Free Software Linux

A useful article here dissecting what's wrong with the latest version of the UK Banking code, "the voluntary consumer-protection standard for UK banks", which was released last week: Until the banks are made liable for fraud, they have no incentive to make a proper assessment as to the effectiveness of these protection measures. The new banking code allows the banks to further dump the cost of their omission onto customers. When the person responsible for securing a system is not liable for breaches, the system is likely to fail. This situation of misaligned incentives is common, and here we see a further example. There might be a short-term benefit to banks of shifting liability, as they can resist introducing further security mechanisms for a while. However, in the longer term, it could be that moves like this will degrade trust in the banking system, causing everyone to suffer.

One of the great features included in Linux is the IPtables firewall. Unfortunately, its command-line use is rather complex, and it can be intimidating for even experienced Linux users to configure it. Firestarter is a friendly graphical interface that allows you to configure a software firewall in Linux using the built-in IPtables/IPchains utilities.