[Off Topic] Re: Linux security

[Lorin B Pino]

Daniel Carrera wrote:

> Michael T. Richter wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 2006-04-05 at 21:07 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>
>>> If Daniel's family are getting 0wned, then either there is a family 
>>> member that isn't following the rules and infecting everyone else or 
>>> there is a hole out there that he hasn't taken into account.
>>
>>
>> And I suspect the former.  Whenever I hear people say "but I didn't 
>> do anything hazardous" -- and I mean 100% of the time -- a bit of 
>> digging finds that they practised unsafe computing.  And it often 
>> only takes one moment of inattention.
>
>
> I doubt it, but let's assume that that's what happened. If all it 
> takes is one moment of inattention to render the computer useless, 
> that tells me that the system is seriously broken. An operating system 
> should *not* require constant concentration to use successfully. A 
> system that is as fragile as you describe is *not* secure. A secure 
> system has sane defaults, fails gracefully, and is resilient to small 
> errors.
>
> Cheers,
> Daniel.

All it takes is something coming from a trusted source, and then we are 
back to the statement about everyone's computer affecting everyones 
machine that they interact with.  You are only as secure as the least 
secure contact that you trust.  If you want to be 100% secure don't 
connect to the net, and it maybe it would be best to not run any 
programs.  How many knits can we pick?
~Lorin