OT: my broadband

did you just click and download a later versions then?

With linux, you merely meed to change the repostories do an update and an upgrade..

no media involved at all.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher
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That's cr@p. The intent is to root your machine and then use it to control botnets. They do this without doing damage if possible so the suckers that think they are immune never find out.

Did you remember to regenerate your keys after Ubuntu reintroduced the not quite random key generator software back into the OS? The fix put the random generator right but did not fix the keys that were insecure. If you didn't and are running Ubuntu from that era you are still insecure and possibly rooted.

Reply to
dennis

Yes. That gave me an installer. I just ran that.

Reply to
Tim Streater

to root the machine you need a root privilege process.

Unlike windows, that fairly rate on *nix.

All the vulnerable software runs as a user.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Rubbish.

There have been lots of root access vulnerabilities in linux.

There still are.

Reply to
dennis

Don't ask me the details, I don't understand them! But quite a few years ago, 5+, I allowed a very computer savvy friend of mine to persuade me that the best firewall protection I could have was a PC running Linux between the outside world and my network. After 6 months of trouble free use I received a letter from NTL, my ISP, telling me that if I didn't stop sending bulk spam all over the internet they would disown me.

Some wise guy had hacked the Linux firewall PC and was merrily using it for his own devices.

I lost faith after that.

I'm sure there were patches etc. to get over the problem, but at the time it was easier to ditch it.

Reply to
Bill

Source? (If I had broadband I'd look it up myself, but I'm using a 3G dongle in a remote area)

Andy

Reply to
Vir Campestris

name one

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

well if you leave open doors people will walk in.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

The usual killer with Mac upgrades IME is when they remove capabilities but without advertising them. Had a customer apply the latest OSX upgrade, only to find that it broke the version of creative suite they were using. Adobe's only fix was to offer to sell and upgrade at a discounted price of £1,700.

Reply to
John Rumm

uk.comp.sys.mac and comp.sys.mac.system are over there ----->

You'll find people in either ng who will tell you what you need to know.

Reply to
Tim Streater

And they all require the user to authorise the installation, through subterfuge.

Reply to
Adrian

Agreed although comparatively few end users originate that much content some of the online backup and cloud functions do eat uplink bandwidth.

448k is only a minor irritation most of the time. Basically you start an ftp session in the background and/or walk away for a hour or three.

I think it disingenuous of the government to set the standard at 2Mbps - it is not enough for the main consumer application of streamed HD video content on demand and a bit borderline for basic rate TV streams.

Agreed, but at least it is fast enough to allow the majority of end users to do the sorts of things that are advertised as "possible".

Reply to
Martin Brown

So what stopped them? Borrowing money now is free, even the most basic cable customers with just a telephone service produce a revenue stream of 150 quid per annum, those with tv service and broadband anything from 250 quid to 600 quid. But what margin there is is debatable.

Reply to
The Other Mike

Linux is like unix.. very useful but it takes more knowledge to use it properly. You can tell who doesn't have the required knowledge.. they keep telling you its secure.

Reply to
dennis

I name the next exploit to be found, Arthur. You can go and look at the exploits database for the previous ones.

Reply to
dennis

Rubbish. There are other faults that don't require the user at all. Just go and read some of the previous fixes required and then tell me there aren't any new ones.

Reply to
dennis

Actually, that is true.

There are some about which require whoever set the machine up to have done so badly, which - with servers and firewalls that provide external services direct to t'internet - can be very easy to do. I should have qualified my previous comment to refer to a properly and competently configured machine. My 'pologies.

For a desktop machine, configured with software from the repo, it's vanishingly unlikely.

Reply to
Adrian

And behind a NAT router

They only conceivable way to 'break into' my setup here would be if the router was compromised first.

Or I loaded up same malware written in (probably) java. There is no way that even I can install code without at least typing in my password.

Java might rip through data that I own, but if I noticed it in time I have yesterdays backup that is inaccessible without a root password

The sorts of jpg and macro exploits that infest WORD and so on don't work on libre office.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

And at least in their hands or behind a NAT router, it is

Ive been running this desktop for about 6 years now and its never 'caught' anything at all. Although I could, I haven't done anything to fireprof it.

No point. The router stops attacks initiated from outside, and such malware as does exist for linux - and its pretty damned small - would need a totally stupid person to install.

Rooting happens on linux servers NOT behind NAT far far more. I have such as well an I have spent a lot of hour on its firewall logs and backup. I can see at a glance if its being attacked or compromised and any changes to its file system are emailed to me once a day as part of its backup.

But for the average noddy user linux is the most secure option 'out of the box' by far, for a desktop.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

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