Joe:
> Jochen Schulz wrote:
>>
>> And, by the way: I don't know about any "desktop firewall" like Trend
>> Micro's for Linux. Firewall applications for Linux take a different
>> approach than those for Windows and this is generally a good thing. In
>> short, you don't need such software when running Linux and in my opinion
>> you don't them on Windows either.
>>
> You wouldn't believe how many Windows programs want to talk to the
> Internet, and nobody knows for sure what most of them want to talk
> about.
I think this points to the root of the problem: people are running
software from a vendor they don't trust and which does things they don't
want it to do. Since this usually concerns proprietary software, there
is just one real solution: don't use this software.
I am aware that many people are forced (or just want for whatever
reason) to use specific software they don't trust completely. In these
situations, a "desktop firewall" might give them a little more control.
The problem I personally have with this approach is that I have to trust
yet another vendor and, additionally, desktop firewalls have the
inherent weakness that they run on the same computer as the untrusted
software.
To put it short, I don't deny that there is a use case for such
software. I just don't trust it and its vendors anymore than I trust
companies like Doubleclick (owned by Google now), Yahoo or a game vendor
who installs some daemon to make sure I don't run pirated copies of
their game. These companies mostly make money by frightening users about
threats they (the users) don't understand. In my opinion, this makes
their products unsuitable to better control my system or improve its
security.
J.
--
I wish I could achieve a 'just stepped out of the salon' look more
often. Or at least once.
[Agree] [Disagree]
<http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>
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