[extropy-chat] Eugen Leitl, you got Klez

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Tue Feb 10 09:57:01 UTC 2004


On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 04:59:23PM -0800, Russell Evermore wrote:

> Ok, but some people surely LIKE Outlook Express, including me, and I did

No accounting for tastes (though Outlook Express doesn't even have advantages
of Outlook, which while still being a horrible MUA, is somewhat useful for
corporate teamware).

I presume you're familiar with http://officeupdate.microsoft.com (see
download link, original Office CDs required) and
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com ?

You can still catch a wormvirus simply via receiving email in Outlook/Outlook
Express, or simply visiting a website with Internet Explorer, so I suggest
you get a software firewall and a virus scanner with autoupdate. Using
Mozilla for most browsing and some other MUA for reading email will make you
safer still.

> cobble my system together from individual components purchased separately
> from - you guessed it, chainstores. I understand that you're making a

I use multiple machines: Apple iBook with OS X, Dells with Wink2/XP,
homebuilt machines, whatever is at hand. 

> generalization here, and you're right to suggest I wouldn't pretend to be a
> "computer expert", although way too many people call me up when their
> machines stop working just way they'd like.

What makes you think I claim to be a computer expert? I'm not.
 
> One day I scavenged an electrical switch from an old coffee machine and
> mounted it in the center of a knockout panel of an unused drive bay on my
> tower. Then I spliced into the power leads of my secondary hard drive, and
> arranged things so that I can keep it powered off at all times, except when
> I am making a backup or restoring an earlier, pristine ghost of my OS
> (win98). Using a floppy disk and a free software called Maxblast, this
> simple innovation allows me to thwart any kind of  conceivable attack on my
> system. I never use anti-virus software.

I don't use antivirus either -- on machines other than Windows, that is.
It's a good setup you have (though switching off the drive without unplugging
the IDE cable is somewhat iffy); it would be sufficient to backup your system
partition on an unmounted partition, using a back up system (floppy, flash
stick, CDROM) you boot into.
 
> If something fucks up my system, I just flick that little black coffee
> switch, and reboot with the Maxblast floppy. A couple of clicks, and I go
> make myself a sandwich. When I return, either everything is working better
> than ever, or I copy my data files over as well. I give very little thought
> to what might have happened, and I never have to worry about "system bloat"
> since if nothing screws up for six months or more, I do this procedure
> anyway.

I don't do this procedure, and I'm also unconcerned wtih system bloat.
 
> So if it comes down to messing with what I think is a damn fine system, just
> to read Eugen, well ...

Once again, it's not my problem. You've locked yourself in in a particular
choice (though you sticking to a random MUA doesn't strike me as a rational
choice), you can't read me, it's okay.

I won't read HTML-only email from Hotmail accounts either (because I can't
quote these properly).
 
> I tried foxmail once after reading all kinds of wonderful reviews, and I
> didn't like the fact that it didn't even have a To: column in the preview
> pane. Also when I tried my nifty ghost trick, it didn't want to accept the
> backup data folders. Attitionally, my wife uses this computer for her

I don't know what foxmail is. After a long search, I've found a set of tools
that's optimal for my use. I might go back to inline PGP signing, though
that's not exactly high on my priority schedule right now.

> business, so any changes have to be backed up with some pretty compelling
> incentives. More compelling than "Outlook Express sux".

Once again, you're acting unnecessarily helpless. I just entered why outlook
express is a bad mua into Google, and instantly found this:

	http://www.greatcircle.com/lists/list-managers/mhonarc/list-managers.200207/msg00124.html

I'm doing your work for you, this time, just to show that whenever you've got
a question, however tentative, the answer is merely a few seconds away. By
asking a search engine.
 
> I do agree that we should all encrypt more, I suppose.

It shouldn't be your problem. I'm not encrypting, I'm signing my mail. My MTA
(that's a Mail Transfer Agent) does it for me, via opportunistic StartTLS:
http://www.homeport.org/~adam/starttls.html

I haven't set up opportunistic IPsec yet, because it's not very user-friendly
yet, and thus not widespread. 

http://ipsec-howto.org/
http://www.freeswan.org/

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144            http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
http://moleculardevices.org         http://nanomachines.net
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20040210/76c0cf23/attachment.bin>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list