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I go back on the 'net to the days of Mosaic, and earlier on Usenet and BBSs. I'm feeling pretty nostalgic, but also saddened. Between the crooks, the government, and fun loving pranksters it seems that there is no corner of the 'net that can be considered truly secure. I now routinely assume that nothing I do is safe.
I remember when the 'net was 90% thoughtful discussion, it was about web pages, pure HTML, and the content that they served up.
Now it seems as if no forum is safe from endless idiotic, threatening, and increasingly offensive trolls and bullies. Many good smart people just refuse to participate. In its early days the whole idea behind the 'net was the free sharing of information. Now you find things behind paywalls, registration pages, or removed after threats from lawyers.
Each week seems to bring another attempt by government or business to regulate the 'net, both what you can put on-line, and what you can look at. Add to that the many geographic blocks and other restrictions that keep out some of the people, some of the time. We rely on multiple layers of flash and java and other technology, each requiring some special software to make it work on your computer. Inevitably stuff breaks.
It was only a decade or so back that the very idea of marketing on the 'net was considered ridiculous. Now we're buried alive with ads, pop-ups, and stupid YouTube ads in front of every video - unless you want to pay them to remove them.
Increasingly using the 'net feels like more of a chore than a pleasure, and I can't see it improving. Is the Internet broken beyond repair?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 18 2015, @05:12PM
when I edit my own hosts file, I just use "sudo vi /etc/hosts".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Monday May 18 2015, @05:18PM
I was more thinking something like:
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @06:03PM
Sudo doesn't do file redirection, that would negate all the safeguards that sudo provides.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 18 2015, @08:35PM
That would be interpreted by the shell as "run the command sudo echo 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com and append its output to /etc/hosts". Which would try to open /etc/host as user (which should fail if your file rights are set correctly). OTOH, without the redirection failure the echo command would be run as root, but that's pointless because echo does nothing you need to be root for (it just writes to its standard output).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Monday May 18 2015, @06:06PM
*insert vi vs emacs flamewar here*
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 18 2015, @06:37PM
"We use vi, son. They use emacs."
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]