From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 27 11:10:27 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D7ED16A415 for ; Wed, 27 Sep 2006 11:10:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wittig.robert@sbcglobal.net) Received: from smtp113.sbc.mail.re2.yahoo.com (smtp113.sbc.mail.re2.yahoo.com [68.142.229.92]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7202543D58 for ; Wed, 27 Sep 2006 11:10:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from wittig.robert@sbcglobal.net) Received: (qmail 67767 invoked from network); 27 Sep 2006 11:10:25 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Received:Message-ID:Date:From:User-Agent:MIME-Version:To:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=g1KV3hGU1yF+lDz7kgASL7bgtvCrBmr8wULnRRhXTkO2p4cGc20EVH9y3AodnZRB4vSqkQJgs46z1BUqwI8cHBxhib6kX0sWM4u6mhitKfBwCx/s81Z20+rY2h+LX46ZbzLiYYiAFGRe7efne1h70y3eLdC4CupqTxeFPRXSeIM= ; Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.1.3?) (wittig.robert@sbcglobal.net@70.142.248.62 with plain) by smtp113.sbc.mail.re2.yahoo.com with SMTP; 27 Sep 2006 11:10:25 -0000 Message-ID: <451A5C6F.5040001@sbcglobal.net> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:11:43 -0500 From: Robert C Wittig User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (X11/20060909) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org References: <20060920104047.GA49442@splork.wirewater.yow> <20060920185542.GE1075@zaphod.nitro.dk> <45125885.2060209@401.cx> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Party X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 11:10:27 -0000 Adam Martin wrote: > I think it's just that I pine for better days. Just 5 years ago, > this behaviour was restricted mostly to Windoze systems. 5 years before > that, the notion of net-wide "evil traffic" as a constant background > noise was far fetched. And just 5 years before that, 15 years ago, the > notion of loads of background evil traffic was, as far as I recall, > appalling. > > After the whole of that spam episode, combined with several spikes > in local ssh-bruteforce attempts... I just felt despondent. I still > do. It seems like the whole 'net has gone to hell in a handbasket. So > as I said, I pine for better days. But I think I am a curmudgeon these > days :-) Cheer up... you, being an OpenBSD user, are at the top of the food chain, and much less likely to become food for a bigger fish, than most other computer users. The legislators and the people that legislators love are in all likelihood *not* running BSD, or even Linux, and will therefore probably become victims of phishing, identity theft, having their computers hijacked. This will bring the reality of the 'State if the Internet' home to those legislators in a very personal way, inciting them to take legislative action in their various countries (except for Nigeria, where the legislators are involved in running the scams). When the automobile was first invented, there were no 'Rules of the Road'. This was Ok for a while, because cars required a techie, just to operate them. But as cars became simpler to operate, and more popular, and the roads became clogged with maniacs, killing people with their autos, rules had to be set down, to regulate the New Technology. I suspect that something similar is happening with the Internet. Ten years from now, we might be complaining about over-regulation. -- -wittig http://www.robertwittig.com/ . http://robertwittig.net/