Only problem with SATA right now is that XP doesn't support it in the OS, so you have to download drivers to a floppy (a FLOPPY!) and hit F8 during boot to check for 3rd party drivers.
When I installed Windows XP on a new machine with a SATA hard drive I didn't need any drivers. The machine doesn't have a floppy drive either.
I understand that you only need to load additional drivers if you want to use SATA RAID functionality - and that would probably be an issue on all OSes (for the moment, anyway)
IE6 has a very similar system - you can configure IE to ask about every domain that tries to set a cookie, and set to 'always allow' or 'always block'.
Dial - This kind of behavior of automatic dialling to arbitrary numbers is never reasonable
There are some grey areas here - fax software and RAS servers that have callback functions for authorised users. Depends on what you mean by arbitrary I guess.
Modify the OS -- This is the big no-no. No application (user-land) program should have the rights to modifying the operating system
Another grey area. Is modifying the OS something as fundamental as swapping the kernel without me wanting to do so, or something as inocuous as WinRAR allowing me to compress folders from Windows Explorer?
Monitoring Activities -- The big problem here is that this happens with the user unaware
Exactly. I respect my employer's rights to check up on what software I've been installing (for licence compliance purposes), but I know this is happening so it's OK.
Remote Control -- The problem here is as with monitoring
Remote control can be legitimate and very useful in certain contexts (e.g. VNC, Terminal Services, etc.). Again, because it's authorised by myself (and secured, so only authorised users can remote control) it's not a problem.
Self-Update -- Related to the remote-control and OS-modification issues. This can be anything from a "who cares" to a complete showstopper
99% of the time I have no problem with apps that auto-update (OS updates, AV definitions, etc.). I do like to see what the updates include before I install, though, unless it's something trusted like AV definitions.
The real problem I see is that all of the proposed labelling requirements are about issues that have perfectly legitimate applications, even if only for special cases.
Re:Viruses spread by stupidity not OS'es.
on
Linux in Canada
·
· Score: 1
Long live sudo indeed.
At work, a user has to have an incredibly good reason to have administrative access to his/her machine, though. Some companies have got it right, but others haven't.
Many companies have virus scanners on their incoming mail systems, however, which would hopefully take care of the worms coming from corporate networks.
Most of the worms that I receive come from DSL/Cable modem lines so I suspect that if Linux had a large enough install base among clueless users at home we might still end up with people logging on as root for everything and running random executable attachments (even jumping through hoops to do so...)
Slashdot Mirror
Only problem with SATA right now is that XP doesn't support it in the OS, so you have to download drivers to a floppy (a FLOPPY!) and hit F8 during boot to check for 3rd party drivers.
When I installed Windows XP on a new machine with a SATA hard drive I didn't need any drivers. The machine doesn't have a floppy drive either.
I understand that you only need to load additional drivers if you want to use SATA RAID functionality - and that would probably be an issue on all OSes (for the moment, anyway)
IE6 has a very similar system - you can configure IE to ask about every domain that tries to set a cookie, and set to 'always allow' or 'always block'.
Dial - This kind of behavior of automatic dialling to arbitrary numbers is never reasonable
There are some grey areas here - fax software and RAS servers that have callback functions for authorised users. Depends on what you mean by arbitrary I guess.
Modify the OS -- This is the big no-no. No application (user-land) program should have the rights to modifying the operating system
Another grey area. Is modifying the OS something as fundamental as swapping the kernel without me wanting to do so, or something as inocuous as WinRAR allowing me to compress folders from Windows Explorer?
Monitoring Activities -- The big problem here is that this happens with the user unaware
Exactly. I respect my employer's rights to check up on what software I've been installing (for licence compliance purposes), but I know this is happening so it's OK.
Remote Control -- The problem here is as with monitoring
Remote control can be legitimate and very useful in certain contexts (e.g. VNC, Terminal Services, etc.). Again, because it's authorised by myself (and secured, so only authorised users can remote control) it's not a problem.
Self-Update -- Related to the remote-control and OS-modification issues. This can be anything from a "who cares" to a complete showstopper
99% of the time I have no problem with apps that auto-update (OS updates, AV definitions, etc.). I do like to see what the updates include before I install, though, unless it's something trusted like AV definitions.
The real problem I see is that all of the proposed labelling requirements are about issues that have perfectly legitimate applications, even if only for special cases.
Long live sudo indeed.
At work, a user has to have an incredibly good reason to have administrative access to his/her machine, though. Some companies have got it right, but others haven't.
Many companies have virus scanners on their incoming mail systems, however, which would hopefully take care of the worms coming from corporate networks.
Most of the worms that I receive come from DSL/Cable modem lines so I suspect that if Linux had a large enough install base among clueless users at home we might still end up with people logging on as root for everything and running random executable attachments (even jumping through hoops to do so...)
Then it hit me--there was no such rollback option on those Windows machines.
What about System Restore? Sure, it's only available on Windows ME and above but surely that would have solved the problem.
Unless those stupid users are running everything as root, something that I can definitely see happening.
Simple answer - Mailinator [mailinator.com]. No need to sign up for anything.