[Off Topic] Re: Linux security

[Peter Garrett]

On Mon, 01 May 2006 10:00:13 +0800
"Michael T. Richter" <ttmrichter at gmail.com> wrote:

[ enormous snip -apologies, Michael and Alan ]

> Windows
> is available to anybody with a half a brain cell to spare. 

Of course, it could be argued that Linux is now also available to the
similarly endowed.

I snipped all the (very interesting) material you've exchanged with Alan
because most of it sailed several kilometres over my head. in my usual
fashion, I'm adding some rather generalised musings to the discussion...

( Yes, thank you, Topic Police, you are probably right that this belongs
on "Sounder" - I have this subversive tendency to introduce the
occasional non-Ubuntu thought process into the narrows. Log jams are not
always counter-productive )

I compare the easy availablity of powerful computing to the general
populace with allowing a 17 year-old to drive around town in a Ferrari;
potentially dangerous without adequate training. I'm not sure what the
solution to this is, really, but some of the problems seem to me :

1) Everyone is suddenly a system admin with root privileges. The fact that
most people don't think about the responsibilities and dangers implied by
that state of affairs leads to things like

* Running as root online ( more difficult with a sudo model, but seen too
often for my taste). People who do this will often say " Yeah, I know I'm
leaving my box open to compromise, but hey, it's my system and if I get
owned, it's my problem". Trying to explain that they are connected to
millions of others and therefore putting those people at potential risk is
usually a waste of breath ... erm ... bandwidth.

* Hey, I can't edit this file! What a pain!

$ sudo chmod -R 777 /some/crucial/directory/tree

The rest is left as an exercise for the reader...

2) Most people *hate* computers. At work, they have constant problems,
either of their own making or due to incompetent admins, or hardware, and
so on. At home, their computer suddenly "Doesn't Work". For them it is an
appliance, a black box. They have no interest in how it works, and usually
no concept of its complexity and power.

I see this as a sad commentary on the education system. People who are
fortunate enough to be born in the "right" countries now are likely to
become literate in the traditional sense of the word. They are much less
likely to have the remotest level of  computer literacy - where "computer
literacy" is defined not on the professional level ( analogy: professional
writer ), but on the general level (being able to understand and read at a
functional level).

Basis for this "rant":

We are living in a transitional period - the transition is from the
centuries-old traditional print & picture based model to an entirely new
model in which everything is instantly connectable with everything else.
Old paradigms no longer work, and we haven't yet come up with adequate new
ones. In this interim period there is huge potential for a new way of
viewing all aspects of culture - there is also potential for the whole
"revolution" of thought that this implies to be lost because of a lack of
imagination, coupled with the usual culprits of special interest, power and
so on that will never go away, human society being as it has always been.

Unless we change the way people are educated, and have new ways to deal
with the new power that education can bring, we will remain at the mercy
of a few powerful groups who understand what is happening and take
advantage of it.


Here endeth the rant...

Peter
-- 


"Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy."

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