02 January 2007
Outrageous Views of Linux and Open Source
Surfing through the Internet, I came across something that was almost impossible to believe. It seems one person calling themself Shelly the republican was so bold as to call Linux a threat to America and a terrorist tool. She goes so far as to say that American engineering is the highest quality in the world and that free solutions like Linux are insecure and will destroy the economy of the US along with make the country more vulnerable to hacking and crashes. Windows is considered a very stable, quality OS that isn't vulnerable to hacking or crashing. She later goes on to state how big of a security risk it would be if Linux controlled government computers.
This post is so outrageous it seems difficult to believe that anyone could possibly believe it, but judging by the comments, there are those who do.I wonder if they also consider GNU and GPL terrorist organizations? Do they know that they are America-based?
I won't spend too much effort countering such a post, but I am curious if this person has considered UNIX which as I recall is the system that runs the government computers. It's free, Linux is based on it ... oh no ... the terrorists must have succeeded. As for the idea of being easy to hack, most of the internet runs Apache and when setup properly it is considerably more secure than a Windows box running IIS. And crashes, why is it Linux boxes generally have a longer uptime than Windows based computers.
This post is so outrageous it seems difficult to believe that anyone could possibly believe it, but judging by the comments, there are those who do.I wonder if they also consider GNU and GPL terrorist organizations? Do they know that they are America-based?
I won't spend too much effort countering such a post, but I am curious if this person has considered UNIX which as I recall is the system that runs the government computers. It's free, Linux is based on it ... oh no ... the terrorists must have succeeded. As for the idea of being easy to hack, most of the internet runs Apache and when setup properly it is considerably more secure than a Windows box running IIS. And crashes, why is it Linux boxes generally have a longer uptime than Windows based computers.
Labels: GNU, GPL, linux, os, OSS
16 August 2006
Easy home encryption
For those interested in privacy and security of their data there is an open source application that is included in most Linux distributions and is as well available for Windows and MacOs users.
Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is command line only although there is a GUI available for Windows. It completely implements PGP (pretty good privacy) and the algorithms used are completely unpatented. GnuPG will decrypt and verify PGP 5, 6, and 7. Also other algorithms can be easily implemented using modules.
This application allows for the creation of private and public keys and the import of public keys to enable a file to be encrypted for a specific person.
The different types of keys that are available are DSA and ElGamal, DSA, and ElGamal, the first of which is default. The size of the key can be anything above 768 bits and is recommended to be no more than 1048 bits. While larger keys are of course more secure, they also take longer to encrypt and decrypt.
Those interested in learning more about this application can go to the GnuPG website.
Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is command line only although there is a GUI available for Windows. It completely implements PGP (pretty good privacy) and the algorithms used are completely unpatented. GnuPG will decrypt and verify PGP 5, 6, and 7. Also other algorithms can be easily implemented using modules.
This application allows for the creation of private and public keys and the import of public keys to enable a file to be encrypted for a specific person.
The different types of keys that are available are DSA and ElGamal, DSA, and ElGamal, the first of which is default. The size of the key can be anything above 768 bits and is recommended to be no more than 1048 bits. While larger keys are of course more secure, they also take longer to encrypt and decrypt.
Those interested in learning more about this application can go to the GnuPG website.
Labels: encryption, GNU, linux, Mac, OSS, windows
