externally.
Allowing companies that are contracted by the government to spy on americans does not make us safer. Allowing our rights to be taken away in the name of security does not make us safer.
His followers would have went on without a leader, and with a lot less money. Sounds like it would have been a hell of a lot more effective than this escapade.. or crusade in Iraq.
"esults from bugs and design flaws in rapidly chaning and expanding software."
What in the 3000 (or so) year recorded history of humanity makes you think any of this is going to stop anytime soon ?
We should be able to build a fire-proof home by now. Safe cars (not safer.), safe drugs etc etc All of these things have been around longer than security in computers. Yet these problems have not been solved. Nor have real world security issues.
Don't plan on a utopian society or computer industry anytime soon (soon == in our lifetime). You'll only be greatly dissapointed.
NAT is not a device. Its a feature. I dont know about the UK but here in the USA most every end-user router comes with a firewall and NAT has features. Using NAT has a stand alone security feature is retarded. That being said it can be used in combination with other things to assist in making a setup more secure.
You claim that NAT is a kludge. How so ? It provides a usefull feature and the ability to have a stand alone internal network with a single access point. One of the main things you do with security is limit access. Gaurding every box on a network singularly is a PITA and far FAR beyond what the average person or corporation wants to do. That doesnt mean the turtle theory is good (hard on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside) but the most reasonable level of expectation is somewhere in-between.
In reality NAT provides a level of obscurity. Although it can easily be worked around (or through) it is helpful in preventing or limiting the amount of malicious traffic that hits internal boxes.
No. You make to many assumptions in your post. What you are saying is somewhat akin to claiming humanity will someday reach a point where violence is non-existant.
If the security gets better (just like it has over the past 40 years) its because the good guys are usually behind by a few steps, if they weren't behind they wouldnt know what to secure, or why. Even given the assumption that security somehow catches up with what the people attacking the systems are doing your also assuming that the people doing the attacking wont be able to adapt and break the new security.
Any security made by a person and implemented on a computer can be broken by a person with a computer.
"There are huge powerful upsides to a monoculture."
Not when it comes to security there aint. In the "oooh shiney" world of point-and-click userland sure its helpful, but anything beneficial from this aspect can also be gained from using open standards and open formats.
"ask your self exactly what is it that a security professional can do that it is theoretically impossible to automate."
Adapt, interact in an intelligent way, grow. Last I checked we still hadnt created a sentient intelligence yet, and in order to compete with sentient intelligence we have to use sentient intelligence. Once we create true AI... then the bad guys will have it too. So the story goes on.
"Combine the little blue box with a firewall, however (e.g., ZoneAlarm) and you've just defeated 99.9% of the so-called 'hackers' out there."
I don't want to argue about the terms your choosing to use. I do however want to point out that the bad guys are always one step ahead of the good guys, and assuming that any security you have is good enough to stop practically anyone is the first step towards becoming owned. Not just your machine.... your information. Which is worth far far more money than the 2 hours it takes you to wipe the machine and restore your data.
Anyone who really wants in can get in, it will take them time and patients. Thats one thing the good guys have going for them, most of the bad guys are script kiddies who just run a scan and move on. Eventually we will get to the point where breaking through firewalls and any other security device is as simple as clicking "ok". We are still some ways away from the kiddies having to learn all of that though since there are many many more unprotected systems out there.... but the day will come.
Correction. NAT is not as secure as any firewall. Period. NAT is not a security feature, its a convinience feature. NAT != Firewall.
I don't know about you... but I am not going to stop NAT'ing and/or PAT'ing my internal network off of the rest of the net no matter what verion of ipv they want to implement. I only need 1 real world IP. I only WANT 1 real world IP.
I could be wrong, but as it currently stands LJ has all of their equipment in just the one location. If your running something as widely used (and has heavily dependant on usage) as a major blog site you should have some form of redundancy. Its not as much of a pain to setup as it is to recover from something like this. Last I checked they were already working on 12 hours of downtime.
Not sure about the stats regarding LJ in specific but I am guessing this is costing them some major money (in relative terms) in the short-term, and untold amounts in the future. Mistakes like this and the constant problems they have had in the past (both with their setup and apparently with their colo) are the type of things that kill companies.
What they should do is have half at one co-lo and the other half at another co-lo. For the ammount of customers they have (the people who pay for their premiere accounts, and buy LJ merchandise) they should be able to afford a decent setup and at least one or two decent Linux admins. I really think they have the developers trying to do the admin stuff as well.... which leads to decisions like "lets put them all in one place".
Perhaps they should bite the bullet and hire some people with prior experience running large setups (perhaps somebody from google is looking for a change in scenery ?).
"Step right up, come one come all. Get your goobers, popcorn, soda, gummy bears, snowcaps, twizzlers, snickers, nachos, gags and muzzles" /endmock
I think that about covers my opinion on the matter.
Microsoft windows is a single operating system that is sold by a company. Mandrake linux is the same thing. Ditto redhat, suse etc etc. You seem to think that because they are based on linux that they are all the same, but they are not. In many cases they are just has different as BSD vs OSX. Sure the core is the same... not much else is. Do you really think that we should only have 1 OS available ? We have tried that route with MS, it doesnt work. You cannot trust a single corporate entity with everything. They will screw the consumer over for a few extra bucks.
The more competition there is the better off we all (consumers) are. The only reason linux has not taken off is because microsoft has exsclusivity contracts in place with all of the major vendors.
"So why are all those man hours being wasted to create competeing products?"
Don't know to much about software development do you ? There is no "one way" to do things. Different people have different ideas about how things should be managed or written. You seem to think that everybody thinks the same, or has the same goals. Or that they should. I couldnt disagree with you more about that.
"you disagree with the descion voice your opinion, but swollow your pride and dont fork the project as that will only dilute the power of linux."
Dude the power of linux and OSS is being able to fork it if you disagree with the direction it is heading in. Why the heck do you think people are leaving windows ? Or unix ? They disagreed with the way things were going, or they agreed more with the way things were going with linux.
Windows got where it was by competing with mac, whats going on in the linux community is not the same since there is far far more cooperation than people see, but the principle is the same. Competition drives innovation.
If Linux wants to surpass windows two things need to happen:
1. Stop trying to copy windows. Go your own route. If people want windows they will use windows.
2. Get a major PC manufacturer to install linux by default on their retail desktops.
The problem is two-fold, the first major problem is a lot of the newer developers are windows developers who feel like making linux more like windows. The second problem is microsofts bully tactics (which are illegal).
How to get past these issue's is an exercise I leave to the reader.
Agreed and I'll raise you one. I have been using newegg since it first opened a few years back. I have been using amazon for around 5 years. I have never had to call customer service. I currently place 2-3 orders a month on amazon (clif bars bulk, CD's etc) and about 1 every other month on newegg. I happen to have one in transit from both places as we speak.
Never had any issues at all with the orders, speed or quality of goods recieved from either place. That to me is the reason that 90% of my luxury shopping is done at those two stores.
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Its a choice weather to do the drugs or not. The first time and every time after that, its still a choice. Many people choose not to do them, many more quit after becoming addicted. Choice.
... move to china. Or keep voting for people like Bush.
People have the right to choice. Good or bad. You take away choice, you take away freedom. You wanna do that
Because for certain applications bigger boxes (8 or more CPU's) are better suited than a bunch of smaller boxes. Not to mention that standard intel and AMD (not including opteron) proc's just dont hold up compared to higher end CPU's. However for most applications smaller and cheaper by the dozen does work better.
That doesnt change the point that swapping out a CPU has nothing to do with swapping out a node of a cluster. They are not even close to the same.
Apparently no job you have ever held intails answering questions. Or reading enlish.
So your right I wouldnt last two minutes. I wouldnt waste my fucking time taking the job in the first place.
Pull your head out of your ass you self indulgent jackass. I was merely making a recomendation. I know nothing more about your needs than you know about anyone else's yet you were making the EXACT same type of recomendation.
You claim features are lacking ? Like what ? I have had to use both, not extensivly (ie day to day) but I most certainly have had to deal with them repeatedly. Both of them are bloated pieces of shit. Neither one is cross-compatible, at least not as much as they should be.
If you have enough time to stress over a fucking office suite, and bitch about a column not lining up right - your job is fucking useless, and you probably are to.
Well that of course depends on what exactly they are typing. Obviously sitting anyone down at any of the solutions available without teaching them what they are doing will lead to some mess-ups.
I have spoken to two lawyers that use OOo. Not including the lawyers who are involved in opensource.
Most people have a major problem paying $500 dollars to use something they know. Especially if 'knowing it' is the sole reason for paying $500. When they can learn something new and save that $500 dollars.
P.S. Please spare me the lectures about 'time is money'. Cause its complete crap. The average person spends so much time doing useless shit that bitching about reading a few docs is like pissing into the wind.
"I wonder just how people who think its just as good as Microsoft Office use Microsoft Office, because I've found it to be useless."
.... Perhaps they use MS office the same way that you use OOo. Without knowing how to use it.
Well I am going to take a stab in the dark here
I have never had any need to use either on a regular basis but given the limited experience with both they seem eerily similar in function and form.
Have you ever used openoffice ? Given my personal experience OOo performs just about the same as MO.
.... you wouldnt need to be a poweruser, linux is a lot more friendly in the "set it and forget it" department. It seems like most people hold a double standard here. The average user still calls the monitor "computer" and the tower "cpu". They dont know anything about windows or linux. They are about as likely to know how to edit the registry has they are to be able to mess around in /proc.
Can't speak about Gimp vs paint/photoshop since I am about has graphic savvy as a brick. Linux is clearly the worst for end-user graphic/video stuff although there are tons of high end packages availible for it. OSX is clearly tops in this catagory (I assume we are talking 'home user' here ?)
"can afford the time configuring it correctly."
The average person doesnt spend any time configuring their windows system "properly" they just use the defaults. Linux would be no different. To be quite blunt about it
I have switched probably 2 dozen friends/family over to linux in the past 2 years. The vast majority were your standard "web, email, IM" users. None of them have had any major issues. Surely no more problems than they had with windows prior to my switching them over.
"Using Linux for running office software is like using a saw to hammer in a nail"
So that would make using windows for the same purpose like using a screwdriver to hammer the same nail ? Linux works fine for the majority of office use. The only things it is majorly lacking in is games and graphics stuff. Thats a big thing for some. However the average law office (example) could use openoffice with little problem.
Can't speak for everyone ... but even way back when I was using windows I only had 5 or 6 games. They are all sitting next to me, and half of them run better under wine than natively on windows. Dont laugh, its true. The only one that doesnt run is Age Of Empires. Although I am sure if I wanted to fiddle with it ..... I could make it work.
At this point I would guess that 50% of all major PC games run fine either natively (ID games, UT etc) or through wine. Given the target market and the other advantages using linux thats a good enough statistic for now.
Well using your logic any vote that doesnt go to the winning party was wasted. It doesnt matter who finished second, or third and so on. There is only one president.
... sorry. Didnt know that everything was supposed to change overnight. Did you talk to anyone about who they were voting for, and why ? How about holding rally's for disgruntled voters ?
... you more likely than not agree with the majority of the libertarian parties beliefs. They are no different than any other political party. Standing in the middle of every issue wont get you votes ... and wont accomplish anything. You have to take a stand, be definitive.
"You see, in 2000, I tried that approach."
Oh
"Because I'm a moderate with leanings towards both ends of the current political spectrum." Depends on what you classify as moderate. To me both the republicans and democrats are conservative. Something that historically never helped this country. Something that I loathe. They are currently of the opinion that the horse and buggy industry was a great business and should have had countless laws made to keep it around. Also they seem to think the whole "freedom" thing was just for show.
"Then you have the libertarians who go just a smidgin too far over the edge"
How so ? If you believe in what the founding fathers believed in
Let's say you agree with a little bit of the dems platform and a little of the reps platform. Yet you agree with the libertarians on the more important issues (importance of each issue to you personally is essentially what decides your political standing). You would be a fool to vote for the dems or the reps REGARDLESS of weather they will win the big races or not. You would be a moron to vote against your believes and then bitch about the system not working, or you not having options.
Here is a scary concept: Republicans are mainstream. It might be true. In this post 9/11 world the majority of people place an unhealthy emphasis on "security" or the perception of such. To the majority of people in this country the republicans are the best political party for security.
What exactly is it that you believe in ? Or more specifically what of your core beliefs do you think no party follows ? Politics is about compromise. There are 300 million mini political parties in this country. No way that any party system will satisfy the majority of people the majority of the time. You have to place value on the few major things you think are most important and vote based on those. No way a political party can satisfy every single one of anybodies beliefs.
I agree that a change must be made. Sitting around taking minimal action will not provoke a change.
I could go on a rant about how the majority doesnt mean squat since bush didnt have it in 2000. Or about how tons of votes werent counted, voter fraud, intimidation ... etc etc
/. ..... it just aint going to happen.
Instead I will just say that the people have failed. Not the system, because the system is a product of the people. The average american does not want to spend time being involved in politics. They dont want to spend 10 hours over the months leading up to the elections to read up on the various canidate's that are not on TV. You seem to be a shining example of this. I can rattle off 6 people who were running for president. The majority of whom were on most states ballots. How many do you know of ? What didnt you like about them ?
Now is the time to do what you can. Leave. Or shut up. Those are your choices. Expecting everything to change without hard work is like expecting to meet a hot woman on
Join a party and help them. Influence their decisions. You will never have a president who you agree 100% with, unless you get elected. You can however have one that you believe in, and agree with on core issues.
I voted for Badnarik, because I think FREEDOM is what this country is all about.
I know its a bad thing to word like this ... but I wasnt counting the mcveigh thing as terrorism in the same sense as what al-qieuda (sp?) did. McVeigh was by all accounts attacking the government. OBL and his people were attacking citizens. Minor difference since the people in oklahoma city were mostly clerks and what not. It is however the way I think of it. I dont think of people fighting their own government as terrorism.
"Is it because Americans really, really think they are Christ's army in the war against a false god, or at least against dark people far away, and no torture, no suspension of the constitution is too much if we kill some more?"
I'm with you. The over-reaction of the people in this country is making things worse. Even if they cannot see it. Yet. George Carlin said it best "We kill brown people. Every war we have had in the past hundred years was about brown people. Killing them, or killing the people who were cutting in on the action" or something to that effect. Sad but true.
"We need to wake up."
Allow me to play Van Gogh and paint a picture for you:
Time: Early november, 2004.
Location: Someplace U.S.A
Why: This takes place once every 4 years
What: The vote for predident.
Final outcome: The country (the majority of voters anyway) collectively pressed the 'snooze' button.
If this country ever wakes up, it wont be the same country. Perhaps not even in name or size/place anymore. Osama Bin Laden accomplished what he set out to do, weather he was the one who performed the actions or not.
There is no more to worry about than before, that doesnt mean there is nothing, but no more than before when they hit the same target less effectively. Claiming that the sky is falling because of a few incidents is nuts.
"The then current laws prevented the exchange of information you speak of."
Really ? Care to back that up ? There were indeed laws preventing us from sharing information with foriegn governments, but us giving them info was never the problem, them supplying us with the info was the problem and wont change regardless of what laws we pass in this country. I would also question exactly what is to be gained by giving away to much information, which we likely are doing since the people that currently populate the intelligence sector are about as bright as a 10 watt lightbulb. Which has been proven repeatedly in the past few years. The sharing of information between agencies was never legally constrained. It was all a pissing contest.
And correct me if I am wrong but there was only 1 attack prior to 9/11. Its not exactly like this was a common occurance either way. Perhaps what we needed to do was enforce the current laws better and allow more communication both internally and externally.
.. or crusade in Iraq.
Allowing companies that are contracted by the government to spy on americans does not make us safer. Allowing our rights to be taken away in the name of security does not make us safer.
His followers would have went on without a leader, and with a lot less money. Sounds like it would have been a hell of a lot more effective than this escapade
"esults from bugs and design flaws in rapidly chaning and expanding software." What in the 3000 (or so) year recorded history of humanity makes you think any of this is going to stop anytime soon ?
We should be able to build a fire-proof home by now. Safe cars (not safer.), safe drugs etc etc All of these things have been around longer than security in computers. Yet these problems have not been solved. Nor have real world security issues.
Don't plan on a utopian society or computer industry anytime soon (soon == in our lifetime). You'll only be greatly dissapointed.
NAT is not a device. Its a feature. I dont know about the UK but here in the USA most every end-user router comes with a firewall and NAT has features. Using NAT has a stand alone security feature is retarded. That being said it can be used in combination with other things to assist in making a setup more secure.
You claim that NAT is a kludge. How so ? It provides a usefull feature and the ability to have a stand alone internal network with a single access point. One of the main things you do with security is limit access. Gaurding every box on a network singularly is a PITA and far FAR beyond what the average person or corporation wants to do. That doesnt mean the turtle theory is good (hard on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside) but the most reasonable level of expectation is somewhere in-between.
In reality NAT provides a level of obscurity. Although it can easily be worked around (or through) it is helpful in preventing or limiting the amount of malicious traffic that hits internal boxes.
No. You make to many assumptions in your post. What you are saying is somewhat akin to claiming humanity will someday reach a point where violence is non-existant.
... then the bad guys will have it too. So the story goes on.
If the security gets better (just like it has over the past 40 years) its because the good guys are usually behind by a few steps, if they weren't behind they wouldnt know what to secure, or why. Even given the assumption that security somehow catches up with what the people attacking the systems are doing your also assuming that the people doing the attacking wont be able to adapt and break the new security.
Any security made by a person and implemented on a computer can be broken by a person with a computer.
"There are huge powerful upsides to a monoculture."
Not when it comes to security there aint. In the "oooh shiney" world of point-and-click userland sure its helpful, but anything beneficial from this aspect can also be gained from using open standards and open formats.
"ask your self exactly what is it that a security professional can do that it is theoretically impossible to automate."
Adapt, interact in an intelligent way, grow. Last I checked we still hadnt created a sentient intelligence yet, and in order to compete with sentient intelligence we have to use sentient intelligence. Once we create true AI
right. But how many enterprise's dont have an IT staff with the patches right on hand ? How many of them are not behind a corporate firewall ?
... just dont think its that simple.
I see your point and all
but scripting is funner and informative.
/end_re-inventing_wheel_syndrome
"this is enough to deter the script kiddies"
.... your information. Which is worth far far more money than the 2 hours it takes you to wipe the machine and restore your data.
.... but the day will come.
Yes.
"Combine the little blue box with a firewall, however (e.g., ZoneAlarm) and you've just defeated 99.9% of the so-called 'hackers' out there."
I don't want to argue about the terms your choosing to use. I do however want to point out that the bad guys are always one step ahead of the good guys, and assuming that any security you have is good enough to stop practically anyone is the first step towards becoming owned. Not just your machine
Anyone who really wants in can get in, it will take them time and patients. Thats one thing the good guys have going for them, most of the bad guys are script kiddies who just run a scan and move on. Eventually we will get to the point where breaking through firewalls and any other security device is as simple as clicking "ok". We are still some ways away from the kiddies having to learn all of that though since there are many many more unprotected systems out there
Correction. NAT is not as secure as any firewall. Period. NAT is not a security feature, its a convinience feature. NAT != Firewall.
... but I am not going to stop NAT'ing and/or PAT'ing my internal network off of the rest of the net no matter what verion of ipv they want to implement. I only need 1 real world IP. I only WANT 1 real world IP.
I don't know about you
I could be wrong, but as it currently stands LJ has all of their equipment in just the one location. If your running something as widely used (and has heavily dependant on usage) as a major blog site you should have some form of redundancy. Its not as much of a pain to setup as it is to recover from something like this. Last I checked they were already working on 12 hours of downtime.
Not sure about the stats regarding LJ in specific but I am guessing this is costing them some major money (in relative terms) in the short-term, and untold amounts in the future. Mistakes like this and the constant problems they have had in the past (both with their setup and apparently with their colo) are the type of things that kill companies.
What they should do is have half at one co-lo and the other half at another co-lo. For the ammount of customers they have (the people who pay for their premiere accounts, and buy LJ merchandise) they should be able to afford a decent setup and at least one or two decent Linux admins. I really think they have the developers trying to do the admin stuff as well .... which leads to decisions like "lets put them all in one place".
Perhaps they should bite the bullet and hire some people with prior experience running large setups (perhaps somebody from google is looking for a change in scenery ?).
::mock old style concesion stand salesman::
/endmock
"Step right up, come one come all. Get your goobers, popcorn, soda, gummy bears, snowcaps, twizzlers, snickers, nachos, gags and muzzles"
I think that about covers my opinion on the matter.
Microsoft windows is a single operating system that is sold by a company. Mandrake linux is the same thing. Ditto redhat, suse etc etc. You seem to think that because they are based on linux that they are all the same, but they are not. In many cases they are just has different as BSD vs OSX. Sure the core is the same ... not much else is. Do you really think that we should only have 1 OS available ? We have tried that route with MS, it doesnt work. You cannot trust a single corporate entity with everything. They will screw the consumer over for a few extra bucks.
The more competition there is the better off we all (consumers) are. The only reason linux has not taken off is because microsoft has exsclusivity contracts in place with all of the major vendors.
"So why are all those man hours being wasted to create competeing products?"
Don't know to much about software development do you ? There is no "one way" to do things. Different people have different ideas about how things should be managed or written. You seem to think that everybody thinks the same, or has the same goals. Or that they should. I couldnt disagree with you more about that.
"you disagree with the descion voice your opinion, but swollow your pride and dont fork the project as that will only dilute the power of linux."
Dude the power of linux and OSS is being able to fork it if you disagree with the direction it is heading in. Why the heck do you think people are leaving windows ? Or unix ? They disagreed with the way things were going, or they agreed more with the way things were going with linux.
Windows got where it was by competing with mac, whats going on in the linux community is not the same since there is far far more cooperation than people see, but the principle is the same. Competition drives innovation.
If Linux wants to surpass windows two things need to happen:
1. Stop trying to copy windows. Go your own route. If people want windows they will use windows.
2. Get a major PC manufacturer to install linux by default on their retail desktops.
The problem is two-fold, the first major problem is a lot of the newer developers are windows developers who feel like making linux more like windows. The second problem is microsofts bully tactics (which are illegal).
How to get past these issue's is an exercise I leave to the reader.
Agreed and I'll raise you one. I have been using newegg since it first opened a few years back. I have been using amazon for around 5 years. I have never had to call customer service. I currently place 2-3 orders a month on amazon (clif bars bulk, CD's etc) and about 1 every other month on newegg. I happen to have one in transit from both places as we speak.
Never had any issues at all with the orders, speed or quality of goods recieved from either place. That to me is the reason that 90% of my luxury shopping is done at those two stores.