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From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: GNU, security, and RMS
Message-ID: <11882@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 8 Jun 89 01:19:20 GMT
References: <19896@adm.BRL.MIL>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <19896@adm.BRL.MIL> bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein) writes:
>Although I'd probably agree with what you're trying to say I just want
>to point out that 10 Million PC's and about 1 Million Mac's say you're
>(we're?) wrong. There's no concept of security on those machines
>(heck, there's no concept of a "user" tho various things have been
>hacked on top for network add-on software.)

Actually, I think the trend nowadays in personal computers is toward
increased security as more and more PC users realize that their
machines are not as secuire as they "should" be and as more and more
PC users are using LAN's and such with multiple users rather than a
single-user machine.

Examples abound -- most IBM's nowadays comes with a lock program that
can completely disable the keyboard, and such programs are coming out
for the mac too.  Encryption software for data is also becoming more
common for PC's.

Now, granted, the security on most PC's is still rather lax, and many
PC users don't realize how to use it and therefore it ends up being
pointless.  However, to use the PC community as an example of a
community without security is, I think, at least partially invalid.

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				410 Memorial Drive, No. 223F
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Cambridge, MA 02139-4318
Office: 617-253-4261			      Home: 617-225-8218