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From: Grant Edwards on 1 Feb 2010 10:24
On 2010-02-01, Dan C <youmustbejoking(a)lan.invalid> wrote:
> On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:10:06 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> Is there any consensus on the question of whether he's really
>> a troll -- in which case his posts are just a put-on to try to
>> elicit responses from others? Or do his posts genuinely
>> reflect his attitudes and beliefs?
>
> It's both. He *does* truly believe what he posts, because
> he's ignorant and has serious mental health issues.
>
>> If he really believes what he posts, then I don't think
>> calling him a troll is accurate.
>
> Again, it is both, and is accurate. I mean seriously, read
> his most recent 3 or 4 posts in this thread, a couple of them
> directed at you. Do you *really* think those posts were not
> made to "elicit responses"...?

I agree that he thrives on the response he gets, but I wouldn't
call him a troll if the posts are genuine. The usage of
"troll" probably differs, but in my book trolling is something
done purely for sport using artificial, consciously crafted
posts -- not something done out of genuinely held beliefs (no
matter how delusional those beliefs).

> Laugh at him like the rest of Usenet does. He's the original
> Net Kook.

He's a classic net.kook certainly, and it's probably cruel to
poke him with a stick just to watch him jump around and roar,
but I wouldn't call him a troll. To continue in the fishing
metaphor: he's not trying to catch fish because he enjoys the
sport/challenge, he's trying to catch fish because he's angry
at them and thinks they're all mocking him.

Though easily provoked as a bit of diversion, he's still a lot
less entertaining than Ludwig Plutonium or Rob McElwaine. :)

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Hey, wait
at a minute!! I want a
visi.com divorce!! ... you're not
Clint Eastwood!!
From: Andr� Gillibert on 1 Feb 2010 10:28

"Sidney Lambe" <sidneylambe(a)nospam.invalid> a �crit dans le message de news:
slrnhmc6n1.6ts.sidneylambe(a)evergreen.net...
>
> There are some very stupid people here trying to convince
> everyone that it is necesasry and right and good to always use
> the latest version of a program, to "upgrade" as soon as the next
> version is available.
>
> This is nonsense. If an application is working well for you,
> there is no reason to "upgrade" and some good reasons not to.
> (These should be pretty obvious.)
>
> What constitutes "working well" is dependent on your situation
> and needs and so forth, and has a large subjective component.
>
> I use a lot of older versions of applications because the
> later ones SUCK.
>

That's what I thought until my server was attacked due to an Apache
vulnerability, by a worm that took control of an Apache client session, and
modified all files it could, to store evil scripts inside them and make
Windows users download trojans.
The server runs Ubuntu... Ubuntu upgrades suck. Every of them failed in some
way or other, but now, I always keep the system up to date.

Now that I've more experience with Linux, I think my next system will be
based on CentOS, since it's known to be rock-solid, and have few
regressions.

--
Andr� Gillibert


From: Wanna-Be Sys Admin on 1 Feb 2010 18:14
Bit Twister wrote:

> On 1 Feb 2010 01:04:33 +0100, Sidney Lambe wrote:
>
>> There are some very stupid people here trying to convince
>> everyone that it is necesasry and right and good to always use
>> the latest version of a program, to "upgrade" as soon as the next
>> version is available.
>>
>> This is nonsense.
>
> Yeah, riiiggghhhttt.
>
>> If an application is working well for you,
>> there is no reason to "upgrade" and some good reasons not to.
>> (These should be pretty obvious.)
>
> I say it is stupid to run an application with known security flaws.
>
> Black hats usually have working exploits out within 24 to 48 hours
> after a security update to an application.

Why waste any energy replying to Sid? Anyone that doesn't get that bugs
and security issues require updates, isn't worth arguing with. He must
have gotten bored again to start trolling recently (again), when he was
away for a while. Anyway, if something's stable, secure and bug free,
I don't see anyone encouraging anyone else to upgrade just for the sake
of the newest version. Most of us, unless we need to, wait for the
bugs to be worked out in the new version before we upgrade anyway, but
Sid just doesn't get that.
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.
From: Aragorn on 2 Feb 2010 15:05
On Monday 01 February 2010 01:56 in comp.os.linux.misc, somebody
identifying as Bit Twister wrote...

> On 1 Feb 2010 01:04:33 +0100, Sidney Lambe wrote:
>
>> There are some very stupid people here trying to convince
>> everyone that it is necesasry and right and good to always use
>> the latest version of a program, to "upgrade" as soon as the next
>> version is available.
>>
>> This is nonsense.
>
> Yeah, riiiggghhhttt.

Ehm, he does have a point there, Bit. "If it ain't broke, don't fix
it", remember?

>> If an application is working well for you,there is no reason
>> to "upgrade" and some good reasons not to. (These should be pretty
>> obvious.)
>
> I say it is stupid to run an application with known security flaws.

And how careful is it to replace that application with one that has yet
unknown security flaws? ;-) Besides, there is a difference between
patching security holes and installing the "latest and greatest". Just
because there would be a security leak in, say, PHP doesn't mean that
you have to upgrade your entire system to the "latest and greatest".
Especially not if you're not even using PHP in the first place.

Look at KDE for instance. KDE 3.5.10 contained a few minor bugs but was
mostly working just fine and was fully functional. Then most
distributions started deliberately breaking KDE 3.5.10 by dumping some
of the essential packages from the tree in order to "guide" users into
using the as yet still unfinished KDE 4. (That's what happened with
Gentoo, among others. They've broken KDE 3.5.10 because of <quote> "a
few security holes" </quote> and now officially adopted KDE 4, which
contains more than "a few" bugs, and presumably a lot of security holes
as well, since some of the core packages were conceived before 3.5.10
was officially released and thus also still have an older codebase.

> Black hats usually have working exploits out within 24 to 48 hours
> after a security update to an application.

Black hats are usually too busy exploiting the bugs in the most used
(excuse for an) operating system called Microsoft Windows to
concentrate on home users running multiple variants and multiple
distributions of GNU/Linux with far too many different versions of
individual packages dispersed across the userbase.

And just for the record, Gary McKinnon supposedly broke into NASA's
computers trying to find evidence of UFOs and "did a lot of damage",
according to NASA - which is nonsense of course, since he did not
damage anything. And do you know how he got in? Here's the joke of it
all: they had a whole network of Windows XP machines with their
Administrator account set up with a blank password...

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
From: Sidney Lambe on 2 Feb 2010 16:37
On comp.os.linux.misc, Aragorn <aragorn(a)chatfactory.invalid>
wrote:

> On Monday 01 February 2010 01:56 in comp.os.linux.misc,
> somebody identifying as Bit Twister wrote...
>
>> On 1 Feb 2010 01:04:33 +0100, Sidney Lambe wrote:
>>
>>> There are some very stupid people here trying to convince
>>> everyone that it is necesasry and right and good to always
>>> use the latest version of a program, to "upgrade" as soon as
>>> the next version is available.
>>>
>>> This is nonsense.
>>
>> Yeah, riiiggghhhttt.
>
> Ehm, he does have a point there, Bit. "If it ain't broke, don't
> fix it", remember?

Here's a guy with real integrity. We've scrapped like junkyard
dogs but he's willing to acknowledge that I have a valid point
when I do.

>>> If an application is working well for you,there is no reason
>>> to "upgrade" and some good reasons not to. (These should be
>>> pretty obvious.)
>>
>> I say it is stupid to run an application with known security
>> flaws.
>
> And how careful is it to replace that application with one
> that has yet unknown security flaws? ;-)

Bingo! And it probably requires new libs with the same
potential problem too.


> Besides, there is a difference between patching security
> holes and installing the "latest and greatest". Just because
> there would be a security leak in, say, PHP doesn't mean that
> you have to upgrade your entire system to the "latest and
> greatest". Especially not if you're not even using PHP in the
> first place.
>
> Look at KDE for instance. KDE 3.5.10 contained a few minor bugs
> but was mostly working just fine and was fully functional. Then
> most distributions started deliberately breaking KDE 3.5.10 by
> dumping some of the essential packages from the tree in order
> to "guide" users into using the as yet still unfinished KDE
> 4. (That's what happened with Gentoo, among others. They've
> broken KDE 3.5.10 because of <quote> "a few security holes"
> </quote> and now officially adopted KDE 4, which contains more
> than "a few" bugs, and presumably a lot of security holes as
> well, since some of the core packages were conceived before
> 3.5.10 was officially released and thus also still have an
> older codebase.

Not to mention that KDE is twice the size of a fully graphically
functional Linux OS in the first place, a bloated and
complex suite of applications that makes your OS much less
seucure than it was just because of those properties alone.

Complexity and size make for more places to hide and more
possible entryways.

>
>> Black hats usually have working exploits out within 24 to 48
>> hours after a security update to an application.
>
> Black hats are usually too busy exploiting the bugs in the most
> used (excuse for an) operating system called Microsoft Windows
> to concentrate on home users running multiple variants and
> multiple distributions of GNU/Linux with far too many different
> versions of individual packages dispersed across the userbase.
>
> And just for the record, Gary McKinnon supposedly broke into
> NASA's computers trying to find evidence of UFOs and "did a lot
> of damage", according to NASA - which is nonsense of course,
> since he did not damage anything. And do you know how he got
> in? Here's the joke of it all: they had a whole network of
> Windows XP machines with their Administrator account set up
> with a blank password...

Yeh. The guy wasn't even a cracker. Just a kid with a
computer.

Hard to believe that NASA was that stupid, isn't it?

I mean, that's right over the edge.

Good article.

Sid





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