Email Clients and digital signatures

[CL Gilbert]

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R.Emory Lundberg wrote:
|
| On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 7:59 PM, John Clizbe wrote:
|
|> I don't think Emory was arguing that the design/architecture of a Linux
|> worksatiion was no more secure than that of DOS, but that the *use* of
|> one, in the hands of an inexperienced user, often is. Usually, for the
|> exact reason Joseph mentioned, they login and run as root. They also
|> tend
|> to over-install and run network services which would be better left
|> disabled.
|

Well people do the same thing on windows.  How many gamers MUST be
administrators to play windows games? same.

I recently told my father about the outllook issues.  He is not computer
savvy but intelligent so I explained the whole situation to him.
Outlook is not a BAD program.  It does not matter what MS does, they
will always have problems because their programmers are no better than
Linux programmers, but their are a lot more people attacking windows
software to find bugs.

Its not their fault, but it is their problem.

|
| You couldn't be more correct.
|
| There is literally an outbreak of inexperienced administrators of
| newly-installed Linux hosts that cause more problems for people than an
| IIS webserver would, say, in the hands of competent administrators.
|
| The learning curve for Linux isn't as low as it could be yet.  This
| isn't news.  People often run as a privileged user to get around having
| to deal with things they don't have to deal with when they're root.
| Add to this the installation problems, maintenance, patches, there
| isn't anything as good as "Windows Update" or "System Update" that I'm
| aware of outside of RedHat Network - which may be great, but isn't the
| most user-friendly UI I've ever seen to a patch and update system.
|

Redhat Update, is as good or better than windows update.  It always
checks to see if you need an update and only flashes an icon.  Windows
update I have to run.  plus if i runn it in the background I cant trust
MS to not be doing something *extra.*  Plus when it finds an update it
wants to scream from the mountaintop.  I consider them both on par.





|> Different security designs because of OS heritages - DOS on signle-user
|> PCs; Unix evolving on networked shared timeshare systems. Unix/Linux
|> systems make the assumption that one knows what he is doing. That is
|> their
|> heritage. Windows approaches from the philosophy of making computers
|> <ack-ack> "easy to use". Microsloth wants you to eXPerienthhh your
|> computer (I want to *beat* the marketing-droids that created THAT
|> concept/campaign).
|
|
| :)  By all means, beat the marketroids into a bloody pulp.  My issue is
| that the answer to anyone's problem is to install <Insert GNU/Linux
| distribution here> and all their problems will be solved.
|
| That's crap.  It's crap and people KNOW it's crap.  Education and
| attitudes will ALWAYS win over throwing technology at a problem.
| Especially when as far as the user is concerned, THERE IS NO PROBLEM
| WITH THE TECHNOLOGY THEY KNOW HOW TO USE AND HAVE DEPLOYED.
|

Sorry, that is crap.  Education will not win anything because you will
*never* educate the people fast enough.  To some a computer is a tool
and they do not *want* to be educated.  How many Linux users also can
fix their own cars?  How many even have a service manual?


| The constant hand-wringing and "Oh, Golly.  I wish you wouldn't use
| Outlook, it sucks," is just really irritating and does nothing to help
| anyone seeking assistance.  It just annoys people and uses FUD to make
| them switch.
|
|> I agree that not running OE/Outlook (LookOut?) is a positive step. I
|> think
|> I once saw Outlook described as "A huge security hole with a small
|> e-mail
|> client attached". But I disagree that one must switch to Linux to get a
|> safe(r) email client. Clients exist for WIN32 that avoid all, if not
|> most,
|> of the problems stemming from MSFT's tight coupling of client and OS:
|> Mozilla/Phoenix, Beonex, Pegasus, Eudora, Becky, The Bat!,... Some of
|> these like Mozilla and Phoenix make encrytion/signing relatively easy
|> with
|> the Enigmail addon for GnuPG. Eudora supports a PGP plugin.
|

bah, what tight coupling?  You been reading those court documents again :D

The attitude seems to be 'you dont need any features' read your mail as
close to plain text as possible.  Thus, use another client.  End users
dont accept that.  Note: I am using mozilla on Linux, my wife sits a
mere 10 feet away using outlook express.  I personally do not want to be
the one to ask her to change ;)


- --
Thank you,


CL Gilbert
Free Java interface to Freechess.org
http://www.rigidsoftware.com/Chess/chess.html
"Then said I, Wisdom [is] better than strength: nevertheless the poor
man's wisdom [is] despised, and his words are not heard." Ecclesiastes 9:16

GnuPG Key Fingerprint:
82A6 8893 C2A1 F64E A9AD  19AE 55B2 4CD7 80D2 0A2D
GNU Privacy Guard http://www.gnupg.org
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html, windows
users should try that.
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