From: "David A. Black" Date: 2008-08-29T23:03:57+09:00 Subject: Re: A general doubt Hi -- On Fri, 29 Aug 2008, Gregory Brown wrote: > On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 7:35 AM, Joost Diepenmaat wrote: >> Rock Roll writes: >> >>>> Joost Diepenmaat wrote: >>>> Are you seriously suggesting that generic application software should >>>> be able to withstand someone with root (and probably physical) access >>>> to the machine it's running on for the purposes of keeping the >>>> original author free from user complaints? >>> >>> >>> Thank you for your reply. What i am telling is if if a hacker accesses >>> and changes some function in the code which is exposed in the >>> distributed application and not in the source code which is open. >>> Complaints may be in the form of bugs. In this case the user will >>> complain for some other reason. Pardon me if i am wrong in sense >> >> You're not wrong. You're just approaching the problem the wrong >> way. If a hacker has access to someone's computer, there is nothing an >> application programmer can do about it - if an application *could* do >> something about that, that would only create more problems (for >> instance, your solution would basically mean that not even root would >> be able to (un)install programs). > > Can we stop using Hacker to describe computer criminals? The two > aren't (necessarily) related. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(Free_and_Open_Source_Software) It really sucks that the word got hijacked, and I never use it that way. This happens to a lot of technical and paratechnical (is that word?) words. Lately I've been hearing "blog" used to mean something vaguely like "email" or "feedback comment" ("Send us a blog...."). And of course there's "logon" instead of "connect". And etc., as my students used to put it. David -- Rails training from David A. Black and Ruby Power and Light: Intro to Ruby on Rails January 12-15 Fort Lauderdale, FL Advancing with Rails January 19-22 Fort Lauderdale, FL * * Co-taught with Patrick Ewing! See http://www.rubypal.com for details and updates!