I wish we didn't need security updates

English Open Chat
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Such a chore.

What would it take?

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A different universe! :crazy_face:

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As noted in the technical area thread where you wrote something similar, it would take perfect programmers and/or a world where people didn’t try to break into systems they weren’t supposed to.

Either of those is a fantasy world. In this world, security explots happen because coding is never perfect, and because there are bad actors who take advantage of software vulnerabilities and poorly configured systems.

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And a HUGE part of it is “social engineering” … you’ll get a mail with an attachment or find a webpage with a link to click or a command to run … my ex called me up one time in a panic because of a popup and a number to call … suffice to say they ended up installing a remote access program and proceeded to do nefarious things … when I answered the phone the first words out of my mouth were “I thought I taught you better than this” … be careful what you do and know what some arbitrary command will do … or look it up … stick to reputable sources and you’ll go a long ways toward keeping yourself safe

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Social engineering is certainly a factor that demonstrates the large number of unscrupulous individuals out there. But anyone running a web server can easily see in their logs the number of attempts to exploit their sites with automated tools.

Not all villains tell you they’re trying to break into your systems.

I’ve been running a ‘honeypot’ for a while that logs all attempts to exploit my own system on a particular URL base (I won’t share what it is - it’s busy enough ;)). I see everything from attempts to exploit specific vulnerabilities to attempts to download AWS credentials and configuration data, to clear attempts to exploit software bounds checking failures and SQL injection.

And that’s on an unpublished URL.

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Boring answers tbh.
I know all the whys of the cyber.
But it is such a bad perspective.

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It’s reality.

What sort of answers were you expecting? What sort of practical approach do you think it would take?

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Doesn’t this belong into Open Chat (when not beyond)?

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Um, it is in Open Chat.

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Sorry, you are correct. I guess it wasn’t started here and I missed the move. Senior moment. :anguished:
Edit: it most probably always was here. Need some relax time.

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Yep, this one was always here. OP had a similar comment in another thread, so maybe that’s what you were thinking of. :slight_smile:

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An easy measure with close to zero effort on the consumer’s side would be web browsers disabling JavaScript as a default setting in every browser session. I’d expect that if users would be forced to enable JavaScript actively, then websites would tend to being functional without JavaScript, if possible. JavaScript could be limited to those websites really needing it for their functional principles.

Combine this with a unique micro-payment service according to an international standard, installed by default on commercial websites/web-based services so users can pay money, not data, for what they use.

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This is so far from reality and usability.
Nobody wants to go back 20 years in developement and progress.

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Sure. Just like with cookies that 97% of all websites don’t really need at all. Yet you need to click away some damn cookie consent banner for literally every web site on this planet. If you don’t, you can’t use it. And it’s the same with JavaScript as well. Try it; you’ll switch it back on within 20 minutes.

JavaScript is used to keep floating BS windows in place during scrolling, so Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and similar stuff are always in the way of you using your screen. Or to mess up your screen preferences so the fonts always remain tiny. Or to keep a top banner, a footer, a left side banner and a right side banner on your screen so you only get a tiny peephole with real content, and blinking ads all around it.

The web has become totally unusable without a good adblocker that keeps diverting all that JavaScript hell to /dev/orcus. But most sites are using it for their content as well, so switching it off leaves you with very empty pages.

They say the users are to blame with their freebies mentality; nobody is willing to pay for good content. There is some truth to that; but even if you are willing to contribute, the general enshittification of services all over society will subject you to that stuff even if you are a paying customer.

That brings us back full circle: If only we could live in a perfect world. Well, yes; but we don’t. Because people aren’t perfect. Society isn’t perfect. There will always be those who misuse anything they can, and everybody else has to suffer from it. This is why we can’t have nice things. :grimacing:

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I’d propose a protocol extension which can not be connected to by browsers which are not configured for some uniform type of micro-payment yet to be defined. Micro-payment-configuration and -functionality should be a component of any browser and work independently of any programmable subsystem.

As of open-source software, why not defining an easy-to-use API which implements a system for measuring extent of usage (CPU hours, say; or number of calls) and connects to some uniform micro-payment system as well, so that independent open-source developers of important, frequently-used software profit automatically from the time and effort they invest. This kind of distributed micro-sponsorship would also diminish the dependency of one (or some few) large sponsors while strengthening the position of normal users.

You have electricity costs for using a computer, so why not having micro-sponsoring costs for using open-source software …