I am thinkink I am liking this thread. --- john beamon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I want to take this one step farther. There is a sales mentality > that > computers CAN be bought, plugged in, and on the web in 10 minutes. > > Therefore, they SHOULD be bought, plugged in, and on the web in 10 > minutes. I find this inherently incorrect and bordering on > arrogant.
I cannot quite follow you on this one. It is OK for 18 yearold simpleton, drug-addicted, criminal to vote, have kids, and own 42 Pittbulls, but we should keep his 36 yearold neighbor and her two teenage kids off the Internet because she bought into the Marketing Program at QVC? > > We do not require computer users to know two cents worth about > their > machines or their safe use. We require waiting periods, licensing, > training, and legal registration for the purchase or even use of > guns, > cars, motorcycles, heavy equipment, arc welders, etc, but nothing > for > computers. Give 'em time chief, give 'em time. It won't be a good thing though. Goverenment control is always excessive, and poorly aimed. >Even now, computers and "security tools" like GPG and > basic > encryption are being criminalized as tools of terrorists, when the > truth > is closer to "terrorists are safer, more knowledgeable users of > basic > computer functions than most Windows users". Frankly, I applaud > their > steps taken toward privacy and discretion and smart computer use; > when was > the last time the US government cracked a terrorist network or fed > it a > virus in a Word document? Might happen more than you know. Would they tell us if the virus that got loose and trashed a million dollars a day in data was from the Feds? Odd they haven't caught the person(s) with the anthrax though huh? Think there might be lawsuits if it was stolen from a federal lab? Things that make you go Hmmm. > MS commoditized and simplified the > entry-level > OS and released it into the wild. It is generally speaking > insecure, > buggy, and exploitable. Common users are generally naive about its > workings and its safe and controlled use in public (networked). By > engineering remote control software into XP, MS has shown that they > continue to prefer and promote a naive user base and centralized > boo-boo > management. I think we all agree on the unethical, shoddy work from Redmond. > > I disagree strenuously, on grounds economic, social, political, and > functional. I believe that users with increased clue would trade > messages > and data in portable formats, not shiny ones, so that they can be > reached > from any commoditized machine in any library, home, or educational > institution. Anything from an industrial dumb terminal to a > library PC to > a college Mac should be able to read email and browse the web with > at > least some functionality. Hear hear! I couldn't agree more. > I believe that more clueful users would > rather > keep their private info private than let MS into their machine or > let > their cd player (Media Player) report their listening habits back > to a > vendor. I believe that users would feel safer about themselves and > the > world at large if they had the basic intellectual tools to avoid > every > virus-infected email attachment that gets sent them. Understand, > please, > that the vast, VAST majority of viral traffic is instigated by > curiousity, > not by brute force. More people open unkown email attachments, > after the > years of Melissa and Nimda and HappyWorm, than are infected by > sophisticated autoexecuting binaries in their unopened mail spools. They also send out email that says if you send this seven people a dancing dog will sing to you. Without trying to be too harsh, let's look at reality. The "average" person out there now reads at a sixth grade level. The average grade and inteligence level is not a very high mark. Now, without going into means and t-tail distributions, I think we can safely assume for the sake of argument, that half of the people out there are below average, and half above average. I vewnture to guess that you are NEVER going to get the lower half to regularly scan attachments before downloading. The upper half will possibly do so for the three or four weeks following their last virus infection. > Those > sophisticated worms ARE a problem, but they are the Ebola virus in > a world > where millions die for not washing their hands before they eat. Also known as thining the herd. I think even the worst viruses and worms serve a purpose by forcing us to correct problems. I prefer that they hit someone else, but I also wash my hands regularly. ;-> > > The native faculty of Windows to execute any virus that comes down > the > pike from what SHOULD -- by all measures functional and reasonable > -- be a > text-only environment is a problem. An out-of-box problem. It was > mentioned earlier that a new user on an out-of-box machine is not > necessarily "insecure", and I disagree to the very last iota. XP > comes > preinstalled with the ability to turn on your PC's mic, call home > to > Microsoft, and allow internet access to your filesystem, all > without your > permission or even knowledge. Don't leave home WITH it. I am > running one > XP box right now, months after it has been proctologized and > patched into > delirium. I'm still behind a firewall, and I still read all my > mail in > either PINE or Mozilla, in plain text, thank-you-very-much. > Just turning on my win98 laptop makes me twitch. Thus far only my youngest daughter and I are the only ones to migrate to Linux. I run 2 (when the older one is throwing parts) Debian boxen and my daughter is on Mandrake. > I'm not an OS bigot; I've got four copies of Windows installed in > my > house, Me too, some of them are even legal copies. >three of them dual-booted with Linux. I am, however, > placing the > blame for this "security" problem where it belongs, the official > practice > of turning loose self-aware "appliances" that run programs out of > text > documents and expose raw network sockets to every process on the > box. > Users who want mail and web should get a non-root account on a box > that > runs Mozilla or Opera or Netscape. I believe Windows would be a > better > place if it allowed an Administrator privilege set for doing system > maintenance, but not as a desktop login. Login as Joe, try to run > a > system-critical process, and get an su-style popup that requests an > Administrative password. It serves the purposes of awareness and > prevention and makes people realize there's more to driving a car > than > turning on the radio. > This isn't likely, THEY -- MS and the US Govt. are basically aiming at turning the PC into an appliance, a disposable one at that. We'll let you know when you need to pay us for the use of it. If it breaks swap it out. Don't worry about your data chum, we have it safely stored away. For a nominal restoration fee we'll let you see it again. For a couple of more bucks, we won't post it in our Marketing Arena as abandoned data. If you read that last paragraph with a smile, print it out and put it in your wallet. When it happens, pull it out and read it and then say "He told me so." The MS way or no way is ubiquitous, even the CCCC has a "you're not using IE and you should be" tag on their site. Check the application form out. When even the computer clubs do not make allowances for people not riding the long white Windows train, how much can you expect of ordinary people. I asked Mark Lappin about the IE only tag, (which I did in a polite fashion) he indicated (very politely) that it was too much work and we should be happy he hasn't blocked the access to non-ie browsers. Friendly bunch. (Polite, but not real open.) Won't be getting my 42 bucks... > -- > -j > > John Beamon > > On 3 Jul 2002, mat branyon wrote: > > > Date: 03 Jul 2002 12:26:51 +0000 > > From: mat branyon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Reply-To: [email protected] > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: RE: [brlug-general] IE un-Security > > > > just bc someone is ignorant of certain matters does not mean that > they > > should be sheltered. if they want to use email and chat, and do > all the > > other fun things that the net has to offer, they need to realize > that > > security is a big issue, and they need to take care of it. just > bc i > > dont know how to work on cars doesnt mean i shouldnt have an > alarm > > system or change the oil myself. im not saying they should be > able to > > resolder sockets back on their motherboard, but they should know > the > > basic maintanence skills to keep thier computer running. > > > > on the other hand, if they could all do that... there would be a > lot > > fewer jobs for computer techs (like me). > > > > the moral of the story is... people need to learn to think on > thier own, > > even if it might cost me a decent job... :( i would much rather a > world > > less full of ignorance > > > > --mat > > > > > > On Wed, 2002-07-03 at 14:42, Doug Riddle wrote: > > > I want to wade in on this one, because I can see both sides. > > > <SNIP> ===== Warmest Regards, Doug Riddle http://www.dougriddle.com ## Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the Peoples' Liberty Teeth." - George Washington ## __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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