Homeland Security: Lock up your Windows

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RE: not at all

Nothing is wrong with giving people insight, which makes me wonder why you don't explain to people that while Microsoft may "announce" and release a patch for a hole on the same day, it may have KNOWN about that patch for months, if not longer. Microsoft may have learned about that hole the day before the patch was released, or they may have known about it for months, leavng Homeland Security PCs vunerable to terrorist hacking all that time. This GAP between the date Microsoft learns about a security hole and the date they announce and publish the patch raises SERIOUS concerns about our National safety. Even your rear is at rics, Loverlock. Put on a brave face, but don't deceive folks about Microsoft's security.

You also betray a lack of experience when you glibly state that dialups are not targets of viruses because of their "short online time'. Where did you pick up that piece of disinformation from? Even v.92 modems take anywhere from 10 to 100 times as long to do what broadband conncections take only a couple of minutes to do. Changing IP addresses have nothing to do with dialup susceptibility. If they are on line they can be infected within minutes, regardless of the IP address. Some within seconds after connecting, if they are unlucky enough.

It is also obvious that your Linux "experience" is dated by at least 6 years, IF you have any at all. Your comments about taking an "hour" to compile a patch would be identical to me criticing VISTA by citing Win3.1 experience. I've been using Linux for eight years and I haven't had to compile a patch ... ever ... for MEPIS 6.0, 3.4.3, 3.3.1, PCLinuxOS, Mandrake 9, 10, SUSE 9, 10, FC2, RHEL3... NONE of them required me to compile a patch from source. ALL of them have automatic patch install capabilities. IF you had any recent experience with Linux you know that... and that makes your "compile' statement disinformation, or worse if you have had no Linux experience.

I recently wrote a crossplatform program using QT4/C++ for in-house use where I work. It takes about 3 minutes to compile on MEPIS, about 25 minutes on Win2K using MSVC++2003. It is MUCH bigger than a virus program. The last time I took an hour to compile a program on Linux was when I recompiled the kernel on SUSE 5.3 in 1998, running a 486DX PC. Actually it was only about 40 minutes.

Stick to the truth, Loverock.

Posted by: GreyGeek   Posted on: 08/09/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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