Meaning of Convergence, Exploit Excludes Linux
The big news yesterday and even into today was the new Ubuntu tablet, which everyone including Canonical touted as "convergence delivered." Well, today Randall Ross scolds news sites for missing the "timely idea" that is convergence. In other news, security researchers have identified a new exploit that specifically avoids Linux. FOSS Force found that Linux users have no interest in anti-virus software and Phoronix reports on Ubuntu performance over the years.
Ubuntu convergence has been defined by everyone, including Canonical, as one interface for all your devices for consistency but today Randall Ross said that misses the idea. He said:
Convergence is more about that point in time where your philosophy that technology should respect people converges with that of a group or company that believes the same.
Ross referred to a friend's post in which he envisioned a time where all your data on "the cloud" will be used against you and yours. The friend is right about that, but his point was that Ubuntu wouldn't be able to be used against its users like Microsoft, Mac, Android, etc. He said, "It doesn't matter who gets to convergence first. It matters who gets there securely and with freedom as a top agenda." To these gentlemen convergence isn't about a consistent interface, it's about users' goals and the manufacturer/providers' goals converging for the good of all or something like that.
In other Ubuntu news, today Phoronix.com's Michael Larabel posted benchmarks on the last 10 years of Ubuntu versions. He concluded that overall Ubuntu performance has been increasing over the years and the newer versions are faster.
IDG's Jeremy Kirk today covered a new exploit that specifically ignores Linux. Researchers at Trustwave SpiderLabs discovered that some of their machines couldn't connect to the exploiting home server. It took some testing and trial & error, but researchers were able to determine that by OS fingerprinting was used to shut down connections syn'd from Linux machines. Reasoning being researchers are likely to be using Linux to try and study or stop them. So, if a Linux machine knocks, the malicious home server acts like its down or not there.
In other news:
* Readers Say ‘No’ to Antivirus on Linux