Re: OT: And so it begins...

Thusly Walter Mitty <mitticus@xxxxxxxxx> Spake Unto All:

>To clarify as I generalised too much assuming people would make the link :
>
>By hidden stuff I mean the stuff "in the application" itself. I also
>mean, to a lesser degree, bits outside of the main app.

I understood perfectly what you meant. It was just that "everything is
equally dangerous" is such a pointlessy pointless point to make in
this context that I hoped you hadn't.

>Its like people moaning about apps "using their net connection" at the
>same time as they trust 3rd party email/usenet/chat apps. Laughable. A
>lot of these things could be doing anything.
>
>Its why we monitor SW using firewalls/port scanners.

I'm happy to hear you're such a fan of opensource, but me I have no
problem trusting some applications and not trusting others. The
difference between what I trust and what I don't is based on two
things: behavior and utility. A highly useful app can get away with
behaving slightly obnoxiously (e.g. Media Player & WinAmp phoning home
to report what you see/play (although I of course block both anyway)),
whereas a completely useless or even detrimental-to-the-user
application, like a copy protection scheme, can NOT.

Above all, the choice of whether to trust or not should be MINE.

Detrimental-to-me applications can certainly not get my trust by
acting like malware, purposely trying to stay below the radar and
trying to maintain complete secrecy about what they do: the reason
they don't want me to find out it's there can only be that they know I
wouldn't like it if I found out.

If it smells like ***, feels like ***, and tastes like ***, then
it's probably ***.


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