Linux Users Are Extremists

[Astro_Bot]

... according to the NSA. :screwy:

There are a few Linux users on IIS - I'm one of them - and it's probable that at some time, you've looked up something Linux-related and followed a link to Linux Journal (linuxjournal.com), which is a reputable online magazine. LJ used to have a hardcopy edition before going digital-only and I was a frequent reader when I was still learning about Linux.

Well, apparently, if you've ever searched for or read Linux content at Linux Journal, you've been targeted for data retention by the NSA:



NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist-forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance)

And now for the understatement of the year: This makes me annoyed!

[tlgerdes]

I always like this one :rofl:

[KenGee]

never mind I bought some uranium on the internet to complement my element collection!

[RickS]

I've been complicit in designing, manufacturing and shipping several hundreds of thousands of devices based on embedded Linux in the past 15 years or so. Please contact the press if I go missing :lol:

[Eden]

I started with Slackware on floppy back in '94... never been an LJ fan though.

[noeyedeer]

surely apple is behind this. originally wasn't linux based on ibms os/2 back when win 3.1 was around but os/2 had the full multitasking 16 bit environment as opposed to win 3.1's, I'll multitask but reduce the other tasks processor time etc? I'm no linux user but I'm sure os/2 was it's birthplace ?
matt

or was it 32 bit and 3.1 was 16 and only a few companies went and supported 32 bit back then and that's why os/2 flopped and linux took over?

[sheeny]

I'm no Linux User either, but I think Linux came from Unix.

Al.

[joe_smith]

To the NSA everyone is a terrorist in the making, heck just posting this has made me a suspect terrorist to them. Linux is powered by the people, and is secure because we can see the source code we are using, thats what scares them. I think the NSA should be more worried about the extreme number of high powered gun owners, more then what type of OS magazine they read.

[AstroJunk]

oh yes!

[joe_smith]

The History of Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux) began in 1991 with the commencement of a personal project by a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, to create a new free operating system kernel.

Its sort of based on UNIX, it but is was written from the ground up.

[Astro_Bot]

The NSA uses Linux extensively itself. One of the common features of Linux - called Security Enhanced Linux, which has the purpose of trying to make Linux an ideal platform for multi-level secure systems - was originally developed by the NSA (though it's now completely open source and available to anyone). There's irony for you.

-----------------------------------

Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds (in Finland) in the early 1990s. He wanted to make a operating system like Minix, an academic OS, which itself looked a bit like Unix, but Minix had limited distribution rights and was a 16-bit OS. Torvalds wanted a completely free, 32-bit OS. (Edit: I see Joe posted before me).

Linux has/had nothing to do with Mac, OS/2 or IBM nor was it derived from Unix.

Later, many utilities and programs were ported to Linux from other sources, some from Unix, which is why some people think Linux and Unix were closely related. Many of the utilities were from a project called GNU, so the whole package became known as GNU/Linux.

Today Linux is used worldwide in a multitude of roles. Android (of smartphone and tablet fame) is a heavily adapted version of Linux. About half the worlds servers run Linux. Most of the internet's infrastructure runs Linux. Over 95% of the worlds top 500 supercomputers run Linux. Some significant governments are converting some or all of their departments to Linux, including in the USA. Your home router probably runs Linux. But only about 2% of home PCs run Linux.

Linux is open source, meaning it has no centralised marketing - barely any marketing at all. that's why your typical home user hasn't heard of it.

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Back on topic: Doesn't this strike people as incredible overreach on the part if the NSA?

[noeyedeer]

thanks for the info .. spoze I should've googled but that's what I thought

:)
matt

[cfranks]

Similar to all the bleating from most 'special interest groups'. They are stirring the pot to ensure they retain their jobs.

[mithrandir]

I also started with Slackware on floppies. These days it's Slackware on DVD.

[Astro_Bot]

Red Hat 6 for me - in '99, I think - but it wasn't until 2004 until I switched to Linux full time.

It must have been about that same time that I - totally unknown to me or my own conscious brain, of course - started plotting to take over the world. Apparently. :)

[noeyedeer]

speaking of floppies, everything was coded good, from apps to games and what not. not it's like lets release a program .. and we will patch the errors later .. it's so backwards ..

I'm glad the nsa is associated with the nra .. it makes sense to me ..

[Grendel]

I have run linux through the years on many different machines, before that my introduction to computing was through unix CAD machines.
I currently run 2 desktops as dual boot linux windows XP, plus a laptop that I was given with a nasty anti virus package that was stopping everything working, so windows xp went completely and Lubuntu 14 replaced it, it runs all my general software, just CAD that wont run on Linux.
Do I care if the NSA watches everyhing I do - no - because they are collecting so much data that they will be unable to store it, let alone review it all.
Grendel

[Eden]

Which is ironic, considering Linux and Unix-alike operating systems are supposed to be built on what is widely known as the "Unix Philosophy". The idea that software should be simple but at the same time, correct, consistent and complete. The moment you overlay concepts like "ease of use" and "slick interface" and "backwards compatible", the philosophy goes out the window and you end up with bloat. This is why operating systems today are huge juggernauts, because of layers and layers of abstraction.

With respect to the original topic, I honestly don't see why the NSA would care about whether people use Linux or not. It's not the only freely available open-source operating system out there.

[pluto]

I'd be way more worried about NetBSD users (or even more so AIX users, if we forget about OSS), the ones I've known were scary ;)

Slackware was the first distro I really liked. Having used Irix for a couple of years before I really got into Linux, Slackware was the nicest transition as it was way more "Unix-like" than pretty much every other distro I tried back then. Now days it's just CentOS and Ubuntu :)

[MrB]

I thought OS/2 flopped because it was half an operating system (no device drivers)
OS / 2 = 0.5 OS :D

[Renato1]

Linux had it's chance back in the early 2000s, but fluffed it. They had all the information available to say get a particular HP printer, or a DVD drive to work on one's newly installed Linux. And when one downloaded the bookend and the other Tar file to get the equipment working - there weren't any instructions as to what to do next. The steep learning curve was too much for me, when Windows was sitting there with plug and play.

Anyhow, most of the internet runs on Linux servers, and Android is a subset of Linux, and I was surprised to find that my Acronis True Image backup program for Windows, is actually a Linux program - when it wouldn't work on one of my computers, Acronis gave me the Linux instructions to fix it.

And the Linux Live distributions have been great for getting data out of stuffed computers, before one has to wipe then and reinstall either an old image or fresh OS installation.

So there are going to be a lot of extremists around.
Cheers,
Renato

[Eden]

Oi! I happen to be one of those people! I know NetBSD is a bit of an oddball, but it's about the closest thing to a real modern operating system for my Commodore Amiga :-)



I miss the excitement of installing Linux. It actually felt like you achieved something if you got Slackware up and running from floppy, fired up the TCP/IP stack and connected to the net via dial-up with SLIP/PPP, recompiled the kernel to get all of your hardware working and then finally managing to run XFree86 to browse the web using Mosaic without blowing up your monitor. :rofl:

[Octane]

I miss those days, too! isapnp to get the SoundBlaster working, too, hah!

No idea why the NSA would specifically target LJ, though?

Started on Red Hat back in '95. Am a Solaris sysadmin nowadays.

H

[RickS]

Linux and Unix *are* closely related at the original design level. The kernel API for Linux was based on Unix system calls. That's why it is possible to port most Unix and GNU applications fairly trivially.

[hobbit]

Now THAT'S an OS.