Well, I think PalmOS wins there, but only because it has such awful network connectivity. Writing a virus for PalmOS is like writing one for a Dreamcast.
How interesting.
My PalmOS device connects to my phone using bluetooth, and through that to the internet. It connects to my home network using bluetooth as well. In both cases I have a very workable network connection.
With a serial cable it connects to any serial port and can do ppp.
WiFi support is more problematic, but if you have hardware that supports it, it works really well.
But the point is, if you don't have any listening processes you don't need, then there's no need for a firewall. I do netstat -lnp to find out what's listening on my machine, and all there is is apache, giftd, xinetd just on the ident port, and a few other things, all of which are there because I use them and set them up to be listening.
Firewalls ar a perimiter defence, not something that makes much sense on a server itself.
If you ever dealt with a somewhat sophisticcated compromise like I have quite a few times, you may have seen situations where a rootkit went to great length to hide itself. Hiding from obvious tools like netstat, ps and top is really just the beginning.
What a dedicated firewall allows for that is observing and blocking traffic to/from such a rootkit without being affected by the tricks used for hiding it.
What you setup yourself on your server is not the poinnt, it is what is innstalled and well hidden as rootkit that is what you have to worry about.
Well, there is a binary driver from ATI as well.. I never got it to work properly tho (it installs, and it does do OpenGL, but with a Radeon 9600 performance is barely better then software rendering for what I found)
because it "usually works" does not mean it's compatible or is meant to work.
That would apply in the case of the AT&T 5400. In case of the US Robotics modems, they were meant to work.
Also, as others pointed out, the tolerance on the different signalling levels on the phone network is very big, and you may find that both the European and USA implementations fall within those.
The biggest problems for connecting a piece of phone equipment from the USA on a continental European network are: - needing 220/240V compatible power supply - for those devices that use pulse dialing still, the pulse length is different. - The actual dialtone is different (for those devices that care, like modems and faxes) - The busy tone is different (again, for those devices that care about that at all, and most that do recognize the different variations)
The UK is yet another story.
The signal levels however are not a problem really. I have seen quite a few such devices being damaged due to wrong power supply (or forgetting to set it to 240V) but after 20 years of dealing with phones and modems (my first modem was an imported teletron 1200) I have yet to see one being damaged by the signalling levels being different.
The IP network is designed to deal with partial failure, that's the whole point:D
Yes... I do believe that was the exact point I was trying to make.
(I have dealt with both very intensively as an engineer, my "question" was to provoke some thought, not to seek answers as to why this is as it is)
What happened with the phones (Note I'm assuming the US has the same response plans as the UK here) is that once an emergency was declared, anybody who didn't need the bandwidth was unplugged so that emergency service calls were guaranteed to get through.
And who is the government to decide who needs emergency services? (see below)
This is standard emergency procedure, and makes sure the exchanges aren't overwhelmed with people ringing to check other people are ok, and instead that 911 calls and calls between emergency personnel can get through.
10000+ people calling 911 about the same emergency is not going to help anyone and is still going to cause overload.
Emergency services that depend on the phone network for their internal communications are not going to be very reliable. Any emergency service here (the Netherlands) has its own wireless communications system that is completely independent of the phone network. I would be rather surprised to find that that is different in the USA or the UK.
This is also noticeable on cellphone networks, where signals will be dropped for everybody who doesn't need mobile access during an emergency.
Again, who is the government to decide who needs service in case of such an emergency.
If they had done what you are suggesting here, then chances are big that we would not have heard what went on in that plane that never made it to its target on sept 11, and the people on that plane would not have been able to interfer with the hijacking.
That there are emergency procedures that ensure communications and other vital resources stay available to those who need it is a cool idea, but the world has become way too complicated for any central government to make the proper choices here, and the only way to ensure vital communications can go on in such a case is by implementing them as independent networks.
No doubt they are catching up, matter of fact is that I experience COMPLETE failures in the phone network more oftenn then on IP networks. That things are improving is all cool and well, but does not change how things were and are, only how they are going to be (and that maybe)
Having worked at Phillips natlab in a combined IBM/Phillips/KPN ISDN and PSTN telephony project for the Dutch government for 5 years, being responsible for debugging all the failures in the ISDN setup, I do think I have a bit of a clue what I am talking about btw.. it is not like I do not know how those networks work.
My initial comment was to provoke some thought, not to seek answers as to why they are different.
Guess what, I am typing this on a recycled Dell laptop.. and usually I build my own machines. I have worked for a computer manufacteror for some 12 years, and I know a bit about their typical way of doing...
And then whose to say there are not hidden costs in the more expensive products? All big business' are the same. They all care about high profits nothing else and they'll do what they need to to maintain that high profit margin.
True, but such things do often become clear at some point.
We all support the system because its inevitable in today's world. There's not much you can do if you don't like it but start a revolution or live in the backwoods of montana making your own house, creating your own textiles goods and growing your own food. Good luck with that one.
No, there is a lot you can do while still staying within the system.
You are right that profit is the main motivator for companies. This has the nice effect that you can use the system to force companies to be more carefull in what they do by not buying from those that are known to behave badly and instead buying from those who show they don't.
Will it be perfect? not for what I can tell, but it will help quite a bit.
I am aware of that, but the result is still that the internet allowed communications to go on while the phone network did not.
The phone network is also quite sensitive to an exchange failing in the path between 2 points while an IP network usually deals well with one of the routers failing.
Degraded service is often better then no service at all.
The card manufacturer screwed up the driver install process for their own card, and somehow that's Windows's fault?
No it is not, neither is it the fault of Linux that you have to jump through similar hoops there (actually, I found the Linux install easier, but that has more to do with my background)
My point was that the grantparent picked one of the more nasty cases for Linux and utterly ignored that that same case is about as nasty on Windows.
I think you are right with regards to what gets priority. That said, I very clearly recall sept 11. and talking to people pretty close to the World Trade center using the Internet, but not being able to reach them by phone.
Somehow the IP network seems to be more resistent to partial failure then the phone network.
Hmm.. the AT&T 5400 cordless I bought in the USA in the early 90s worked quite fine on a telephone line in the Netherlands..
Most analog modems around are the same regardless of buying them in the USA or Europe for example (I used to own a whole lot of US Robotics modems imported from the USA when I was still running a BBS, and again they worked fine on a Dutch telephone line, and the official Dutch importer for US Robotics confirmed that they are in fact identical when I was at one of their technical sessions)
I know the systems are different, but they are similar enough for things to usually work.
Actually, for most people, Windows is a good experience. Get over it
Having worked in the IT business since the mid 80s, having done quite a few years of end-user support since then and now helping companies with keeping their computers working and making better use of them, has told me something entirely different.
People accept the bad experience because they do not know any better.
Just so you know, I don't think many people would have a better experience with Linux, tho for different reasons.
All I am arguing is that user experience is not the reason why people use one system instead of another. There are many examples besides Windows that show this.
Sophos telling us that we really need them, and providing some subjective numbers to make their case...
I know Windows PCs get infected quite easily, but do we really have to: 1. repeat this statement every few days? 2. quote numbers from an organisation which is served well by making this look as bad as possible and present it as fact?
That worked correctly? I mean, the scanner and the printer both work together? I have one of the HP all in ones at home and I haven't even tried to plug it into the Linux box. I was going to, but then I decided to check up on the net for drivers, and all google returned were a thousand and one complaints about how you could get it to work as a scanner or printer but not both without swapping drivers.
Yes, both functions work at the same time here.
Maybe some relevant background info, the Debian unstable I am using runs a 2.6(.10) kernel, and uses the hpoj drivers. PSC 1200 is connected through USB.
If I have to change my workflow to accommodate a new desktop environment, its not likely to be a good experience. You have a point there, but I think you should keep in mind that people have had to change their workflow for the change from DOS to Windows 3.x and again when changing to Windows 9x and again for 2000 and again for XP...
So following that reasoning, Windows is not a good experience, yet people do use it.
Since you use the nvidia driver in your linux example, you should do the same in your windows example...
It goes something like this...
Me: Ensure you have opengl support else Quake 3 will just open a window and close it again before you even get a chance to read what is wrong..
User: Oh? OpenGL drivers? Windows recognized my card perfectly well!
Me: Well, try it.. (user tries and finds out what I just have been saying)
User: ok, how do I fix this?
Me: Did you get a CD with the card?
User: Yes but there was also a paper in the box that said to not use it and use the included floppy instead, however, I have no floppy drive.. I did try the CD but it just crashed my computer.
Me: Ok.. goto www.nvidia.com and then goto downloads, then select your card type and operating system and download the driver. Double click on the downloaded file and follow the instructions.
That is an example from real life actually.
You were really over simplifying things on the Windows side, and making the linux side look overly complicated.
A while ago I installed Debian unstable on my workstation. Connected to it are: A logitech trackball (recognized and configured correctly) A HP PSC 1200 "All in One" printer/scanner copier combi (recognized and configured correctly) A 21" CRT (recognized and configured correctly) A 105 key "international" keyboard (recognized and connfigured correctly) An external USB card reader (recognized and configured correctly) An Olympus digital camera (recognized and configured correctly)
Of course the network card and video card were recognized and configured correctly as well.
All software I needed was included on the distribution CDs, and worked without needing any complicated configuration. I could scan and use the camera, got a nice 1280x1024 desktop at the highest refresh rate my display supports etc etc.
Now, Debian isn't exactly the most desktop friendly linux around, so I would expect others to do better.
To me it seems that your complaint is depending on the distro you tried, and there don't seem to be technical obstacles that prevent Linux from being as easy as Windows in this.
Installing applications from random CDs is another thing, but this is often more a cause for trouble then anything else.
If Linux was truly a better experience, people would flock to it. All the moreso since it's free. The idea that people won't try linux because "if it's free, it has to suck" is laughable. When was the last time you knew someone who hated a bargain?
Logic would agree with you, history doesn't really.
There have been better alternatives for PCs running a MS operating system for as long as the PC exists. Yet, people have been using PCs running a MS operating system anyway.
If 'better experience' was what people used for their choices in technology then we would have had betamax instead of VHS, Macs would have surpassed PCs in marketshare more then 15 years ago (or people would have been using Amigas or Atari STs or such) etc etc.
Sadly enough, most people have no clue and just use what they know and what others around them happen to be using. Better experience plays little if any role in that whatsoever.
What if they sold the car tires at a loss assuming that you'll buy lots of gas (or something; tires are a weak metaphor) and the car companies get a cut of the gas price?
Then they have a bad business model.
The fact that you thought up some scheme to make money does not give you an inherent right on making money.
Our prob too, because MS will adjust prices so games sell at something more reasonable (like $20), self-publishing will be allowed, and the Xbox computer itself will cost several hundred dollars - the true price of the system.
Ah.. and why exactly is that bad for us?
It makes that you actually pay for what you get, and it would make for more competition in the gaming market for such a console.
What is more, it would in all likelyhood reduce (NOT eliminate) the desire to pirate the games.
Sorry but in that situation everyone is better off except for the few who want to use an x-box as a very cheap PC alternative.. If there is enough such people around, they may provide enough of a market for a specialized product, resulting in them being off better as well.
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Well, I think PalmOS wins there, but only because it has such awful network connectivity. Writing a virus for PalmOS is like writing one for a Dreamcast.
How interesting.
My PalmOS device connects to my phone using bluetooth, and through that to the internet. It connects to my home network using bluetooth as well. In both cases I have a very workable network connection.
With a serial cable it connects to any serial port and can do ppp.
WiFi support is more problematic, but if you have hardware that supports it, it works really well.
If the rootkit's sophisticated enough that I can't detect it without a dedicated firewall, a firewall is unlikely to do any good.
I was talking about a dedicated firewall, not one running on the server itself.
If a dedicated firewall can detect it then it is obviously good for something, for as far as I am concerned you are contradicting yourself there.
Not always - one strong defense might be better than the same defense plus a weak one.
Not if the strong defense does not depend on the weak one. Seperation is good.
2 checks are better then one, gives more chance to catch a compromise.
But the point is, if you don't have any listening processes you don't need, then there's no need for a firewall. I do netstat -lnp to find out what's listening on my machine, and all there is is apache, giftd, xinetd just on the ident port, and a few other things, all of which are there because I use them and set them up to be listening.
Firewalls ar a perimiter defence, not something that makes much sense on a server itself.
If you ever dealt with a somewhat sophisticcated compromise like I have quite a few times, you may have seen situations where a rootkit went to great length to hide itself. Hiding from obvious tools like netstat, ps and top is really just the beginning.
What a dedicated firewall allows for that is observing and blocking traffic to/from such a rootkit without being affected by the tricks used for hiding it.
What you setup yourself on your server is not the poinnt, it is what is innstalled and well hidden as rootkit that is what you have to worry about.
Well, there is a binary driver from ATI as well.. I never got it to work properly tho (it installs, and it does do OpenGL, but with a Radeon 9600 performance is barely better then software rendering for what I found)
A pre 9600 Radeon card works fine tho.
because it "usually works" does not mean it's compatible or is meant to work.
That would apply in the case of the AT&T 5400. In case of the US Robotics modems, they were meant to work.
Also, as others pointed out, the tolerance on the different signalling levels on the phone network is very big, and you may find that both the European and USA implementations fall within those.
The biggest problems for connecting a piece of phone equipment from the USA on a continental European network are:
- needing 220/240V compatible power supply
- for those devices that use pulse dialing still, the pulse length is different.
- The actual dialtone is different (for those devices that care, like modems and faxes)
- The busy tone is different (again, for those devices that care about that at all, and most that do recognize the different variations)
The UK is yet another story.
The signal levels however are not a problem really. I have seen quite a few such devices being damaged due to wrong power supply (or forgetting to set it to 240V) but after 20 years of dealing with phones and modems (my first modem was an imported teletron 1200) I have yet to see one being damaged by the signalling levels being different.
The IP network is designed to deal with partial failure, that's the whole point :D
Yes... I do believe that was the exact point I was trying to make.
(I have dealt with both very intensively as an engineer, my "question" was to provoke some thought, not to seek answers as to why this is as it is)
What happened with the phones (Note I'm assuming the US has the same response plans as the UK here) is that once an emergency was declared, anybody who didn't need the bandwidth was unplugged so that emergency service calls were guaranteed to get through.
And who is the government to decide who needs emergency services? (see below)
This is standard emergency procedure, and makes sure the exchanges aren't overwhelmed with people ringing to check other people are ok, and instead that 911 calls and calls between emergency personnel can get through.
This is also noticeable on cellphone networks, where signals will be dropped for everybody who doesn't need mobile access during an emergency.
Again, who is the government to decide who needs service in case of such an emergency.
If they had done what you are suggesting here, then chances are big that we would not have heard what went on in that plane that never made it to its target on sept 11, and the people on that plane would not have been able to interfer with the hijacking.
That there are emergency procedures that ensure communications and other vital resources stay available to those who need it is a cool idea, but the world has become way too complicated for any central government to make the proper choices here, and the only way to ensure vital communications can go on in such a case is by implementing them as independent networks.
No doubt they are catching up, matter of fact is that I experience COMPLETE failures in the phone network more oftenn then on IP networks. That things are improving is all cool and well, but does not change how things were and are, only how they are going to be (and that maybe)
Having worked at Phillips natlab in a combined IBM/Phillips/KPN ISDN and PSTN telephony project for the Dutch government for 5 years, being responsible for debugging all the failures in the ISDN setup, I do think I have a bit of a clue what I am talking about btw.. it is not like I do not know how those networks work.
My initial comment was to provoke some thought, not to seek answers as to why they are different.
Guess what, I am typing this on a recycled Dell laptop.. and usually I build my own machines. I have worked for a computer manufacteror for some 12 years, and I know a bit about their typical way of doing...
Don't make assumptions my friend.
And then whose to say there are not hidden costs in the more expensive products? All big business' are the same. They all care about high profits nothing else and they'll do what they need to to maintain that high profit margin.
True, but such things do often become clear at some point.
We all support the system because its inevitable in today's world. There's not much you can do if you don't like it but start a revolution or live in the backwoods of montana making your own house, creating your own textiles goods and growing your own food. Good luck with that one.
No, there is a lot you can do while still staying within the system.
You are right that profit is the main motivator for companies. This has the nice effect that you can use the system to force companies to be more carefull in what they do by not buying from those that are known to behave badly and instead buying from those who show they don't.
Will it be perfect? not for what I can tell, but it will help quite a bit.
I am aware of that, but the result is still that the internet allowed communications to go on while the phone network did not.
The phone network is also quite sensitive to an exchange failing in the path between 2 points while an IP network usually deals well with one of the routers failing.
Degraded service is often better then no service at all.
The card manufacturer screwed up the driver install process for their own card, and somehow that's Windows's fault?
No it is not, neither is it the fault of Linux that you have to jump through similar hoops there (actually, I found the Linux install easier, but that has more to do with my background)
My point was that the grantparent picked one of the more nasty cases for Linux and utterly ignored that that same case is about as nasty on Windows.
I think you are right with regards to what gets priority. That said, I very clearly recall sept 11. and talking to people pretty close to the World Trade center using the Internet, but not being able to reach them by phone.
Somehow the IP network seems to be more resistent to partial failure then the phone network.
Hmm.. the AT&T 5400 cordless I bought in the USA in the early 90s worked quite fine on a telephone line in the Netherlands..
Most analog modems around are the same regardless of buying them in the USA or Europe for example (I used to own a whole lot of US Robotics modems imported from the USA when I was still running a BBS, and again they worked fine on a Dutch telephone line, and the official Dutch importer for US Robotics confirmed that they are in fact identical when I was at one of their technical sessions)
I know the systems are different, but they are similar enough for things to usually work.
Actually, for most people, Windows is a good experience. Get over it
Having worked in the IT business since the mid 80s, having done quite a few years of end-user support since then and now helping companies with keeping their computers working and making better use of them, has told me something entirely different.
People accept the bad experience because they do not know any better.
Just so you know, I don't think many people would have a better experience with Linux, tho for different reasons.
All I am arguing is that user experience is not the reason why people use one system instead of another. There are many examples besides Windows that show this.
Sophos telling us that we really need them, and providing some subjective numbers to make their case...
I know Windows PCs get infected quite easily, but do we really have to:
1. repeat this statement every few days?
2. quote numbers from an organisation which is served well by making this look as bad as possible and present it as fact?
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50% Troll
LOL. yeah, pointing out that something is quite possible is definitely trolling..
That worked correctly? I mean, the scanner and the printer both work together? I have one of the HP all in ones at home and I haven't even tried to plug it into the Linux box. I was going to, but then I decided to check up on the net for drivers, and all google returned were a thousand and one complaints about how you could get it to work as a scanner or printer but not both without swapping drivers.
Yes, both functions work at the same time here.
Maybe some relevant background info, the Debian unstable I am using runs a 2.6(.10) kernel, and uses the hpoj drivers. PSC 1200 is connected through USB.
Using cups for printing.
If I have to change my workflow to accommodate a new desktop environment, its not likely to be a good experience.
You have a point there, but I think you should keep in mind that people have had to change their workflow for the change from DOS to Windows 3.x and again when changing to Windows 9x and again for 2000 and again for XP...
So following that reasoning, Windows is not a good experience, yet people do use it.
Since you use the nvidia driver in your linux example, you should do the same in your windows example...
It goes something like this...
Me: Ensure you have opengl support else Quake 3 will just open a window and close it again before you even get a chance to read what is wrong..
User: Oh? OpenGL drivers? Windows recognized my card perfectly well!
Me: Well, try it.. (user tries and finds out what I just have been saying)
User: ok, how do I fix this?
Me: Did you get a CD with the card?
User: Yes but there was also a paper in the box that said to not use it and use the included floppy instead, however, I have no floppy drive.. I did try the CD but it just crashed my computer.
Me: Ok.. goto www.nvidia.com and then goto downloads, then select your card type and operating system and download the driver. Double click on the downloaded file and follow the instructions.
That is an example from real life actually.
You were really over simplifying things on the Windows side, and making the linux side look overly complicated.
A while ago I installed Debian unstable on my workstation. Connected to it are:
A logitech trackball (recognized and configured correctly)
A HP PSC 1200 "All in One" printer/scanner copier combi (recognized and configured correctly)
A 21" CRT (recognized and configured correctly)
A 105 key "international" keyboard (recognized and connfigured correctly)
An external USB card reader (recognized and configured correctly)
An Olympus digital camera (recognized and configured correctly)
Of course the network card and video card were recognized and configured correctly as well.
All software I needed was included on the distribution CDs, and worked without needing any complicated configuration. I could scan and use the camera, got a nice 1280x1024 desktop at the highest refresh rate my display supports etc etc.
Now, Debian isn't exactly the most desktop friendly linux around, so I would expect others to do better.
To me it seems that your complaint is depending on the distro you tried, and there don't seem to be technical obstacles that prevent Linux from being as easy as Windows in this.
Installing applications from random CDs is another thing, but this is often more a cause for trouble then anything else.
If Linux was truly a better experience, people would flock to it. All the moreso since it's free. The idea that people won't try linux because "if it's free, it has to suck" is laughable. When was the last time you knew someone who hated a bargain?
Logic would agree with you, history doesn't really.
There have been better alternatives for PCs running a MS operating system for as long as the PC exists. Yet, people have been using PCs running a MS operating system anyway.
If 'better experience' was what people used for their choices in technology then we would have had betamax instead of VHS, Macs would have surpassed PCs in marketshare more then 15 years ago (or people would have been using Amigas or Atari STs or such) etc etc.
Sadly enough, most people have no clue and just use what they know and what others around them happen to be using. Better experience plays little if any role in that whatsoever.
Odd...
X-windows allowed me to make modlines for very odd displays with very unusual resolutions..
I have yet to hear why that can't be done for this specific one..
What if they sold the car tires at a loss assuming that you'll buy lots of gas (or something; tires are a weak metaphor) and the car companies get a cut of the gas price?
Then they have a bad business model.
The fact that you thought up some scheme to make money does not give you an inherent right on making money.
Our prob too, because MS will adjust prices so games sell at something more reasonable (like $20), self-publishing will be allowed, and the Xbox computer itself will cost several hundred dollars - the true price of the system.
Ah.. and why exactly is that bad for us?
It makes that you actually pay for what you get, and it would make for more competition in the gaming market for such a console.
What is more, it would in all likelyhood reduce (NOT eliminate) the desire to pirate the games.
Sorry but in that situation everyone is better off except for the few who want to use an x-box as a very cheap PC alternative.. If there is enough such people around, they may provide enough of a market for a specialized product, resulting in them being off better as well.