On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Dana Paxson <[email protected]> wrote: > > I like this discussion. > > Eric Scoles wrote: >> >> >> On 2009-01-12, *Dana Paxson* <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> [snip] >> >> >> After all, we've built spam filters and anti-malware code of great >> sophistication and power; couldn't that same ingenuity be applied to >> redesigning TCP/IP and fitting it forward to prevent what we >> suffer now? >> >> One-way links have the terrible weakness of anonymity of their >> source -- >> a virtue in a trustworthy setting, but a weakness in the general >> world. >> >> >> >> A weakness, but also a strength, because it allows me to be >> unconcerned with getting the approval of anyone I link to. I regard >> that as a great boon to free society, by way of encouraging the free >> flow of information. Two-way links imply two-way approval: >> I would have the right to deny someone the ability to link to me. >> Personally, I think that's wrong, and I think it would be liable to >> kill network viability. > Well, doggone it, I've had a bellyful of one-way trash flung in my face, > and I am not receptive to just any old nutjob waving text and images and > oh yes, malware at me.
One way to nearly eliminate malware is to do away with Windows once and for all, or to demand that MS overhaul it so that the malware can't take advantage of its security holes. There is little, if any, malware for Unix-based OSs, such as Mac OS X and the various Linuxes (Linuxi?), and what there is requires the user to give it permission to run. Unix has been around a long time and is installed on millions of servers, yet no malware of significance. Microsoft Windows is much younger, but has thousands and thousands of viruses, Trojans, and other nasties. That wouldn't do away with the spam, but it would reduce malware threats to tens instead of tens of thousands. Acceptance is the problem, again. While Ubuntu is helping bring lesser geeks and even non-geeks into the Linux world, and the Vista problems urged people to look at alternatives like Mac OS X and Linux, there is still a huge amount of inertia confronting any massive OS change, not to mention the economic incentive millions of techies have to stand in the way of a truly secure OS. My 2¢. (btw - you know what I have to do to insert the ¢ symbol on my Mac? Option-2. To do it in Windows... Well, I know how to do it in Word and other Office programs, but I'm not sure if I could do it in Firefox without jumping through a lot of hoops.) -- Dave Henn [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
