I appreciate the response. I think I'll still connect to my self-cert IMAP mail server via SSL rather than plain text. It also provides the added benefit of bypassing most content filtering firewalls:)
Clearly we have different ideas as to what is easy and what is difficult in pulling off an attack, and what is and isn't worth bothering to protect yourself against. A passive listener (Eve) seems to be much more common and very easy to protect against than an actual attacker (Mallory). If you're worried about that more aggressive attacker it seems to me that CA provided SSL isn't enough, you need to worry more about the endpoints as well. I totally get what you're saying about the availability of tools, but they're far from automated. Getting fragrouter/ettercap/dnsspoof/webmitm/wireshark/ssldump to attack/trap/decrypt/re-encrypt/pass all other traffic/store/filter data all at the same time, in real time, in two directions is not trivial. Maybe metasploit put something together I haven't seen. But setting up any of a number of different packet sniffers with a simple filter for "username" that will work for pop/imap/telnet/ftp/http/etc traffic is much easier; I could walk my mom through it over the phone.
You are correct, my mistake, there were two different people to who I replied in the same thread.
No, that's not an example.
Sorry my example was poorly worded, I meant the user in this case being the recipient, not the sender. The recipient received an encrypted mail (using his public key) that was unsigned. Must he disregard the content under all circumstances? Or could it possibly be that the encryption was meant to keep prying eyes from reading the content instead of serving another purpose? That was my point.
I agree in principle with all of your assertions.
If you agree with all of those assertions how can you call encryption without authentication useless? They are two different problems, and solving one problem is better than solving none. If you take a hard stance on this point because of another potential attack vector, then how is any solution ever good enough when there will always be another potential vulnerability? One of my points is that there is a line - there is always something that can be compromised that is out of your control, using a CA isn't a panacea.
Going back to your previous reply:
You walk into a crowded, pitch black room and say "John, come over here; I want to tell you a secret."
Wouldn't it be more akin to calling John via cell phone (self cert SSL) instead of yelling out what you want to say for all to hear (plain text)? Sure, somebody (at the phone company) could re-route the call and maybe they could also mimick John's voice, and maybe they later call John and spoof your caller ID and mimick your voice and relay to him what you said, but if I'm not concerned with those things I'm still better off quietly calling John in the pitch black room instead of yelling it out for all to hear. I have prevented at least some people in the room from hearing what I have to say.
What's missing is how those assertions can lead you to conclude that Firefox should be more tolerant of self-signed certs than it is.
I'm glad we've cycled back to the original article. Let's talk about the recent versions of Firefox (Fx). Fx2 did in fact warn you of a self signed cert, to which a user could simply click OK. Fx3 now requires 3-4 clicks to do the same thing. That's just being in the way for no good reason - a warning message and maybe a colored URL bar would be fine. There was also a time during the Fx3 beta when it was not possible to bypass the dialog for self-signed certs AT ALL, thus rendering access to a self-signed cert site impossible. Fortunately the mozilla devs changed their minds on that one before the stable release. There is still, however, other cert errors that are not bypassable in Fx3 that were in Fx2. Here is one of them: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312732. This one does have a "workaround" that is fairly difficult and requires some guessing. So Firefox is unnecessarily getting in the way for much SSL usage, going well past a simple warning dialog.
SSH is the example of a protocol that encrypts and doesn't have a CA behind it that we discussed earlier.
It does throw a warning - as you mentioned; and one can just press "enter" to continue past the warning with ease.
Sending an encrypted email to somebody using their public key but not signing the message with your own private key would be another example, that we did not discuss earlier.
Let's try this a different way. Let's try to isolate where our disagreement lies. Specify to each of the following what you would agree, or not agree to:
A technological system / computer network most likely has a number of different points of vulnerability
Security works best in layers
There is no single solution that can solve every possible vulnerability
Encryption and authentication are two different things meant to solve two different problems
If one could theoretically iterate every possible vulnerability in a system (so you have a known number of total vulnerabilities), implementing solutions that reduce that number of vulnerabilities is good - i.e., is better than not implementing those solutions
Users should be free (as in speech) to choose the solutions they implement based on price, perceived threat (whether subjective or objective), and other factors
An end-to-end system (clients, servers, network) that utilizes SSL provided by a CA to encrypt one point of communication still most likely has numerous other vulnerabilities (see #1)
Let's start there, just list out each one of those and if you agree or disagree with the statement.
Beating a DNS server's response is only trivial because you need it to be for your argument to make any sense.
Sure, "better", in the same sense that "useful" is "better" than "useless".
The fact is if all network traffic were encrypted without authentication (a method on which many protocols operate, as you even provided examples of), there would be a net gain in security. I don't know what you think is different about SSL. You have yet to address my primary points in any of these responses, clearly you simply don't have an answer. Good day.
No, I assure you that I am not wrong, dns and arp poisoning are unreliable at best between peer nodes, dns poisoning is really only used effectively upstream. The reason for this is that the victim machine effectively spoofs it right back, so they become competing traffic (or in the case of DNS receives two replies, then timing becomes an issue). To do MITM on arp spoofing you need to impersonate both ends, which even more difficult/unreliable, especially if the other nodes are already actively communicating or the arp cache gets cleared (or is disabled). And all are more difficult than passively listening with a filter for plain text traffic.
"Peer nodes" have the most direct access to your traffic.
That is exactly why it's the most dangerous - they see ALL unencrypted data coming out of your computer, hence the desire to encrypt as much as possible coming out of your computer with SSL (HTTP/IMAP/POP/whatever). Anything else has to be a more targeted attack. Peer nodes attack the low hanging fruit. It's like locking your car door in the mall - sure there are other ways to break into the car, but it's just easier to move on to a better/easier target. That's my car analogy for the day.
doesn't make them the largest threat for most people, since for most people
You're confusing largest threat with largest exposure, the two are not directly correlated, I'm making a subjective observation due to the point immediately above and noted in prior responses - the reason I use self-cert SSL is to get out of perceived hostile local environments.
I agree that a CA signed cert is "better" than self-signed, though still not perfect and not uncompromisable, just "better". But the point is if somebody makes a financial choice to only use a self-cert, they are still better off than not using a self-cert. Again, you yourself even made a similar point - why introduce more vulnerabilities? There are two problems that SSL can possible help with (read original article), and self-certs help with one of those problems. I can't, for the life of me, comprehend why anybody would want to eliminate that option.
you're basically praying that no one who is capable of sniffing your packets realizes that they could probably alter them, too.
You do understand that to pull off a "Man in the middle" attack, you actually have to be in the middle, right? (From a network architecture perspective). A peer node can't modify your packets, it's not a matter of just using different software. If you don't recognize that peer nodes are the largest threat (compared to ISP infrastructure) then you're not living in the real world.
The "False sense of security" argument is BS. *I* get to determine what level of security I need for my purposes and budget. SSL, self cert or otherwise, is just one tool in the bag. A browser cannot and should not make that decision for me.
the passwords I use remotely, I mostly have my browser memorize, or they're keys instead of passwords -- so they would have to steal my machine in order to do it.
You're storing your login to SSL sites in your browser? Are you kidding me? No, they don't have to steal your machine, they can just sit down at it when you walk away and forget to lock it. Or they can use administrator level access or somebody else's compromised credentials to go steal your browser's profile or just copy the cookie. Or get it from a backup. Or use a remote exploit. Or turn it off and clone your drive when you're not there. Etc. etc. etc.
No. I do, however, use Dvorak, and type extremely fast.
Talk about security by obscurity. You're rant afterwords is akin to what I'm saying about SSL - you know your environment, you know the likely threats and you are implementing security measures (or not implementing them) based on those perceived threats. That's exactly what I'm saying, thank you for making my point and agreeing. I think we're done here.
You're still setting up a straw man argument to promote the authentication function of SSL. I totally understand what you're saying, we all get that. But you obviously don't have any real world experience on the ins and outs of this. Try to understand that there are times (many times in my experience) where you want SSL and don't care about a CA or getting authentication.
For one, *I don't CARE* about MITM attacks - they are 10000 times harder to pull off than basic wireless or ethernet snooping at a hotel, Internet cafe, or on a LAN. I am *WAY* more concerned with somebody sitting on the wire passively listening on a peer node than somebody with network infrastructure access and a server plugged in that is statefully monitoring all traffic and attacking HTTP SSL traffic by creating duplicate certs on the fly. That is what I use a lot of SSL for, to get OUT of a known hostile local environment, not to prevent a much harder MITM attack.
I should be able to use this perfectly valid and common purpose of SSL without excessive annoyances. Some of these cert errors aren't even bypassable in Fx3, which is even more ridiculous. The browser should inform the user as to the status of the certificate as best and unobtrusively as it can. If I wanted to be treated like I'm stupid and prevented from doing things that I want to do because a browser thinks it would be better that way, then I'd use IE.
If you're looking to worry about obscure attacks then I'm sure you modify your list of Certificate Authority's, removing ones who don't live up to your own personal levels of validation? Oh you don't? Do you check the signatures on your browser every time you install it or update it to make sure the upstream source wasn't tampered with? Do you check your keyboard plug every time you sit down at your desktop to make sure there isn't a logger on it? Do you cover your keyboard everytime you enter your password to make sure nobody is watching? No? There are thousands of potential vulnerabilities that exist every time you use your computer, let SSL do (one of) its job(s) and quit making it out like it's worthless without authentication - it's not. Security is effective only in layers; SSL is just one of those layers. As an intelligent user and/or sys admin I should be able to choose the security cost vs. risk ratio that I am willing to live with. Browsers making those decisions for me is a problem.
For me on my Actiontec router (FiOS) it seems that DHCP response gets slower and slower over time until new machines time out their DHCP requests and can't get an IP, then I reboot the router and it's fine again.
That's too broad of a question; it depends on the vulnerability. If my car's door lock can be bypassed by pulling slightly sideways on the door handle, that's a defect. If I can hold a cell phone over my car's windshield and it triggers the remote door unlock, that's a defect. But if I can smash a car window and climb in through it that's not a defect. If I can use an advanced lock pick set and have 2 hours alone with a car and get in that's not a defect.
The same thing applies in software - no piece of software will ever be impenetrable to every attack. The question is a matter of balance - given the purpose of the software, how much security is expected or required? How much trouble does a malicious entity have to go through to compromise the software?
And for many people the answer to those questions will be different for the same piece of software. That's where layered security comes into place. If I'm worried about my car's window being smashed and somebody climbing in to it, I don't blame the car manufacturer, instead I park the car in a garage. If there is something extra valuable I want to put in the car in the garage, maybe I put it in a lock box.
You seem to be confused on what the term "disaster recovery" means. They are recovering from this disaster right now, if they're not already done. Getting a datacenter online within 24 hours of an event like an explosion/fire (which was their initial timeline) is an example of a disaster recovery plan working successfully (especially over a weekend). Disaster recovery does NOT mean 100% uptime, it is what you do in the event of downtime. Without a pre-defined plan, this type of outage would require 5-10 days to recover from.
I've been to data centers around here, even small ones that have 2 power rooms I'm not sure what level of experience you have, but this means nothing. 2 power rooms does not in anyway imply a 2N power design.
The explosion was isolated to the power room. While we're both obviously limited to our knowledge of actual events that occurred here, an explosion/fire that "took out 3 walls", whatever that means, is not limited to one room. Presumably at least one of those walls was shared with another room unless this was a standalone building.
ThePlanet is pretty cheap compared to datacenters like NAC that have more redundancy and security. Ahh, I see now, you're somehow affiliated with Net Access Corporation (in NJ, and you're njcoder) and somehow believe that they are substantively different from any other datacenter (e.g., ThePlanet) and this type of outage could never happen to them/you. Good luck with that. I hope you're hosting with multiple data centers.
There is simply no amount of security / redundancy that can be done at a single location that will provide 100% uptime (regardless if you define uptime as application uptime or just power/network uptime). Did you catch the article about Google's datacenters the other day? Clearly they recognize that fact and design around it.
But not cheaper than losing 7500 accounts to another DC that can handle this type of event gracefully Part of my point that you apparently missed was that even a full 2N power system end-to-end doesn't guarantee uptime. There are very few - and I'd even go so far as to say "if any" - datacenters in the world that could handle an explosion / fire without going down. Again, even if the system technically supported it, once fire authorities are on site their responsibility is safety, not uptime. Then you have the issue with smoke damage which is almost as damaging as the fire itself; even if power were available you wouldn't want your servers circulating that air. The argument of "the power should be physically far from the datacenter" is invalid as well, as anybody who knows anything about power is that once you get to those lower voltages there are significant losses when traveling any distance - so the transformers, and therefore UPSs and PDUs need to be nearby.
The fact is in the real world there is no such thing as 100% guarantee, datacenters no matter how well designed can, do and will go down, and it doesn't mean there is a design flaw or that another datacenter is superior.
ThePlanet has 5 or more datacenters. The cost and complexity of doing a full blown physically separated 2N power system at every datacenter is far more expensive than taking the chance of having to issue a credit against an SLA. Not to mention that when a fire is involved, the fire department has full authority and may instruct you to cut all power anyway - they are coming in to an unknown situation and won't risk their own people just because you say the other power system is isolated.
Another issue is the complexity of a full blown 2N power system is likely to cause more outages due to human error during routine maintenance over an N+1 system. Complete 2N power systems from grid and backup sources all the way to the servers with no single point of failure (transformers, wiring, switching, PDUs, UPSs, etc.) are enormously complex and expensive, so it's not "the only thing that makes sense". I assure you issuing a one-day pro-rated credit to all your customers is cheaper.
Fortunately with most linux live CD's, you can do something else on the very computer you're installing the OS on - just start the installer, launch Firefox, type slashdot.org and off you go. I've installed Ubuntu on my laptop while sitting on my front porch, wireless network working, browsing the web and VNC'd into my work machine.
You can't directly compare the cost your spare time to your professional salary, you would make a lot of bad decisions that way.
For example, it takes me 1 hour to mow my lawn, but I don't want to "outsource" it for more than $25 per mowing and I make way more than $25/hour at my job. The thing is I'm not paid as an hourly consultant, I'm paid a flat salary, so I'm no better off having my lawn mowed and working that hour instead. What it comes down to is what having somebody else mow my lawn is worth TO ME, not what my hourly rate at some other unrelated job is - you simply can't connect the two things, especially if one of them is something you enjoy doing.
Another point is that you spend the same amount of time (if not more) "setting up" a freshly installed Windows box, especially uninstalling all the crap software you didn't want in the first place, as you would spend on most Linux distros. So realistically you're only talking about the difference of 25 minutes of installing linux distro itself.
For most consumers, capacity is king, not speed. I don't know how you qualify "most consumers", but "sufficient capacity" is all most consumers need, after which price and speed absolutely do come into play. For most people 40GB is still sufficient capacity. Only people who download or rip very large amounts of music or movies need more than that, and that is pretty far from "most consumers" - your 14 year old son who tries to download every movie he's never heard of isn't "most consumers". Not to mention that IO speed is the performance limiting factor on pretty much every consumer PC nowadays, CPUs have been fast enough for a couple of years now.
SSDs and spinning disks can still co-exist - in a year or two you will be able to run your OS and programs on a 100GB-200GB SSD and go buy a 2TB disk or 5TB array to store your data on that is less performance critical.
YOu give your notice...you get to work normally till your last day. That's how my company works - if an employee resigns (amicably) then they keep their access and work normally up until their last day. When I say normally that's not to say we're not moving resources to fill the future gap, but I mean no access is restricted in the mean time. That is only in the case of when somebody is fired.
Sorry to reply to my own post but I was in a hurry earlier.
Anyway, to further explain the advantages of a wiki is that it's still a free-form format so you can add other random information - including links and pictures and tables - as needed and you're not locked into 8 fields or whatever. If you're just outgrowing Notepad it would seem to be the next logical step to me.
As for your requirements:
it must be simple: DokuWiki and wikis on sticks in general are download, unzip and run. Maybe tweak a setting here and there. So not dead simple, but definitely in the realm of simple for anybody on Slashdot
F/OSS: Yup, DokuWiki oaS uses microapache and PHP and is itself GPL v2.
must work in Windows Vista: Yes, microapache works in Vista.
preferably use a portable format: That's what "on a Stick" means - meant to be run from a USB stick. The data is "portable" as well, in a pinch you can open the plain text data files if you couldn't run the application for some reason.
must not be an online app: Nope, these will run locally with no internet connection
I think a wiki sounds like what you need instead of a "database", if you're using it for personal reference and not hooking it to a web server or any kind of client application, you don't really need a database.
For a wiki "engine" that will run locally on a PC try googling for "wiki on a stick". I'd recommend DokuWiki on a Stick, as DokuWiki uses flat files for storage. You can keep it locally on a PC, or as you may have guessed you can run it from a USB thumb drive on any computer. There are other wikis that run in this fashion as well, some cross platform.
There are GUI tools for everything you say you were "required" to use the terminal for. Go to System | Administration | Synaptic | search for and install ubuntu-restricted-extras and ndisgtk, and you'd have been done. Setting up NDIS wrapper via ndisgtk takes all of 70 seconds. The media playback codecs will prompt to be installed as needed. Try playing a.mov or.ra file on a default Windows install and let me know how well it walks you through installing the supporting applications.
Oh yeah and my mom (who is a grandmother) has been running Ubuntu for a few years now.
I just noticed you're an AC and I just wasted my time posting, but since I already typed it I'm posting anyway.
Sorry, but I was correct the first time.
exponential
mathematics The exponent is the part of an expression indicating the power to which a term is raised I said "the square of the speed" - that is the speed raised to the power of 2 - hence exponential. I know what the word means and I didn't mean it to infer "lots and lots". Please try again.
THIS [bugatti.com] is a REAL energy-wasting toy for the rich. $1 million, 5.8 mpg city, and 250 mph top speed? The fact that it even exists is a sin The thing is without somebody pushing performance on the high end, the low end would never see efficiency improvements. We wouldn't have 60 mpg cars if it weren't for racing development over decades improving engine / transmission / aerodynamic design.
As pointed out above, for a longer trip a plane will generally go straighter and thus cover fewer miles overall. Also 4 seats vs. 2 is only an efficiency advantage if people are actually sitting in them. What percentage of time are 4 seats used in a four-seat car vs. just one or two? I would assume a very small percentage.
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I appreciate the response. I think I'll still connect to my self-cert IMAP mail server via SSL rather than plain text. It also provides the added benefit of bypassing most content filtering firewalls :)
Clearly we have different ideas as to what is easy and what is difficult in pulling off an attack, and what is and isn't worth bothering to protect yourself against. A passive listener (Eve) seems to be much more common and very easy to protect against than an actual attacker (Mallory). If you're worried about that more aggressive attacker it seems to me that CA provided SSL isn't enough, you need to worry more about the endpoints as well. I totally get what you're saying about the availability of tools, but they're far from automated. Getting fragrouter/ettercap/dnsspoof/webmitm/wireshark/ssldump to attack/trap/decrypt/re-encrypt/pass all other traffic/store/filter data all at the same time, in real time, in two directions is not trivial. Maybe metasploit put something together I haven't seen. But setting up any of a number of different packet sniffers with a simple filter for "username" that will work for pop/imap/telnet/ftp/http/etc traffic is much easier; I could walk my mom through it over the phone.
The caller ID spoofing bit of the phone attack I described isn't that difficult at all actually, there are many websites that will do it for you easily - they have made the news from people being scammed and whatnot.
It all just comes down to your perception of the threat based on your own knowledge. That's why choices are good.
You appear to be confusing me with someone else.
You are correct, my mistake, there were two different people to who I replied in the same thread.
No, that's not an example.
Sorry my example was poorly worded, I meant the user in this case being the recipient, not the sender. The recipient received an encrypted mail (using his public key) that was unsigned. Must he disregard the content under all circumstances? Or could it possibly be that the encryption was meant to keep prying eyes from reading the content instead of serving another purpose? That was my point.
I agree in principle with all of your assertions.
If you agree with all of those assertions how can you call encryption without authentication useless? They are two different problems, and solving one problem is better than solving none. If you take a hard stance on this point because of another potential attack vector, then how is any solution ever good enough when there will always be another potential vulnerability? One of my points is that there is a line - there is always something that can be compromised that is out of your control, using a CA isn't a panacea.
Going back to your previous reply:
You walk into a crowded, pitch black room and say "John, come over here; I want to tell you a secret."
Wouldn't it be more akin to calling John via cell phone (self cert SSL) instead of yelling out what you want to say for all to hear (plain text)? Sure, somebody (at the phone company) could re-route the call and maybe they could also mimick John's voice, and maybe they later call John and spoof your caller ID and mimick your voice and relay to him what you said, but if I'm not concerned with those things I'm still better off quietly calling John in the pitch black room instead of yelling it out for all to hear. I have prevented at least some people in the room from hearing what I have to say.
What's missing is how those assertions can lead you to conclude that Firefox should be more tolerant of self-signed certs than it is.
I'm glad we've cycled back to the original article. Let's talk about the recent versions of Firefox (Fx). Fx2 did in fact warn you of a self signed cert, to which a user could simply click OK. Fx3 now requires 3-4 clicks to do the same thing. That's just being in the way for no good reason - a warning message and maybe a colored URL bar would be fine. There was also a time during the Fx3 beta when it was not possible to bypass the dialog for self-signed certs AT ALL, thus rendering access to a self-signed cert site impossible. Fortunately the mozilla devs changed their minds on that one before the stable release. There is still, however, other cert errors that are not bypassable in Fx3 that were in Fx2. Here is one of them: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312732. This one does have a "workaround" that is fairly difficult and requires some guessing. So Firefox is unnecessarily getting in the way for much SSL usage, going well past a simple warning dialog.
Let's try this a different way. Let's try to isolate where our disagreement lies. Specify to each of the following what you would agree, or not agree to:
Let's start there, just list out each one of those and if you agree or disagree with the statement.
Sure, "better", in the same sense that "useful" is "better" than "useless".
The fact is if all network traffic were encrypted without authentication (a method on which many protocols operate, as you even provided examples of), there would be a net gain in security. I don't know what you think is different about SSL. You have yet to address my primary points in any of these responses, clearly you simply don't have an answer. Good day.
"Peer nodes" have the most direct access to your traffic.
That is exactly why it's the most dangerous - they see ALL unencrypted data coming out of your computer, hence the desire to encrypt as much as possible coming out of your computer with SSL (HTTP/IMAP/POP/whatever). Anything else has to be a more targeted attack. Peer nodes attack the low hanging fruit. It's like locking your car door in the mall - sure there are other ways to break into the car, but it's just easier to move on to a better/easier target. That's my car analogy for the day.
doesn't make them the largest threat for most people, since for most people
You're confusing largest threat with largest exposure, the two are not directly correlated, I'm making a subjective observation due to the point immediately above and noted in prior responses - the reason I use self-cert SSL is to get out of perceived hostile local environments.
I agree that a CA signed cert is "better" than self-signed, though still not perfect and not uncompromisable, just "better". But the point is if somebody makes a financial choice to only use a self-cert, they are still better off than not using a self-cert. Again, you yourself even made a similar point - why introduce more vulnerabilities? There are two problems that SSL can possible help with (read original article), and self-certs help with one of those problems. I can't, for the life of me, comprehend why anybody would want to eliminate that option.
you're basically praying that no one who is capable of sniffing your packets realizes that they could probably alter them, too.
You do understand that to pull off a "Man in the middle" attack, you actually have to be in the middle, right? (From a network architecture perspective). A peer node can't modify your packets, it's not a matter of just using different software. If you don't recognize that peer nodes are the largest threat (compared to ISP infrastructure) then you're not living in the real world.
The "False sense of security" argument is BS. *I* get to determine what level of security I need for my purposes and budget. SSL, self cert or otherwise, is just one tool in the bag. A browser cannot and should not make that decision for me.
the passwords I use remotely, I mostly have my browser memorize, or they're keys instead of passwords -- so they would have to steal my machine in order to do it.
You're storing your login to SSL sites in your browser? Are you kidding me? No, they don't have to steal your machine, they can just sit down at it when you walk away and forget to lock it. Or they can use administrator level access or somebody else's compromised credentials to go steal your browser's profile or just copy the cookie. Or get it from a backup. Or use a remote exploit. Or turn it off and clone your drive when you're not there. Etc. etc. etc.
No. I do, however, use Dvorak, and type extremely fast.
Talk about security by obscurity. You're rant afterwords is akin to what I'm saying about SSL - you know your environment, you know the likely threats and you are implementing security measures (or not implementing them) based on those perceived threats. That's exactly what I'm saying, thank you for making my point and agreeing. I think we're done here.
You're still setting up a straw man argument to promote the authentication function of SSL. I totally understand what you're saying, we all get that. But you obviously don't have any real world experience on the ins and outs of this. Try to understand that there are times (many times in my experience) where you want SSL and don't care about a CA or getting authentication.
For one, *I don't CARE* about MITM attacks - they are 10000 times harder to pull off than basic wireless or ethernet snooping at a hotel, Internet cafe, or on a LAN. I am *WAY* more concerned with somebody sitting on the wire passively listening on a peer node than somebody with network infrastructure access and a server plugged in that is statefully monitoring all traffic and attacking HTTP SSL traffic by creating duplicate certs on the fly. That is what I use a lot of SSL for, to get OUT of a known hostile local environment, not to prevent a much harder MITM attack.
I should be able to use this perfectly valid and common purpose of SSL without excessive annoyances. Some of these cert errors aren't even bypassable in Fx3, which is even more ridiculous. The browser should inform the user as to the status of the certificate as best and unobtrusively as it can. If I wanted to be treated like I'm stupid and prevented from doing things that I want to do because a browser thinks it would be better that way, then I'd use IE.
If you're looking to worry about obscure attacks then I'm sure you modify your list of Certificate Authority's, removing ones who don't live up to your own personal levels of validation? Oh you don't? Do you check the signatures on your browser every time you install it or update it to make sure the upstream source wasn't tampered with? Do you check your keyboard plug every time you sit down at your desktop to make sure there isn't a logger on it? Do you cover your keyboard everytime you enter your password to make sure nobody is watching? No? There are thousands of potential vulnerabilities that exist every time you use your computer, let SSL do (one of) its job(s) and quit making it out like it's worthless without authentication - it's not. Security is effective only in layers; SSL is just one of those layers. As an intelligent user and/or sys admin I should be able to choose the security cost vs. risk ratio that I am willing to live with. Browsers making those decisions for me is a problem.
For me on my Actiontec router (FiOS) it seems that DHCP response gets slower and slower over time until new machines time out their DHCP requests and can't get an IP, then I reboot the router and it's fine again.
That's too broad of a question; it depends on the vulnerability. If my car's door lock can be bypassed by pulling slightly sideways on the door handle, that's a defect. If I can hold a cell phone over my car's windshield and it triggers the remote door unlock, that's a defect. But if I can smash a car window and climb in through it that's not a defect. If I can use an advanced lock pick set and have 2 hours alone with a car and get in that's not a defect.
The same thing applies in software - no piece of software will ever be impenetrable to every attack. The question is a matter of balance - given the purpose of the software, how much security is expected or required? How much trouble does a malicious entity have to go through to compromise the software?
And for many people the answer to those questions will be different for the same piece of software. That's where layered security comes into place. If I'm worried about my car's window being smashed and somebody climbing in to it, I don't blame the car manufacturer, instead I park the car in a garage. If there is something extra valuable I want to put in the car in the garage, maybe I put it in a lock box.
You may also be interested in a pretty positive write-up from SANS about ThePlanet's response and handling of the situation thus far.
The fact is in the real world there is no such thing as 100% guarantee, datacenters no matter how well designed can, do and will go down, and it doesn't mean there is a design flaw or that another datacenter is superior.
ThePlanet has 5 or more datacenters. The cost and complexity of doing a full blown physically separated 2N power system at every datacenter is far more expensive than taking the chance of having to issue a credit against an SLA. Not to mention that when a fire is involved, the fire department has full authority and may instruct you to cut all power anyway - they are coming in to an unknown situation and won't risk their own people just because you say the other power system is isolated.
Another issue is the complexity of a full blown 2N power system is likely to cause more outages due to human error during routine maintenance over an N+1 system. Complete 2N power systems from grid and backup sources all the way to the servers with no single point of failure (transformers, wiring, switching, PDUs, UPSs, etc.) are enormously complex and expensive, so it's not "the only thing that makes sense". I assure you issuing a one-day pro-rated credit to all your customers is cheaper.
Fortunately with most linux live CD's, you can do something else on the very computer you're installing the OS on - just start the installer, launch Firefox, type slashdot.org and off you go. I've installed Ubuntu on my laptop while sitting on my front porch, wireless network working, browsing the web and VNC'd into my work machine.
...Everything downloaded inBoth machines work well now... You were telling this nice story and then you left me hanging.
You can't directly compare the cost your spare time to your professional salary, you would make a lot of bad decisions that way.
For example, it takes me 1 hour to mow my lawn, but I don't want to "outsource" it for more than $25 per mowing and I make way more than $25/hour at my job. The thing is I'm not paid as an hourly consultant, I'm paid a flat salary, so I'm no better off having my lawn mowed and working that hour instead. What it comes down to is what having somebody else mow my lawn is worth TO ME, not what my hourly rate at some other unrelated job is - you simply can't connect the two things, especially if one of them is something you enjoy doing.
Another point is that you spend the same amount of time (if not more) "setting up" a freshly installed Windows box, especially uninstalling all the crap software you didn't want in the first place, as you would spend on most Linux distros. So realistically you're only talking about the difference of 25 minutes of installing linux distro itself.
SSDs and spinning disks can still co-exist - in a year or two you will be able to run your OS and programs on a 100GB-200GB SSD and go buy a 2TB disk or 5TB array to store your data on that is less performance critical.
Anyway, to further explain the advantages of a wiki is that it's still a free-form format so you can add other random information - including links and pictures and tables - as needed and you're not locked into 8 fields or whatever. If you're just outgrowing Notepad it would seem to be the next logical step to me.
As for your requirements:
I think a wiki sounds like what you need instead of a "database", if you're using it for personal reference and not hooking it to a web server or any kind of client application, you don't really need a database.
For a wiki "engine" that will run locally on a PC try googling for "wiki on a stick". I'd recommend DokuWiki on a Stick, as DokuWiki uses flat files for storage. You can keep it locally on a PC, or as you may have guessed you can run it from a USB thumb drive on any computer. There are other wikis that run in this fashion as well, some cross platform.
There are GUI tools for everything you say you were "required" to use the terminal for. Go to System | Administration | Synaptic | search for and install ubuntu-restricted-extras and ndisgtk, and you'd have been done. Setting up NDIS wrapper via ndisgtk takes all of 70 seconds. The media playback codecs will prompt to be installed as needed. Try playing a .mov or .ra file on a default Windows install and let me know how well it walks you through installing the supporting applications.
Oh yeah and my mom (who is a grandmother) has been running Ubuntu for a few years now.
I just noticed you're an AC and I just wasted my time posting, but since I already typed it I'm posting anyway.
Thank you for a more clear explanation, I'll note that for the the future.
mathematics The exponent is the part of an expression indicating the power to which a term is raised I said "the square of the speed" - that is the speed raised to the power of 2 - hence exponential. I know what the word means and I didn't mean it to infer "lots and lots". Please try again.
As pointed out above, for a longer trip a plane will generally go straighter and thus cover fewer miles overall. Also 4 seats vs. 2 is only an efficiency advantage if people are actually sitting in them. What percentage of time are 4 seats used in a four-seat car vs. just one or two? I would assume a very small percentage.