[techtalk] Re: techtalk digest, Vol 1 #450 - 14 msgs

[James Sutherland]

On Sat, 12 May 2001, Linda MacPhee-Cobb wrote:

> > > Which manual?  There is no "Linux manual" per se.  It depends on how
> > > well the individual distro documents things and writes their manual.
>
> Rute, the manual that came with caldera, insiders guide to linux, the linux
> superbible, and two o'reilly guides to linux amoung others.

An "insiders' guide" is likely to assume you already know basics of this
sort - as you mentioned, this is documented on newbie WWW pages!

> >of the reasons why Linux mailing lists and user groups are so popular.
> >There's a big difference between reading the books and actually
> >maintaining a system.  Ideally, you get some of both.
>
> I thought that was what I was doing reading manuals and subscribing to this
> list when I wasn't working on other projects.

I think you've skipped the basic reading material you need, though: a good
newbie's guide would have made it clear to you that this is *NOT* a
vulnerability/compromise/exploit/hole/backdoor, as we have tried to
explain...

> > Okay, small pet rant here.  Linux can be made to be incredibly
> >secure.  Many distributions ship that way (TurboLinux, Debian).  Others
> >ship more with ease of use in mind (Red Hat) than security by default.
>
> When I installed this version of mandrake it gave several options from  open
> to crackers to paraniod.  One would assume high security actually meant high
> security

It does. NETWORK security. Security against PHYSICAL ACCESS is:

a) Effectively impossible. Government agencies booby-trap their
high-security laptops with self-destruct charges, and keep the data
encrypted, but there is nothing software can do to protect against
physical access.

b) Worse than useless in 90% of cases: If you don't trust those with
physical access to the machine, your security problem lies outside the PC
in the first place.

> >it takes a knowledgable sysadmin to turn on necessary services and get
> >it to work.)
>
> Who has the time.  I want to spend time developing not fixing the operating
> system.

Developing?!? You wouldn't be "fixing the OS", you would be configuring
your machine the way you seem to want it. Allowing untrusted users
physical access to the machine is worse than posting the root password on
the WWW: just don't do it.


(snip Jeff's "She's a troll, look at that silly username")

> ????????????
> I am sorry Jeff but why are you making a personal attack on me?  The reason
> we have a linux chix list so as to not be judged on our looks or is that all
> you value women for?  Yes I have a Master's Degree in Science in Physics.

"not to be judged on our looks" - you're the one who brought that topic
up, "Pretty Physics Lady"...

> You are a jack ass....
>
> And not one of the women on this list finds these comments from Jeff out of
> line?

Most of the objections are to YOUR comments: trying to compare Linux
unfavourably to Win95 in particular is just silly. Jeff has a point: you
DO look like a troll when you say things like that.

The problem here is that you have a newbie FAQ:

"Q: HELP! I've found a huge security hole in lilo which gives root
access!"

"A: No you haven't. If you want to restrict usage of this, put the line
'password=<password of choice>' in /etc/lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo. Make
sure /etc/lilo.conf is root-owned, with 0600 modes, so nobody can read the
password"

This mistake (and it *IS* a mistake) is made very frequently. Just read
the answer above, and follow it.

> Perhaps instead of advertising my physics background you would prefer my
> cooking skills

Some reference to computing skills would be more on-topic, perhaps...


James.
-- 
"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big
system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'"

"TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make
any difference if it takes a while to fix it."
		-- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988