Jerry Yeager wrote: > You are letting you imagination (and lack of knowledge) run away with > you Tony. > > Unix is an operating system that is meant to be ran all of the time > instead of being shutdown a lot. OS-X like most Unixes needs to do > housekeeping on a regular basis. it keeps a lot of records of what it > does during the day in various log files, and these can get very > large, so it takes care of that by compressing them and rotating the > old ones out of the way. This takes processor time so it does this > late at night when most folks are not using the system. Also It checks > the status of running operations and cleans things up when it finds a > problem. This is also part of the housekeeping stuff.
Bryan Forrest wrote: > I'm reminded of an encounter I had with an older woman who was > adamantly opposed to online shopping. She felt it was too insecure and > didn't want to give her personal information to some anonymous > website. I reminded her that the website had several technologies > built-in to help confirm her identity, to make sure no one else could > read the transaction and to make sure the transaction was completed as > securely as possible, but she would have none of it. Finally I asked > her, "So you aren't willing to trust a website, which uses a secure > form of the web protocol with 128-bit encryption so no one can capture > your data, but you will hand your credit card to some anonymous > 17-year-old cashier at Wal-Mart without hesitation? > > Hi Jerry & Bryan Rather than bore everyone with individual e-mails, I thought it would be better if I responded with one e-mail. Jerry, you may be right. My imagination and lack of knowledge may be out of kilter, but being wary of security devices in general, isn't based on my knowledge or lack thereof, regarding computers. It's based on the history of every security device that came down the pike since the lock. One way or another, they've all been bypassed. That includes everything mechanical, electrical or electronic, so I don't think 128 bit encryption codes are going to be any different. In response to Bryans e-mail, you may be hesitant to hand your credit card over to a 17 year old cashier in K-Mart, but you have no choice unless you pay in cash. However, it may be a little easier tracking down the 17 year old cashier than fingers at aol.com. Things might be a little better when something like iSight becomes a web standard, but until that day comes, I wouldn't trust the internet as far as I can throw it. As far as UNIX goes, I'm completely in the dark, but based on what little I know about computers and software, I can't wholehartedly swallow the housekeeping line. The only thing I'm aware of that needs to be taken care of if the computer is left on continuously, is removing the names of trashed files from their directories. Everything else should be taken care of as it happens. Right now the only large log files I'm familiar with are software install logs. I have no idea what could possibly be stored on those large log files you mentioned. Maybe I'll find out when I eventually upgrade. Right now the new OS sounds like it's somewhere between OZ and the Twilight Zone. -- Tony LaFemina When you want to do more than just buy software http://hometown.aol.com/visitmacland/index.html mailto:remacs at optonline.net | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be April 27. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
