Comments on: P2P Is Scary Kids, Don’t Use It!

By: Noah C.

Noah C. — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:46:00 +0000

This is the internet. Nothing is safe here.

By: John Mullins

John Mullins — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 15:37:00 +0000

The audience clearly is children. Open-source operating systems lack the user-friendliness required to be handled by children (or most computer users, for that matter).

You sir, belongs to the group that blindly believes their OS of choice to be perfect in every single way. You propose it as a solution to any kind of problem. Please think prior to yelling such things. It’s your kind which brings any community or userbase to shame.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 12:35:00 +0000

tinyurl.com/2df4ccp

By: Matthew Young

Matthew Young — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:08:00 +0000

Did you read what he said? No, it’s not very likely that you’re going to find an OpenBSD. That’s because a whole twelve people actualy USE OpenBDS. That’s why nobody bothers making a virus for them. That doesn’t mean it’s more secure. It just means it’s not worth the virus maker’s time.

PS; Open/FreeBSD is, esentially, a UNIX off-shoot. UNIX, while enjoying the same “under the radar” flight path as most LINUX distros they don’t have this “magical aura of protection” that its users seem to believe in.

By: Matthew Young

Matthew Young — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:44:00 +0000

So what you’re saying is that we should let kids do whatever they want, regardless of the risk, simply because everything they do COULD cause them to get hurt? I pray you’re not a parent. There’s something called “degrees of risk.” For example, walking down a residential street, a kid COULD get killed by a drunk driver that jumps the curb and hits them. It’s a possibility; but the odds of it happening are comparatively small. On the other hand, if you let a group of children play ninja with actual, sharpened Katana, throwing stars and other weaponry, odds are pretty damn good that someone’s gonna get hurt; so you don’t let them doing that, because the odds of harm outweigh the benefit of letting them play with weapons as if they were toys.

Same goes online. In this day and age, banning them from the internet just isn’t a reasonable option. But just like in the real world it’s the job of the parents to weigh the odds of something bad happening as a result of different on-line activities to the benefit they gain from being allowed to do it.

When it comes to children, in the case of P2P, the odds of infection; not to mention the odds of them downloading “honeypot songs” that are being monitored by the RIAA/MPAA and not taking reasonable precautions (it doesn’t really MATTER how many times you explain it to them), simply outweighs the benefits.

By: Matthew Young

Matthew Young — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:26:00 +0000

@IDIOCRACY: I love how you slipped in “malicious websites” when all I mentioned was email. Sure, you’re more likely to get a virus from a malicious website, but the truth of the matter is that if you want to cut kids off from possible malicious websites, you STILL have to cut them off from P2P, because a LOT of websites that host torrents, and a lot MORE websites that are set up to LOOK like they hostt torrents, also host malware. Hell, I’ve evern had pop-ups from The Pirate Bay on a number of occasions that tried to pull the old “your computer is infected! Click here to download this totaly not malicious at all security program to fix it!.” And God help you if you lick on half the links to other sites that appear on even the most legit torrent sites.

Again, an adult with even a minimum of common sense knows to steer clear of these things. Children, on the other hand; have a very notable LACK of sense, in my experience.

As for infected P2P downloads, I was mostly refering to P2P clients like Kazaa or Lime/Frost wire. You’re propbably thinking “nobody uses those anymore!” But you’d be surprised.

By: Orfeas Theofanis

Orfeas Theofanis — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:10:00 +0000

true.
Also, I’ve used utorrent more than 5 years now, and the only infections i got are from browsing the internet, not from torrents. torrents are safe, especially from thepiratebay (they remove fake torrents and infections asap)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:37:00 +0000

@IDIOCRACY
I thinks he means KaZaa ect, not torrents that have comments. And because porn is all streaming media these days i am seeing less and less of these infections. And showing them where to find the content virus free really helps.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:23:00 +0000

You can still catch a virus like that. Always scan a packed file before opening.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:20:00 +0000

I think it’s worse, I think he doesn’t even know anything about how p2p works accept maybe seeing a picture of some computers connected with some colored lines.