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Linux Pipeline Newsletter www.LinuxPipeline.com Tuesday, May 31, 2005 In This Issue: - Mozilla Readies Alpha Release For Firefox Update - Microsoft's Fix For New Netscape Bug: Dump Netscape - Security Firm Delivers Firefox Anti-Phishing Extension - More News... - Survey: Many Web Users Unaware Of Browser-Security Link - Review: PepperPad Amazes, But What Is It? - Love At First Surf -- One Firefox Feature IE Can't Beat - More Picks... Join InformationWeek for a FREE, on-demand TechWebCast on Transforming IT Using ITIL Best Practices: Optimizing Service Delivery. Industry experts discuss how organizations can benefit from ITIL best practices - from ensuring availability to implementing change control. Register and view today: http://www.techweb.com/webcasts/itil033005 ----------------------------------------- Editor's Note: Halfway Home Anyone who works with technology knows how tempting it can be -- and how utterly wrong -- to conflate ignorance with stupidity. While "ignorance" is never an endearing term, it's important to remember what it means (a lack of knowledge or education) as well as what it doesn't mean (a lack of grey matter between the ears). I kept this notion fresh in my mind when I read this week's story about a recent survey that found half of all Web users still don't get the connection between Web browsers and computer security. The fact is, these results probably say less about the competence of the users surveyed than they do about people who spend a third of their lives staring at a computer screen, working with badly designed tools that slowly drive them nuts -- and then hold forth on what should be "obvious" or "common sense" to people who work normal jobs and lead healthy, balanced lives. (Not that I know anyone who fits that description.) Yet even if it's reasonable to discover that so many Web users could understand so little about security, the implications are no less appalling than they ever were: -- These users would still consider ActiveX a convenience rather than a threat to their well-being, to the extent that they consider ActiveX at all. -- They're almost entirely at the mercy of their default security settings; put one of them in front of a PC running Internet Explorer that somehow got configured for intranet-level security, and they'll be lucky to escape with the clothes on their back. -- As a group, these users represent enough exposed computing resources to keep every phony Nigerian attorney and wanna-be eBay proprietor running at full power for the next several hundred years. --These users ensure that spam and spyware will continue to be practical, highly lucrative sources of income for people who, in the past, might have made a living peddling Nevada beachfront property. These are some ugly truths, and they have consequences up and down the open-source food chain. As more new users come into closer contact with software originally designed for people with deeper technical knowledge and much higher security awareness, the potential for a train wreck somewhere along the line increases day by day. How may products still assume, as MySQL did until very recently, that users know better than to leave a default blank password? How accurately, in the end, will Mozilla have assessed the right time in Firefox's development process to implement an auto-update feature? Might Linux distro vendors pay just as high a PR price for being considered more secure than its competitors, if consumers and even business users decide that their new, "secure" system will take care of itself" These users aren't stupid -- not by a long shot. But someone had better sit them down and explain the facts of life: Open-source software delivers freedom, power, and flexibility, and the people who use it return the favor by assuming they will always be their own best defense against things that go 'bump' on the 'net. It's a vital message both for users and for the products they'll be tempted to blame for whatever awful things happen to them. And clearly, it's a message very few of them will already have heard when they arrive at the party.
Matthew McKenzie
Don't let future editions of Linux Pipeline Newsletter go missing. Take a moment to add the newsletter's address to your anti-spam whitelist: linuxed@techwire.com If you're not sure how to do that, ask your administrator or ISP. Or check your anti-spam utility's documentation. Thanks. Top Linux News Mozilla Readies Alpha Release For Firefox Update The Mozilla Foundation this week plans to release an early-stage version 1.1 release for its open-source browser, which includes an updated Web page rendering engine supporting several new standards.
Microsoft's Fix For New Netscape Bug: Dump Netscape
Security Firm Delivers Firefox Anti-Phishing Extension
Microsoft Paints Modest Picture Of IE 7 Tabs Feature
Apple-Intel Rumors Prompt Doubt, Speculation
Nokia Launches Linux 'Internet Tablet'
Microsoft Faces EU Antitrust Ultimatum
Tumbleweed Expands Email Security Product Line
Russian Adware Site's Twisted Take On Affiliate Marketing
Report Sees Windows Servers Gaining On Unix; Linux Still Off Analysts' Radars
Mainsoft Debuts First Visual Studio .Net Plugin For Linux
OSDL Axes U.S. Staff, Plans Overseas Push
IBM Appoints Open-Source Promoter To Head Rational Software
PalmOne Returns To Its Roots With New Name, New OS Deal
IBM, Oracle Tie For Lead In Database Market Race
Red Hat Prepares Enterprise Product Push Editor's Picks Survey: Many Web Users Unaware Of Browser-Security Link Opera Software has released a survey concluding that only 51 percent of the "adult online population" realize that their Web browser choices affect the overall security of their PCs.
Review: PepperPad Amazes, But What Is It?
Love At First Surf -- One Firefox Feature IE Can't Beat
This Week's Must-See IT: As The Palm Turns
Blog Jobs: Five Business-Ready Blogging Packages
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