After delays, Windows ugrade released
What changed? After a lot of stalling Microsoft rolled out its SP2 on Friday when nobody was looking. Weird.
According to this story Microsoft actually expects a backlash. I guess they figure they’ll get less calls over the weekend!
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I like the wrong bombs! Very cool.
John,
The NSA has a Security Enhanced Linux distro out.
The site says, “If you have an interest in Security-enhanced Linux, we encourage you to join the developers’ mailing list, look at the source code, and provide your feedback (or code.) There is a long list of things on the To Do List, and we encourage your help. If you are a US citizen and are interested in working on projects like this, you might also consider looking at the National Security Agency as an employer.
Your comments, improvements, and constructive criticism are important to the future and success of Security-enhanced Linux.”
Here’s were to get the code http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/code/
They also have a really cool kids site!
NSA SELinux
This isn’t a full distro, here are some specifics from NSA.
I have an old Corel distro laying around from 1999 and I’m wondering if SEL works with it. If anyone knows, post something here please.
Here’s some info from the NSA site.
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What does your distribution include?
Security-enhanced Linux includes patches to the Linux kernel and patches to a number of standard tools and utilities. It also includes a number of new utilities, support files, and documentation. By far the easiest way to build and install Security-enhanced Linux currently is to duplicate our source trees (linux-2.6 and selinux-usr) and follow the instructions in selinux-doc/README. We have provided compressed archives of our source trees, as well as several ways to build it by acquiring only our modifications from our web site (http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/).
Can I install Security-enhanced Linux on an existing Linux system?
Yes. You actually need to have an existing Linux system. The Security-enhanced Linux distribution is source code for a modified Linux kernel and some utilities. You must have the ability to compile a kernel and also have necessary, but unmodified system packages. Our distribution is known to install on the Red Hat distribution, and has not been tested with others.
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The IT department, of the company I work for, just sent an email – corporate-wide – asking people not to upgrade any computers until the SP is evaluated further.
A quote ” … it can, and will, disable some of the functionality of our corporate systems…”
As Mr. T might say: I “pity the fool” who automatically installs this upgrade. 🙂
Mike, I’m guessing the problem is that nobody is sure of what functionality will get disabled. The SP2 appears to behave in unpredictable ways, which is a genuine concern.
I’m now doing a Linux deployment and am looking at Codeweavers approach to testing. They have a compatibilty database. http://www.codeweavers.com/site/compatibility/browse
This appears to be a good method for verifying how programs will behave and includes details, forums, tips and tricks, screenshots and known issues information tabs. Plus you can check programs by category http://www.codeweavers.com/site/compatibility/browse/cat/
I’m not sure of how you check compatibility with Microsoft SP2 or if you can. Just installing SP2 and not knowing what is going to happen to your applications and system seems kind of crazy.
In our company’s case, the IT department was working with a “release candidate” of SP2, and had identified several, specific functions of our networked-system that would be effected by a default install of SP2
I thought it was funny that they even sent the warning email, on such a wide distribution, since most of us don’t have Admin-level logins – so we can’t even update the mix of NT/2000/XP computers we have now. 🙂
It is frustrating to work in a technology industry, but have my company (understandably) not want to pay M$ the per-seat fees needed to bring all our computers to the same level.
Someone with win2000/office2000 creates a database in Access, but those of us with NT/Access97 can’t open it?? That gets old, fast.
Mike, The nice thing about MS is that they aren’t the only game in software. I’m sure they give it theirf best shot. There’s all sorts of stuff out ther getting coded and distributed. I’m look at do Linux for a number of reasons. I really don’t care that much about cost. For what I’m spending in time, I could save time and stick with Windows. I’m thinking loingterm about this. MS is here to stay, maybe, but Linux will continue growing. I think the 2 are complimentary. Linux won’t go away. It’s somewhat predictable. With MS, who knows where they’ll be in 5 years? Who really cares? I don’t own the stock or work there, so if they crash, I don’t care. People want security and will pay almost anything for it. SP2 is free and you can’t be sure of what you are getting. You have an idea that what you’re getting could creat problemsd, you don’t know what they are. A patch should take care of it, whatever it is. After 100 or so free patches you’ll get another SP or another upgrade. Sell more hardware, junk more hardware, call the tech guy geek, it’s a merry go round. Merry for MS and hell for users with system problems. Even the tech guy geek is sick of it, but he makes more cash tinkering with Windows, but runs Linux at home and laughs at his customers. Maybe MS is just laughing at everyone. They’re laughing all the way to the bank. I’m waiting for the bank computers to crash and MS to buy the banks.
Provigil and antidepressants….
Provigil and antidepressants. Provigil….