Uptime vs. security (was: [offtopic] Government and technology)

[Shlomi Fish]

On Monday 09 February 2009 12:06:27 Ira Abramov wrote:
> Quoting Shlomi Fish, from the post of Sat, 07 Feb:
> > On Friday 06 February 2009 23:42:54 Ira Abramov wrote:
> > >  23:40:21 up 512 days,  9:49,  2 users,  load average: 0.89, 0.83, 1.11
> >
> > That's a nice uptime. However, weren't there any newer kernels released
> > since with important security updates? Won't that potentially jeopardise
> > your system?
>
> So far I believe all the fixes were to local exploits (of which I'm less
> worried) and maybe once to a remote exploit when using a feature which I
> do not.

I see. What is your IP address, again? ;-)

>
> I am hoping Lenny becomes stable soon, though it could have been cool to
> have a 550 day uptime :-)

"My uptime is bigger than yours."

>
> > 	Shlomi Fish (who is using Mandriva Cooker on his home machine, which
> > recommends rebooting for every upgrade of the kernel, glibc or dbus, etc.
>
> I haven't used Mandrivel in years, and the Microsoft doctorine is ok for
> home stations I suppose..

Well, I should note that it just recommends it. I can still happily run it 
with the older kernel/glibc/etc. (but I don't). Some of the kernel upgrades 
are from one -rc to another, so they may still be safe to use. And I'm on 
Cooker which is a rolling-version distribution that is constantly updated. I 
suppose the story would be somewhat different if I were using one of the 
releases.

>
> > and who is shutting down the computer at night anyway, to save on
> > electricity.)
>
> Not really an option on a hosted, busy webserver... 

Naturally.

> however, ideally at
> home I would either hibernate

Are you sure that hibernation saves roughly as much power as turning off the 
computer does? I think I saw a few recent Slashdot posts that hinted that the 
contrary was true.

> or use the power and CPU cycles for good,
> like installing BOINC and have it look for HIV cures and useful
> proteins. 

This is an option of course. Sometimes when I'm too lazy to turn off the 
computer, I smoke CPAN, etc.

> All you have left to worry about are spinning disks, which I
> hope will be affordably exchangable with SSD within 4-5 years. If you
> are worried about such issues like unsustainable technologies, I suggest
> you look into the platform of Hayeruka-Meimad, I'm trying to help
> relevant agendas and solutions into bills.

I see.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
Understand what Open Source is - http://xrl.us/bjn82

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