User-Friendly Firewalling [Re: ZeroConf in Ubuntu Edgy]

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 07:57:56PM +1200, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
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> On Jul 4, 2006, at 1:34 PM, Micah J. Cowan wrote:
> > ...
> > ...you don't think a (non-idiot*) user will notice if they suddenly 
> > get a pop-up for a program they've never heard of, asking if it's okay 
> > that an outside computer is trying to contact it?
> > ...
> 
> There are plenty of judges, accountants, electricians, biologists, 
> architects, and brain surgeons who wouldn't have a clue about the 
> correct answer to that question.

I disagree. Anybody anywhere can answer the simple question: should an
outside computer be trying to contact me? The only question is whether
they will bother to /read/ the question in the first place.

However, I don't think it's worth discussing any further, as enough
people have voiced such concern, that it would not be fruitful to
discuss without direct evidence wrt user response. And since such an
implementation would also seem not at all straightforward, it seems
unlikely that it will ever be implemented.

-- 
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer...
http://micah.cowan.name/