Potential Linux Virus Epidemic, Up To Six Sites May Be Trashed

This moron reckons that an elm vulnerability is a serious problem for Linux.

Let’s think about this for a moment:

I have never used elm, nor come across a system on which it is in use. At all.
I do not read email as root; nor do I know of other sysadmins who routinely do this. With any email client.
Linux is dead easy to update in comparison with MS-Windows, my systems were all updated before this vulnerability was announced.

Conclusion? Matthew Broersma fundamentally misunderstands or misrepresents the systems he’s speaking so authoritatively about.

This is not MS-Outlook on MS-Windows we’re dealing with here, where every email is a potential booby-trap and running a monocultural virus flypaper as Administrator is common — in some cases even necessary — amongst sysadmins.

Matthew also doesn’t mention (in an article entitled “Linux/Unix e-mail flaw...”, no less) that the MPlayer vulnerability is not a Linux/Unix problem.

Is that article’s misrepresentation and bias due to carelessness, ignorance or shilling? What’s your opinion?

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

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