Just remember that there is a corallary to that: " you can prove anything with statistics".
Don't get me wrong, I prefer the Linux/Unix system primarily because I believe it is less vulnerable to attack. Just remember to have some good statistics available in case the other guy trots out that he/she has statistics proving their point.:-)
Statistics are made up on the spot 42.89678% of the time.:-)
The cranky old guy down the street will give up after step 0.5, get a virus on his computer, declare that computers suck, won't care that his computer is now a zombie in danger of infecting other's computers, and will either keep using his infected computer or throw it out. If it is not easy to use for the average guy on the street (or in the office), they either won't do it or won't use it. People on Slashdot will go way beyond what the average cranky guy down the street will do because we happen to like fiddling around with computers, and they just want to use them.
Thanks for listing SELinux and the others. If I had mod points, I would have given you an 'informative'. Now I have some new stuff to play with on my Linux boxes.
A 'pre-install' is done at the store or factory, and usually the store will install all the latest patches before you take it home. This is what was done when I bought my latest laptop. You can also get them to install firewall and anti-virus software before you take it home.
A 'clean install' means you format your hard drive and install the O/S from scratch. Then you have to download the security patches and updates by yourself for the O/S, firewall, and anti-virus software. Many times before you get the chance to down load the patches, the PC is infected.
This can be minimized somewhat by connecting to the internet from behind a firewall. Some DSL/Cable hubs have them built in, or you can do it through another computer with a firewall using NAT (Linux), Connection Sharing (XP), or other mechanisms. A firewall with stateful blocking (only accepting inbound packets from outbound connections you establish) will stop a lot this stuff. At the same time you need to go only to the update sites for your O/S and anti-virus/firewall software until all the patches for these are applied to your system (still no guarantees, but this seems to work for me). If you have no anti-virus software, and especially if you have no firewall, you are likely to be screwed very quickly.
As a note, the last time I had a virus that disabled my PC at home was in 1995. At work, I only had one in that same time, and that was in 2003. I am a programmer, and I access the internet a lot... always with high speed connections. For the last few years I have been using a Linux box with iptables for my firewall, and NAT/ipforwarding to a few computers behind it.
If the U.S. and the E.U. could get their shit together, they would have a combined population of around 700 to 800 million people to draw from. That is in all probability enough to compete with. (I mention this possible alliance because culturally, the two are more similar than either would care to admit. After all, America was founded by Europeans, and populated to a great degree by European immigrants.) Unfortunately, America's attitude of 'go-it-alone' protectionism, and their ridiculous prediliction for ridiculous patent laws seem destined to scuttle that goal.
The end result is that as the U.S. first started igniting the upcoming economic might of China, it will end up a second level power in the world economy. At least until America learns to play nicely with others, a key ingredient in any kind of cooperation and/or alliances. And given the population difference between Asia and the U.S., the U.S. will have to make alliances.
Someone should put a GPS on the Judge's car, and then post his daily movements on a map on the internet. I wonder if that would change his opinion. Or maybe he would pull a 'do as I say, not as I do', and slap a 'contempt of court' on whoever did it.
I don't know why the moderator knob said this was a troll. It is an interesting point. It points out that upgrading from old software technology sometimes has hidden advantages.
I agree. I find the idea of people on Slashdot complaining that users do not educate themselves kind of interesting... considering the recent Slashdot poll on Dec 28: "When do you read the instructions?"
Basically around half the respondants said they do not read the instructions, or only pay cursory attention to them if they do (i.e. they may read the quickstart guide, or not even that... unless something blows up). If only half of the supposedly educated people on Slashdot read the instructions, why should we be surprised (or even disappointed) that normal users, with usually far less technical expertise, do not.
And then they tell the guy who just moved from Bangalore that he has to work 60 hours a week and some additional weekends, or they'll find someone who can, and he can go back to Bangalore. Not knowing the details of the foreign system he moves to, feels under the gun enough to do as he is told... effectively reducing his cost to the company way below an American who might not put up with that.
Your monetary thinking is short-term. Yes, creating new technologies is always expensive on the onset. So what are you suggesting? That we all use Windows forever and ever since creating new technologies and adopting them with overhead costs is anyway expensive?
Your line of thinking is, I believe, quite correct. To expand this to show that this really is correct in business, we can look at the steel industry in America. They have not significantly upgraded the technology used in most of their facilities in around one hundred years. Now they are being destroyed by foreign steel companies who have been trying to capture the market by using as much modern inovation as they can. Now they can produce steel much more cheaply than in America (and I am referring to European and Japanese production, so labour cost is not the major contributor to this).
Of course they can and have cried to Congress about this and had improper import duties placed on foreign steel instead of spending the money they should have been spending to upgrade their facilities into competitiveness. I would hate to see something like that happening with software, etc. but I suppose business practice patents and the DRMA have already started to ball rolling towards stagnation. Ah well.
The moral to the story is that you need to be the innovator or you slip into second class status. Kind of like the generals who won the last war, fight that war. The ones who lost fight the next war, and win because they are the ones who innovate (unless the other side figures out their mistakes fast enough).
I hope it doesn't suck as bad as Episodes 1 and 2.
Don't get me wrong. I like the (original) Star Wars. I think the Episode 4 was/is a great movie and I can't count how many times I have seen it. Episode V was very good as well. But I think maybe it is because there was less money involved back then (either for special effects or with merchandising). They had to work on the characters and acting more because they didn't have such a huge budget for special effects (i.e. they didn't rely on special effects as much to 'make' the story).
I think the more they rely on 'green screens' and CGI, the poorer the quality of the movie, specifically the story. And I think when Lucas relies increasingly on the movie to be a big commercial for his merchandising efforts (e.g. Jar Jar Binks) it ruins the movie.
I don't plan on seeing this in the theatre. I plan on renting it. I am gun shy after the last two releases. I don't believe they were worth the exorbintant cost of today's movie tickets (never mind the hassle of going through the morgage application to pay for my popcorn and drink).
According to Netcraft Apache has the biggest web presence...
There are more types of servers than just web servers/servers presenting web pages.
E.g. mail servers, irc servers, telnet/ssh servers, ldap servers, servers used for firewalls, ftp servers, DNS servers, various application servers, etc., etc., etc.
When talking about security, don't get hung up only on web servers. Granted, they are among the most exposed, but they are not the only ones open to network traffic.
LOL!! OK, you got me there!:-) But perhaps he was from the French part of Corsica? (kidding) I think maybe it was that he was basically raised/went to school in France that did it. So at least he received part of his upbringing and military training in France and was able to use it to win his many battles. He ultimately did loose the war so to speak (but then again, we all will if we don't know when to stop).
William the Conqueror conquered England, and he definately was from France, which counters your second statement. As well, they kicked the English off of the continent in the mid 1500's. I am sure if we look, we can find a few more wars they have won. But I agree, they haven't fared too well lately. (As Billy Conally said, "you know, the French have planted trees along the Champs d'Elise? I suppose that is so the Germans can march in the shade next time.")
But it doesn't negate the fact that France kept a lot of British troops and ships off of America's backs during the American Revolution by engaging the British all over the world and not just in America. A quick check also shows that at least half the forces that took part in the Battle of Yorktown were French.
So in the end, the truth is, when America helped in retaking France in WWII, it was sort of a 'returning the favour' kind of thing.
I find it interesting that someone actually marked my posting as a troll. I don't understand how posting facts correcting someones complete falsehoods a troll. Unless the moderator is someone who is afraid of the truth? Sheesh!
Read your history schmuck. Louis XVI was King of France during the American Revolution. He started helping in 1775 (that's right, before 1776). So the French had everything to do with it. Since it put such a financial strain on France, helping the Americans with the American Revolution may ultimately have been a contributing factor in the French Revolution and Louis XVI's death.
At the time of the American Revolution Napoleon was just starting military school. He didn't start fighting any battles till the late 1790's.
As well, since it seems you probably didn't hear about it, Napoleon was French. In fact, he was the Emperor of France, but that wasn't until 1804. He was kicked out in 1814 and tried for a come-back in 1815, and failed at Waterloo. He died (suspected poisoning) in his prison on St. Helena in 1821.
France has won many wars. That is why there are so many French or former French territories around the world. Get your hillbilly ass off the moonshine or meth or whatever you are smoking, and actually learn what you are talking about.
You are probably a troll, but I had to say it anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Old Developer: ...and we could only use ones and zero's!
Dilbert: You had ones? We had to use lower case L's.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer the Linux/Unix system primarily because I believe it is less vulnerable to attack. Just remember to have some good statistics available in case the other guy trots out that he/she has statistics proving their point. :-)
Statistics are made up on the spot 42.89678% of the time. :-)
The cranky old guy down the street will give up after step 0.5, get a virus on his computer, declare that computers suck, won't care that his computer is now a zombie in danger of infecting other's computers, and will either keep using his infected computer or throw it out. If it is not easy to use for the average guy on the street (or in the office), they either won't do it or won't use it. People on Slashdot will go way beyond what the average cranky guy down the street will do because we happen to like fiddling around with computers, and they just want to use them.
I don't think this guy knows how.
Thanks for listing SELinux and the others. If I had mod points, I would have given you an 'informative'. Now I have some new stuff to play with on my Linux boxes.
A 'clean install' means you format your hard drive and install the O/S from scratch. Then you have to download the security patches and updates by yourself for the O/S, firewall, and anti-virus software. Many times before you get the chance to down load the patches, the PC is infected.
This can be minimized somewhat by connecting to the internet from behind a firewall. Some DSL/Cable hubs have them built in, or you can do it through another computer with a firewall using NAT (Linux), Connection Sharing (XP), or other mechanisms. A firewall with stateful blocking (only accepting inbound packets from outbound connections you establish) will stop a lot this stuff. At the same time you need to go only to the update sites for your O/S and anti-virus/firewall software until all the patches for these are applied to your system (still no guarantees, but this seems to work for me). If you have no anti-virus software, and especially if you have no firewall, you are likely to be screwed very quickly.
As a note, the last time I had a virus that disabled my PC at home was in 1995. At work, I only had one in that same time, and that was in 2003. I am a programmer, and I access the internet a lot... always with high speed connections. For the last few years I have been using a Linux box with iptables for my firewall, and NAT/ipforwarding to a few computers behind it.
Hitler said that his party was 'so left they will sit on the right'.
Bill Gates is the Gimp. Bare assed with a leather hood. Bruce Willis should never have saved him.
The end result is that as the U.S. first started igniting the upcoming economic might of China, it will end up a second level power in the world economy. At least until America learns to play nicely with others, a key ingredient in any kind of cooperation and/or alliances. And given the population difference between Asia and the U.S., the U.S. will have to make alliances.
But all it takes is one.
Someone should put a GPS on the Judge's car, and then post his daily movements on a map on the internet. I wonder if that would change his opinion. Or maybe he would pull a 'do as I say, not as I do', and slap a 'contempt of court' on whoever did it.
I don't know why the moderator knob said this was a troll. It is an interesting point. It points out that upgrading from old software technology sometimes has hidden advantages.
Basically around half the respondants said they do not read the instructions, or only pay cursory attention to them if they do (i.e. they may read the quickstart guide, or not even that... unless something blows up). If only half of the supposedly educated people on Slashdot read the instructions, why should we be surprised (or even disappointed) that normal users, with usually far less technical expertise, do not.
What do you use for visual modelling of PostgreSQL on Linux?
I thought it was sarcasm at first too. But when it was part of a link on how to create a good 8 digit password, I wasn't sure.
But everything old is gnu again... har! har! har! ... ummm... sorry ... bad pun... bad pun...
Why are IT jobs exempt anyway?
dream of electric sheep?
I'm wondering what to do with brown shirt now.
Your line of thinking is, I believe, quite correct. To expand this to show that this really is correct in business, we can look at the steel industry in America. They have not significantly upgraded the technology used in most of their facilities in around one hundred years. Now they are being destroyed by foreign steel companies who have been trying to capture the market by using as much modern inovation as they can. Now they can produce steel much more cheaply than in America (and I am referring to European and Japanese production, so labour cost is not the major contributor to this).
Of course they can and have cried to Congress about this and had improper import duties placed on foreign steel instead of spending the money they should have been spending to upgrade their facilities into competitiveness. I would hate to see something like that happening with software, etc. but I suppose business practice patents and the DRMA have already started to ball rolling towards stagnation. Ah well.
The moral to the story is that you need to be the innovator or you slip into second class status. Kind of like the generals who won the last war, fight that war. The ones who lost fight the next war, and win because they are the ones who innovate (unless the other side figures out their mistakes fast enough).
Don't get me wrong. I like the (original) Star Wars. I think the Episode 4 was/is a great movie and I can't count how many times I have seen it. Episode V was very good as well. But I think maybe it is because there was less money involved back then (either for special effects or with merchandising). They had to work on the characters and acting more because they didn't have such a huge budget for special effects (i.e. they didn't rely on special effects as much to 'make' the story).
I think the more they rely on 'green screens' and CGI, the poorer the quality of the movie, specifically the story. And I think when Lucas relies increasingly on the movie to be a big commercial for his merchandising efforts (e.g. Jar Jar Binks) it ruins the movie.
I don't plan on seeing this in the theatre. I plan on renting it. I am gun shy after the last two releases. I don't believe they were worth the exorbintant cost of today's movie tickets (never mind the hassle of going through the morgage application to pay for my popcorn and drink).
There are more types of servers than just web servers/servers presenting web pages.
E.g. mail servers, irc servers, telnet/ssh servers, ldap servers, servers used for firewalls, ftp servers, DNS servers, various application servers, etc., etc., etc.
When talking about security, don't get hung up only on web servers. Granted, they are among the most exposed, but they are not the only ones open to network traffic.
William the Conqueror conquered England, and he definately was from France, which counters your second statement. As well, they kicked the English off of the continent in the mid 1500's. I am sure if we look, we can find a few more wars they have won. But I agree, they haven't fared too well lately. (As Billy Conally said, "you know, the French have planted trees along the Champs d'Elise? I suppose that is so the Germans can march in the shade next time.")
But it doesn't negate the fact that France kept a lot of British troops and ships off of America's backs during the American Revolution by engaging the British all over the world and not just in America. A quick check also shows that at least half the forces that took part in the Battle of Yorktown were French.
So in the end, the truth is, when America helped in retaking France in WWII, it was sort of a 'returning the favour' kind of thing.
I find it interesting that someone actually marked my posting as a troll. I don't understand how posting facts correcting someones complete falsehoods a troll. Unless the moderator is someone who is afraid of the truth? Sheesh!
Read your history schmuck. Louis XVI was King of France during the American Revolution. He started helping in 1775 (that's right, before 1776). So the French had everything to do with it. Since it put such a financial strain on France, helping the Americans with the American Revolution may ultimately have been a contributing factor in the French Revolution and Louis XVI's death.
At the time of the American Revolution Napoleon was just starting military school. He didn't start fighting any battles till the late 1790's.
As well, since it seems you probably didn't hear about it, Napoleon was French. In fact, he was the Emperor of France, but that wasn't until 1804. He was kicked out in 1814 and tried for a come-back in 1815, and failed at Waterloo. He died (suspected poisoning) in his prison on St. Helena in 1821.
France has won many wars. That is why there are so many French or former French territories around the world. Get your hillbilly ass off the moonshine or meth or whatever you are smoking, and actually learn what you are talking about.
You are probably a troll, but I had to say it anyway.