Post #441,348
4/14/22 6:55:11 PM
4/14/22 6:55:11 PM
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Exchange on the Book of Face with…
an irascible second cousin, about twenty years younger than I am: ISC: The company I work for was just taken down by a Windows user clicking on something they should not have clicked on. This cripples 15-ish large automotive manufacturers and a good chunk of the US rail system. The only systems not being held for ransom are the Linux systems I'd isolated from any Windows machines. Insurance companies are now involved. I have to cancel my flight tomorrow.
When using a PC (or a Mac) it is helpful to remember that you are literally playing with a loaded gun.
RC: Points debited for misuse of “literally.” I see that you are in the Linux camp, which includes some mavens within my online circle whom I respect.
As far as I’m aware, I’ve yet to succumb to attempts to suborn my security, but these rattlings on the doorknobs and at the windows become wearisome, particularly as I contemplate that the intrusions will become subtler and more sophisticated over time as, along the same axis, my own cognitive powers gradually erode, and that at some point the ascending and declining lines on the graph are bound to cross one another.
ISC: You are LITERALLY playing with a WMD class loaded weapon. Points debited for not knowing that.
RC: I am not literally playing with anything but a personal computer. “Literally”; “figuratively.” These are words. They have separate and distinct meanings, like “knife” and “fork.” Look ’em up. Trust the fucking English major.
This is a guy who continues to maintain that there is no difference between Biden and TFG, and exhorts us all to vote third-party. cordially,
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Post #441,349
4/14/22 7:03:18 PM
4/14/22 7:03:18 PM
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Once he went from gun to weapon he was right
Any internet connected computer is a loaded weapon. Linux boxes, Mac boxes, Windows boxes, etc. They all are loaded weapons. It's just that the windows weapons tend to backfire at their own users, and grant remote access to attackers who then use it to attack their own users.
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Post #441,350
4/14/22 7:43:36 PM
4/14/22 7:43:36 PM
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He’s just gone tankie
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
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Post #441,352
4/14/22 10:48:05 PM
4/14/22 10:48:05 PM
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It's really, really easy to be a contrarian.
I was one for far too long, too. It's an easy, and often cowardly, way to approach politics. Things are bad, so it's the system's fault and I'm too good a person to sully myself by getting involved in it. Etc.
It's wrong, and dangerous, of course.
Our government is us. We have a responsibility to participate and work to make it better.
Sorry you're having to go through that. With luck, he'll grow out of it.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #441,360
4/15/22 4:08:55 PM
4/15/22 4:08:55 PM
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“With luck, he'll grow out of it”
He’s around fifty, I think. We’re not close; I’ve only met him once since he was a child, and he was as sour in person as he is online. Politically a purity pony; votes leftie “protest” candidates since there’s no difference between the GOP and the Democrats, a position that might have seemed defensible, though not persuasive, back when Tip & Ronnie were kicking back with drinks after hours; not so much today, with the ’pubbies having gone full fash. I suspect that his approach to our national dilemma is “burn it all down.”
He has described me online as a “rabid right-winger.” I personally can’t get this to wrap around my foot, but I will leave it to others to evaluate the justice of that description.
(I am, of course, here drifting way off course from this forum’s notional purpose.)
cordially,
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Post #441,362
4/16/22 12:11:24 AM
4/16/22 12:11:24 AM
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Linux boards are always political
It's just usually different factions of Linux.
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Post #441,363
4/16/22 7:21:51 AM
4/16/22 7:47:00 AM
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He's not changing and he's a moron
And just because he likes Linux does not mean he's not a moron. I found many highly technical people who are quite competent who are absolute f****** idiots when it came to dealing with the real world. The world that involves other people.
"They're all the same argument" is an absolute avoidance and pure cowardice. Pick a side and work towards the solution or shut the f*** up.
He's a "libertarian" from the Clinton days. I remember those idiots when they were young. Don't tax me for social issues. Don't tax me for military. Don't tax me for anything, go f*** yourself. Everything else was based on their desire to pay less taxes. I heard that from some very well paid people. People who could afford those taxes and still live very well. As far as they were concerned, they didn't need to pay for roads. Infrastructure should cost them zero. They're happy to pay for health care until it hurts. Nobody else's health care though. Then they scream the doctors are paid too much and the nurses are paid too much. I had one of them tell me he was pissed that the company was paying unemployment tax for him. He should get that money. He's never going to be unemployed and if he is he's got plenty of money sitting there as a cushion. He's never going to use that system.
Selfish bastard is a good description.
The only thing those people do is act as spoilers when they vote for a third party. On the other hand, the Ross Perot libertarians siphoned off enough votes from Bush to allow Clinton to get in so they aren't all bad, they are just stupid.
Ask him what he did in the Clinton time frame.
Edited by crazy
April 16, 2022, 07:23:26 AM EDT
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April 16, 2022, 07:35:17 AM EDT
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April 16, 2022, 07:36:04 AM EDT
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April 16, 2022, 07:39:26 AM EDT
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April 16, 2022, 07:43:16 AM EDT
Edited by crazy
April 16, 2022, 07:47:00 AM EDT
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Post #441,351
4/14/22 9:05:07 PM
4/14/22 9:05:07 PM
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wrap linux with fully locked down disa stig compliance they are still vulnerable if on the net
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
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Post #441,353
4/14/22 11:10:00 PM
4/14/22 11:10:00 PM
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Anyone know what's still on the export restrictions list?
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Post #441,358
4/15/22 10:27:44 AM
4/15/22 10:27:44 AM
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start here
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
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Post #441,359
4/15/22 11:52:04 AM
4/15/22 11:57:28 AM
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Good lord that's hard to read
Found another link that reminded me what I was looking for. It wasn't the PC itself. It's the cryptography that's probably on it. If you've got anything that supports encryption above 64-bit then it's classified as a weapon and export restricted.
Edited by drook
April 15, 2022, 11:57:28 AM EDT
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Post #441,364
4/16/22 7:27:41 AM
4/16/22 7:27:41 AM
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The first commercially supported HTTPS server was classified as munitions
If you wanted a secure server you had to build it yourself and at that point it became illegal because you were using the patented algorithms that were only commercially available in one server. Apache via a particular vendor who licensed the cryptography libraries and at that point you had to sign all kinds of documents saying you wouldn't export it.
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Post #441,384
4/18/22 6:03:11 AM
4/18/22 6:03:11 AM
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I had an RSA t-shirt for a while.
Back when RSA cryptography was prohibited from being exported from the US. I never tried to take it into and then out of the US, though. Didn't want that fight at the border!
Thought you might be amused to know that.
Wade.
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Post #441,386
4/18/22 7:07:02 PM
4/18/22 7:07:02 PM
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This goes back to the late seventies at least
I remember reading an account, then, of a mathematician who’d been scheduled to present a paper at a conference. The NSA intercepted him—because the maths he was speaking of could have been employed to devise (then) unbreakable encryptions—and forbade him to appear, threatening a lengthy prison sentence if he defied them.
cryptically,
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