Linux-Advocacy Digest #955, Volume #29 Tue, 31 Oct 00 03:13:05 EST
Contents:
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...) ("Aaron R.
Kulkis")
Re: A Microsoft exodus! (javelina)
Re: Ms employees begging for food (Terje Mathisen)
Once agian: Obscurity != security (Was: Tuff Competition for LINUX! (Perry Pip)
Microsoft == Firestone (Was: Tuff Competition for LINUX! (Perry Pip)
Re: Why should I keep advocating Linux? (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 02:12:43 -0500
Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Aaron R. Kulkis
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Hey, fuckwad....it's you goddamned fucking SOCIALISTS who advocate
> > extortion, not libertarians. You know....like, *you* *BETTER* pay
> > all of these taxes so that we can write checks to crack-whores and
> > their demon spawn....or else *YOU* are going to jail.
>
> Cry me a river.
Nah. I think I'll just go down to a welfare office and set some
explosives...to go off about 2:00PM when it's good and crowded full
of both parasite welfare crack-whores and parasite welfare clerks.
>
> At least Mr. Kulkis is not an accountant.
Correct. I do something USEFUL for a living.
>
> --
> Loren Petrich
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Happiness is a fast Macintosh
> And a fast train
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
http://directedfire.com/greatgungiveaway/directedfire.referrer.fcgi?2632
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 02:13:59 -0500
Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Aaron R. Kulkis
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> > > However, your objections to the news media's coverage of politics
> > > may be interpreted as fundamentally socialistic.
>
> > So, according to you, if it's not socialist, it's unfair.
>
> Yet another sore loser of capitalism. Whenever some capitalist
> decides against him, he wails "No fair! No fair! No fair!".'
Exactly how is government confiscation of legitimate earnings, for
the purpose of buying votes from the congenitally lazy.... "fair"
>
> --
> Loren Petrich
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Happiness is a fast Macintosh
> And a fast train
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
http://directedfire.com/greatgungiveaway/directedfire.referrer.fcgi?2632
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: javelina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Microsoft exodus!
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 07:23:15 GMT
Simon Palko wrote:
> This old bit of FUD, again.
>
> It wasn't NT that crapped out, you dolts, it was the
> database crapping out on a divide by zero. Apparently
> the guy running the database for the Navy thought it
> should behave like a pocket calculator and return zero.
> Some people never learn...
The evolution of that story reminds me of Microsoft's
explanations for the current problem it had with hackers
in its network. The story changes over time, until in
the end, nothing was Microsoft's fault.
Currently, Microsoft is stating that they had been
watching and tracking the hackers from the very first
day.
We'll never really know the truth.
And it doesn't really matter. Each of us is responsible
for our own little bit of turf, whether it's just a
home computer or a bunch of systems at work.
Quite frankly, I don't want either Windows or Unix to
be running critical systems in our military machines.
There already exist some time-tested operating systems,
for example running nuclear reactor sites.
And where the hell are the manual backups? Is the Navy
trying to tell us that their ships are going to be so
dependent upon Windows that if the computers go down that
they can not manually fire up the engines and maneuver
the ship out of harm's way?
I don't care what operating system they go with, they need
to be able to get the job done manually if the need arises.
If a battle tank goes down, you can still hand-crank the
turret around and use the opticals for ranging. You don't
just sit there waiting for your ass to fry.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
The Navy regrets to inform you that your son/daughter died
when the ship's operating system failed. It's all
Microsoft's fault, really.
The Navy
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
We have traced the problem to a database error. It's
all Oracle's fault, really.
Microsoft
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
Our manual clearly states never to enter a 0 into the field.
The Navy failed to properly train its sailors. It's all
the Navy's fault, really.
Oracle
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
We're sorry to hear about the death of your son/daughter.
We're prepared to help you go after the Navy, Microsoft,
and Oracle.
The Lawyers
Dear Lawyers,
You can't go after us, we're a military branch of the Government.
The Navy
Dear Lawyers,
You can't go after us. It clearly states in our license
agreement that we're not liable for any failure of our code.
Microsoft
Dear Lawyers,
You can't go after us. It clearly states in our license
agreement that we're not liable for any failure of our code.
Oracle
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
Sorry, we're unable to help you with your case.
That'll be $9,650 you owe us for trying.
The Lawyers
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Terje Mathisen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.arch,comp.os.netware.misc
Subject: Re: Ms employees begging for food
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 08:48:02 +0100
Bengt Larsson wrote:
>
> In comp.arch, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Casper H.S. Dik - Network
> Security Engineer) wrote:
>
> >Terje Mathisen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> >>I'm willing to bet that you'll discover that CSMA/CD is perfectly
> >>willing to work with 30-60% utilization, and for a simple streaming
> >>application using maximum size packets (1500+ bytes), you'll get up to
> >>90-99%.
> >
> >It works even at utiltization over 30-60%. Pretty close to 100%
> >actually.
>
> There is a nice paper on this at
> http://research.compaq.com/wrl/techreports/abstracts/88.4.html
> This is a paper from DEC WRL.
Nice!
I did something similar but quite a bit simpler around 1987/88, by
writing a little tool (called NetSpeed), which could be loaded on any
number of workstations on a LAN/WAN.
All of them would repeatedly read a (normally large) file, trying to
saturate the network card, while gathering statistics on each transfer
using a microsecond timer.
All stations shared a counting semaphore, so they knew how many others
were simultaneously trying to do the same task: This was used to group
the measurements by the current number of stations.
The result of all this was a continously updated graph, showing
effective file read speeds (min, average, max), with one bar for each
station count.
Re. the current "discussion" with Mr. Max; since that time, I have
_known_ that the 'classic' 30% max utilization number is plain wrong.
Terje
--
- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Using self-discipline, see http://www.eiffel.com/discipline
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Perry Pip)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Once agian: Obscurity != security (Was: Tuff Competition for LINUX!
Date: 31 Oct 2000 07:52:40 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sun, 29 Oct 2000 22:21:56 -0800,
Bruce Schuck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:B08L5.12299$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>> "Bruce Schuck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> news:QF1L5.116842$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >
>> > > > The real lesson is: Say NO to VPN's. Say NO to dial-up access from
>> > outside
>> > > > the secure LAN.
>> > > >
>> > > > DO NOT TRUST ANY MACHINE OUTSIDE YOUR FIREWALL.
>> > >
>> > > Hey! The real lesson here is don't trust Microsoft!
>> >
>> > Everyday the Linux source is checked in and out of the software source
>> code
>> > repository and worked on. And most of those computers are at home. They
>> > aren't behind a firewall. They could be just as infected as that
>Microsoft
>> > employees computer.
>> >
>> > Makes you feel all safe and cozy with Linux. Right?
>>
>> You do understand that the most serious hacking comes from
>> inside, don't you? Disgruntled employees, industrial spies,
>> and the like....
>
>And someone else said there were 200,000 open source programmers. Scary!
>
200,000 open source programmers looking at the code. Only one needs to
be honest enough to reveal a trojan and then the whole world
knows. Because of this, no open source programmer even thinks of
putting a trojan in the code, becuase he knows it would be there for
the public to see, he'd get caught, and no one would ever let him
contribute to an OSS project ever again, not to mention he could go to
jail. Funny how human behavior changes when it's open for the public
to see.
OTOH, A closed source vendor, or it's employees, OTOH, can do anything
behind closed doors with no public scrutiny. Thus, you must trust
integrety of the vendor, it's employees, and their security
policies. You can never have your own independant security audit of
the product you use. You are at the mercy of the vendor.
Perry
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Perry Pip)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Microsoft == Firestone (Was: Tuff Competition for LINUX!
Date: 31 Oct 2000 07:53:32 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 08:21:14 +0200,
Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Well, for a start, they are going to have unaffected copies of the source
>code, remember?
>They've change logs.
>They can simply run a doc compar of the code and check only the portions of
>it that changed.
Sure, they can do this to assess the damages. But what if they find
something really bad?? Suppose they discover that a trojan was put in
W2k updates, and tens of thousands downloaded it?? Would they announce
it to the public?? Or would they try to cover it up?? What did
Firestone try to do when they found out their tires were flawed and
people were dying?? Why would MS be different from any other large
corporation with a mistake to hide.
>Please, this "we can never trust MS s/w now" is total bull!
No it's not. Fact is you can't trust any corporation that can hide so
much information from the public. By using any closed source product,
you are placing a blind trust in the company, it's employees, and
their security policies.
>And you either an idiot for not knowing it, or you know it and spreading
>FUD.
>
Ignorance is bliss. Isn't it.
>
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:q9tgt8.n6k.ln@gd2zzx...
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andy Newman) wrote:
>> >
>> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Charlie Ebert wrote:
>> > ..all sorts of rampant speculation...
>> >
>> > Wow Charlie. Take that medication quick smart! You're starting
>> > to make the Chads look good.
>> >
>> > What MS say is that they have no evidence that anything was
>> > stolen (see press release). But they only found out a Qaz
>> > trojan was running on a machine inside their network the other
>> > day. And reports of its age range from 1 to 3 months. Who
>> > really knows what went on in that time. They don't log
>> > everything and may not always be able to tell the difference
>> > between an intruder's actions and those of the legitimite
>> > user in any case.
>>
>> you tell Charlie to take medication and then go on to say that
>> nobody, including Microsoft, knows what actually has been done.
>> Well we know that their network was wide open for a long time
>> to whoever got the passwords. It is irrelevant whether they took
>> Microsoft s/w or modified it. You cannot trust their s/w from
>> now on. Even they don't know if it has been modified. How do you
>> audit 50 million lines of source code?
>
>
--
Perry Piplani http://www.netservers.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://perrypip.netservers.com
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why should I keep advocating Linux?
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 07:53:31 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
spicerun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> To the Wintrolls.....Go Away! This post has nothing to do with you.
>
> During the time I've tried to advocate Linux,
> I keep getting flamed about how I'm not doing
> advocating Linux correctly.
Any advocacy is better than nothing. Ideally we want to be as honest
and realistic as possible. We want to set realistic expectations,
and we don't want to make rediculous claims (like "using Linux will
get you laid":-).
You have had positive experiences with Linux, and you want to tell
others about your positive experiences.
This might not be the best time to discuss the features that will be
offered in 2.4, but it's still good to discuss the features that are
supported officially.
> I'm afraid that the right way to advocate
> Linux seems to be to just say nothing,
> run Linux on my own systems, and say
> nothing hoping that the other people see what
> I'm running and flock to my machine to
> find out more about Linux. I've
> done this but I've never had this happen.
I've been pretty successful at creating Linux "showcases", putting
a Linux powered system in a location that makes it easy to see that
Linux is more than just "a text only system based on UNIX".
> It seems I can't say Linux is ready for prime time,
Sure you can. Bless any of the formally released versions. I
personally like Mandrake and SuSE for desktop use, and Red Hat
for servers.
> nor am I allowed to say that it will ever be ready
> for prime time in order to properly advocate Linux.
Actually, several versions of Linux have been released that have
produced extraordinary results. There are more goodies coming up,
but you need to focus on "What Is" rather than beta releases that
may be months away.
> I find this very hard to do since I've been running
> Linux on my machines for the past 2 years, and have
> been able to get my work done in prime time
> (including doing work for my employer on my
> laptop running linux).
Very good. You might want to put some of this information on
web pages and get it documented.
There are WinTrolls who will disguise themselves as Linvocates
saying that you shouldn't say that.
> So when am I going to be able to advocate that
> it is ready for prime time? Apparently, even hinting that Linux is
> ready for Prime Time is being a 'bad' Linvocate.
Actually, we know that Linux IS ready for Prime Time. The currently
available official releases are remarkable. They still provide
massive "bang for the buck".
No, there is no officially released kernel that supports USB scanners,
fire-wires hard-drives, and very large files. These will have to come
later. They aren't supported in any current official release.
So don't focus what isn't available. Focus on what is available.
You still have support for USB mice and Keyboards, parallel port
EPP drives such as Zip and Jazz, and CD-Burners. You can focus
on what Linux does do well today.
> I seem to have to join a group philosophy
> that Linux has to be compared to Windows.
> I really don't understand why.
Quite simply, there are about 500 million Windows users. They
have known and played with Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, and 98. A much
smaller group has played with NT 3.51, NT 4.0, and Windows 2000.
> My research into the
> history of Linux has pretty well convinced
> me that Windows was nowhere a
> factor into the creation and development of Linux.
The main significance was that Microsoft had successfully blocked
Linux' entry into the marketplace from about 1994 (Yddragasil,
Slackware, Red Hat) to 2000. The OEMs did plan a series of linux
releases, but delays in the 2.4 kernel and planned implementation
using USB, FireWire, and streaming video (large files) has put
the entire product line on hold.
> Furthermore, a lot
> of people keep popping off about how KDE
> and Gnome are both Windows
> look-alike, but what I see is that
> KDE is more of enhanced CDE Desktop,
You are correct. KDE is loosely based on CDE look-and-feel.
Given that CDE is normally only available on $10,000-$80,000 UNIX
workstations, it's not exactly a well-known desktop. Only about
10 million people, mostly very technical, have ever seen CDE close-up.
Of course, few people have driven a Porsche or Corvette either, but
at least millions have SEEN Corvettes and Porsches. The few UNIX
displays seen in the media have been things like La Femme Nikita,
the Norad display on War Games, and some science fiction shows.
And even then, the use of time-lapse photography to make displays
go about 10 times faster than the real thing just completely blow
credibility.
> and Gnome seems to be a cross/enhancement
> of Motif Window Manager and
> CDE (Common Desktop Environment).
Correct again. GNOME uses Athena 3-D which was the enhanced
open source version of the original Athena extended to provide
the look and feel of Motif. Lestif was an attempt to bring
most of the Motif API to Athena. And GNOME much better toolkit,
including CORBA (distributed) support.
> So, why in the process of advocating
> must I keep measuring Linux progress against Windows?
Nothing wrong with comparing it to other things. You could compare
it to an I-Mac, or to an Ultra, or an HP/9000 workstation, or an
RS/6000 workstation. But you would have to have some way to show
people what the original looked like.
The paradox is that NTSC video can't display UNIX displays with
2048x1536 resolution. Perhaps the most dramatic Linux exposure
was the use of Linux on "Titanic", but even then the actual graphics
display consoles were SGI Indy's.
> I seem to have to join a group philosophy
> that Linux has to have a
> single GUI standard just like Windows.
Sounds like you've been hammered by some WinTrolls.
As Bob Young says, the primary selling point of Linux is
that the user get control. They can choose which window
manager, desktop, toolkits, office suites, and groupware
products they want. Since there are standards which are
common between the choices, the user has the freedom to
choose.
> I can't buy this and I just
> won't.....I enjoy my freedom of choice,
Precisely. If you didn't want choice, you'd go back to
Microsoft.
> and really appreciate that I can
> make my machine look like Motif or CDE or
> Windows or Amiga or Atari or
> Macintosh or just a simple Unix only
> Desktop on an account by account
> basis.
More important, you can set your configurations based on your
performance and capability needs.
> However this seems to make me an improper Linux advocate.
Actually, this makes you a very good Linux Advocate. It might
not qualify you as a KDE advocate, but that's fine. So long as
KDE continues to support ICCCM, you can mix and match GNOME, KDE,
FVWM2, or any other tool-kit/desktop combination.
This is hard for people to grasp. Many people don't realize that
TCP/IP makes it possible for hundreds of different types of computers,
including several different operating systems, manufacturers, and
performance levels, to interoperate seemlessly.
> And, finally, I've read the Linux Advocacy-HOWTO,
> and all I really get out of it is to show Linux by example,
> but don't buck the Windows hierarchy.
Unfortunately, Windows bashing is often threatening to those who
have never used anything but Windows. By making comparisons between
the best of Windows and showing how Linux goes a step beyond, you
tend to make more friends and fewer enemies among the Linux community.
> I don't understand how we can promote Linux if we don't let
> the world know that Linux is here, yet we can just take it when the
> Wintrolls keep spreading their lies about Linux.
Lately I've noticed that there seem to be a bunch of WinTrolls
posing as Linux Advocates. They attempt to argue that Linux
developers DONT CARE about making money, or even gaining commercial
acceptance.
It's a pretty good strategy. I've even been suckered by it.
If they can get the Linux advocates attacking each other, they
can undermine the credibility of Linux as a business, desktop,
and consumer platform.
The old arguments that Linux was too hard to install disappear with
products like TiVo and NetPliance machines that let even the most
computerphobic users have fun with Linux "Appliances".
The possibility of seeing fully installed, fully functional Linux
systems on Workstations and laptops in the $1000-$2000 range
creates the possibility of something really exciting. It could
easily blow the Windows market wide-open.
> I just don't think this philosophy will ever
> get Linux in a position where people will
> even look at it.
Precisely the point. WinTrolls are using deception, posing as
"politically correct" advocates.
> So I guess I have to conclude that
> I'm not a Linvocate that plays by the
> Linux Advocacy rules (who made these rules anyhow?).
There are some people who are legitimately upset with Linus for
the delays to 2.4 (including myself), but if you look at press
releases from Bob Young, Ransom Love, and the other hundreds
of corporate leaders who put their butt on the line for Linux
every day, you can see that you aren't so far off.
> Comments?
Just keep doing what you're doing. Let people know what you love
about Linux TODAY.
>
--
Rex Ballard - VP I/T Architecture
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 9%/month! (recalibrated 10/23/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
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