[clug-talk] OT: Discuss: really need a firewall?

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday 06 April 2006 17:25, Darren L wrote:
> And this, IMHO, is why one distro will never appeal to every user.

i happen to use kubuntu (as well as suse).

> I'm coming from the perspective thinking that the average user loads a
> computer, plays a game here and there, and uses the web to check email and
> update their blog. 

these are precisely the people who probably should have a firewall running. 
someone who "knows what they are doing" probably knows what to keep turned 
off or on and protect themselves, even w/out a firewall there. these are also 
the people who don't know how to install and turn one on themselves.

> I'm far from an expert in the matter, but I give the ubuntu devs the
> benefit of the doubt with their rationale that no services is fairly
> secure. 

as i said, the ubuntu position is (and i agree), "this is not a -big- 
problem". that much i think we all agree on; and i can think of more pressing 
issues facing ubuntu. however, it is an issue and that isn't dismissed quite 
so easily with "but people are behind a NAT and you have to turn services on" 
since neither is particularly accurate. i'm all for "best possible" solutions 
(and understand how projects evolved over time to reach plateaus), but i'm 
also in favour of representing things accurately rather than glossing over 
our shortcomings too much =)

> I'm sure that if you took some time and decided to go ahead and package it
> up, it would go far in the ubuntu community.

i'm sure it would.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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