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Report: Cyberattackers hit Google staff via friends

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Incentive to break.
SiO2 28th Jan 2010
'...OS that forces all programs below it to go through it...'

What do you suppose Windows, or OSX or Linux etc is? Supposedly the OS has control and executes program instructions by feeding them to the processor piecemeal. Its a program itself and its job is to do as its told, quietly.

The problem isnt the OS, its the user. For example, try to build yourself a shelving unit in your garage that is easily upgradeable, strong enough to take engine parts and wont tip over if you overload it. Its not easy, but probably possible with a lot of design and effort - but it only takes a determined idiot moments to find a way of hurting themselves with it.
You'd be perfectly safe because you'd use it for what it was intended and within tolerance.

Most computer users are clueless as to these tolerances and break things, coupled with determined attempts to break things by criminals means that the OS is a lot better designed after those years than you'd like to think. I remember programs that barfed when you typed letters into a numeric field, but since the OS handles this it doesnt happen. It takes cleverly crafted input designed to confuse the program dealing with the information to make it barf, and thats not the OS.

Half the problem is that it is software - anything made can be unmade, and software is designed to be made and unmade easily. Hardware security is the obvious choice to combat unwanted changes but that then means it cant easily be remade if it breaks or is breached.

Security is pointless, we should look to fixing the element that is wrong, those who scam and steal and break for fun - its not just computers that they affect.

Or perhaps get rid of money... O.o
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