Linux Desktop - My Ubuntu Experience

I have gone 45 days using solely my Ubuntu Linux laptop to conduct all facets of my daily computing functions. These include work related tasks as well as personal tasks. I will have to say, if there are any doubts of Ubuntu’s feasibility in the desktop environment, they should be put to rest.

First off, I was very impressed with the performance of the operating system on a modest running laptop that only had 512 MB of RAM. I have friends running Windows Vista system with 2 to 4 Gigs of RAM enduring terrible performance on their expensive systems. Also, I was pleased with the verity of open-sourced security and system administrative applications that were available and operated flawless on the system. For example, I was able to configure GnuPG communicate securely with encryption. I was also able to connect to remote systems using VPN access as well.

I was able to wireless access points from many different locations, view DVD movies and edit Microsoft office related documents with no problem.

As of today, I am upgrading from the current version of 8.04 to 8.10. I will have the details on that when I have reviewed it.

Linkedin Groups

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Please join me in the following Linkedin groups below. I have additional information as well as free access to white papers, security presentation and much more...


SecurityOrb Group

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Certified IT Security Practitioners

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Google Phone Security Issues

Google has released its new phone; they are attempting grab a market share from Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry. This will be a hard, just ask iPhone maker Steve Jobs. The security issues in putting these smart phones on the enterprise has CIO’s taking a hard look at the potential risk to the enterprise. Read this intuitive article Internews.com.

Smart Phone Security

Smart phones such as BlackBerrys, Treos and the iPhones has gained great popularity in the consumer and business market. These phones are able to schedule meetings, keep contact information, take notes and record audio and video footage as well as access the Internet. These great features bring conveniences and great security risk.

These cell/smart phones are becoming digital wallets… 10 years ago people did not keep the type of vital information they do today.

Hackers are able to pull information such as address books, text messages, email and notes that may contact account numbers, passwords and PINs.

New trends in the wireless industry are making it easier for hacking attacks, said John Girard, a Gartner vice president, who spoke at the IT Security Summit in London.

A few years ago, there was not a lot of standardization across wireless devices. Differing operating systems, differing implementations of mobile Java, and even varying configurations among devices with the same operating system made it hard to write malicious code that ran on a wide array of devices, Girard said.

But that's changing as the quality control gets better on widely used platforms such as Microsoft's Windows Mobile and the Symbian operating system, he said. That standardization makes it easier for attackers to write code that will run on many devices.

"The more your phone gets like a PC, the more it can host malicious code," Girard said. "People are getting used to sending out executable code."

Ubuntu 8.10 Security Feature

While the release of another Ubuntu is only a few days away, there are some interesting security features in place. One being the encrypted directory.

Encrypted “Private” Directory - While many OSs now offer whole hard-drive encryption, most people probably only have a small set of their files that they want to encrypt. Instead of offering an encrypt everything or nothing option, there will be a folder in each user’s home folder called “Private” that will be encrypted. This would be useful to store confidential documents and that sort of thing without slowing down access to less-confidential stuff, like your music.

Security Articles from the Web

Researcher finds evidence of massive Web site compromise

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/10/03/Researcher_finds_evidence_of_massive_Web_site_compromise_1.html

Apple Releases Mega Patch Security Update
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Apple-Releases-Mega-Patch-Security-Update/


The Top 10 Security Land Mines

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/142957/169/