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Some of the latest from the absurd Robert Pogson wants you to ignore the man behind the curtain who pushes out all those security updates for Linux distributions.
Consider Mr. Pogson’s thought experiment of what would happen if a 1/3 of the worlds PCs were not updated for a month. Apparently, it would be the end of civilization as all of these PCs would be compromised and work would grind to a halt. Linux, however, is somehow immune to this.
I guess that is why distributions like Ubuntu put out all of these security notices. It must just be tons of fun to sit and repackage security fixes that have already been repackaged 20 times for all of the other major distributions have already repackaged themselves.
Comments
Except when Windows does it. 'Cuz then, it just shows how bad Windows security is. And how crappy MS codes.
I note that Pogo-san has apparently received 22,827 spam comments. This raises two interesting questions:
(1) Don’t spammers have anything better to do?
(2) Does anybody else in the whole wide internetz record the number of spam comments on their front page?
Glad to see that his blog format is still catering by default for the visually impaired, though. I left a couple of TMs just for the benefit of the mentally impaired.
Is that what it is? I thought I must have accidentally zoomed in on that page.
Incidentally: those security vulnerabilities, as documented on http://www.ubuntu.com/usn. As you know, I’ve got a residual semi-professional interest in these things (ie I’m no longer employed to do so). But, I’m a fair man, so I checked in to a promising one more-or-less at random. This — http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-704-1 — is what I found.
Well, it’s not good enough, is it?
No proper description of the problem (sorry, “man-in-the-middle” doesn’t do). No useful information for a tester. No link to www.mitre.org, for God’s sake. Bugger all, except a list of one-shot packages that the Benevolent Dictator has blessed with his Holy Penguin Urine.
Apparently some people use Ubuntu as a server. Listen, all of you: it will only cause you grief and heartache. Look up your childhood sweetheart on FaceBook — it’ll have the same effect, but you’ll be cured for life.
IRL Facts: Flash is having an install base of 97-98% and had a hole discovered in 2008 that has not been fixed until Flash 10.1 got released.
( btw, shock: Linux was also affected ! )
And yes, if you use Gnash you were not affected! Now if that doesn’t prove the points of that guy… Free software is obviously inherently more secure… Did I already mention it’s open source?
“They may just say “Enough!” and migrate to GNU/Linux instead of constantly fighting to keep systems running.”
If we had signatures here, I’d put that in mine.
“Where I work, I found systems on SP1! Of course half of them did not work. I updated to SP3 and it was still too much work to keep them running. GNU/Linux is solidly giving service on most machines now.”
Hmm apparently 'M$’ is also guilty of not patching an outdated version of an almost 10 year old OS. See, it’s so much work to pull SP3 into WSUS, you wouldn’t believe it.
“A teacher could not get her printer to print nor her digital camera to work. Even though she had used both of these devices with XP for months, we had cleaned up her system and re-installed drivers but this time, the printer driver would not install.”
And now their Linux IT pro comes into play and saves that poor girl.
“We downloaded several times but it just would not install. I could have installed a share of the same printer which would install a driver by transfer over the LAN but this was a secondary machine which she wanted mostly for kids, so I decided to install GNU/Linux.”
Of course he did this after he checked the eventlog and the install logs… I mean he is not a guy without experience, right? Right?
“I clicked a couple of times on http://localhost:631 (CUPS web interface) and she was printing again. The camera did not work right away. It had to be set to work as a USB storage device. Problem solved and the kids have way more educational games.”
Totally not esoteric workaround.
The qualified comments are there, too:
“Where I work we went from dozens of infections per machine to four, and they are all products of M$: IE, Messenger, WMP, and one other that escapes me.”
I work with Windows Messenger… WHAT YOU MEAN YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME?
“8 year old PC: P4 2.8 gHz, 512 MB, LCD monitor 17 inch.”
Funny thing is, my school runs such PCs as well ( we got some 2.8 P4s with 512MB RAM and graphics cards that don’t support NT6 actually ), only we got CRT monitors. And you guessed right if they run Windows 7 perfectly fine. ( of course, those with stoneage graphics cards don’t run Aero, but we got some PCs with 3.0ghz P4s and a bit better GFX cards, those have Windows 7 drivers, and run Aero lag free as well ).
“I had 30 users on that GNU/Linux terminal server that day and I could not believe how well it worked on a single 32bit core at 1.8 gHz. When everything is cached in RAM even a slow-poke is fast. The thin client only used about 40MB of RAM to show the pix and send the clicks.”
I am wondering whether he was referring to a terminal server or a host for terminals. I wouldn’t but the first one, but 30 idle shells, omg that is awesome. I think we should all get Linux if it can run 30 terminals on a 1.8ghz machine!
Do i see a Voldemort™ on that page??
At least they constantly refer to “that other OS”
That page reeks of FSF fundamentalism.
Bonus points for end of civilization.
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