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Public Discussions => General Discussion => Topic started by: David Kiley on February 15, 2020, 12:18:36 pm

Title: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 15, 2020, 12:18:36 pm
I live in a fairly poor city and the majority of people don't have computers and just use their phones now.
I personally can't imagine life without a PC - as much as I like my android phone.
And then it got me thinking, that if the PC becomes more and more a niche item, manufacturers will stop making things like hard drives and part replacement could become an issue.. Same with open source software - the only thing that makes it sustainable is a lot of people using computers and a lot of people who care to code for it.
I just hope the parts last long enough for me to keep using them.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on February 15, 2020, 03:50:10 pm
I used to build computers for people from cases, motherboards, plug-in cards, power supplies, etc.

These things, while still available, cost far, far more than a manufactured computer. Availability is much less, too.

I already live in a hybrid world of iPhone/iPad + OS/2. It's certainly not the iPhone/iPad that are replacing OS/2. It's iCloud and the other on-line services. The new OS/2 browser cannot come soon enough.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Mathias on February 15, 2020, 10:49:01 pm
Well.. the majority of people is most likely unable to use the potential of a PC. It`s far to complicated, expensive, huge and nerdy.
Most people I know, use PCs for organising via Outlook, writing letters in Word, organising address data in Excel (yes, not in Access.. :>), and some more for writing e-mail.
Keep in mind, that each topic goes for one person.

The whole rest is playing games on PC hardware. Sure these definitely keep PC hardware cheap, as these DO invest money in hardware components. - So.. even though the PC was always about gaming too..  ;), gamers are not the majority of PC users world wide.  - And also they have no relevance for the OS/2 platform.. since the newest games do not run on OS/2.

Only a few people I know personally, are using more than one aspect of a PC.
So.. most likely Android and iOS appear to be what people need to do their thing.
They appear not to need what a PC can offer.

It`s been as it always was: PCs are only for those who know how to utilise such a machine for their needs.
Microsoft (mainly Microsoft) constantly tried to sell the PC platform and it`s (new) ease of use to the vast majority of potential buyers. Getting easier with each new Windows version... they say.. sure.. the whole opposite is the case.

But over the years, these people learned that ease of use is the same as reducing bureaucracy... just a trick to make people believe... but in the end it never works out. Things ALWAYS turn out more complicated in the end.

With mobile technology becoming more and more useful and reduced to what people REALLY only ever needed, in my eyes it`s more like things going back to normal again. PCs belong to professionals, and are wayyy to uber for the masses. They simply do not need the potential that a PC can offer.

And (still not finished), new developments even bring games to the cloud. The benefit is, that you do no longer need the ultra latest cutting edge hardware to play up2date games anymore; You can play them in a browser or special software that is linked to a special gaming cloud.
With this even weak hardware can open up new horizons for those interested to simply play computer games. No need for knowledge about hardware anymore, no need for specialised gaming hardware.. and of course the PERFECT copy protection, as the game is no longer client-side.

If this works out as intended, things WILL change drastically.

Edit: fixed typo
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Martin Iturbide on February 16, 2020, 03:11:41 am
Hi

My point of view on this subject (PCs vs Phones) it is kind of different. To me both are personal computers and the difference of those is the input method for the device and the how they are used.

Smart phones had been a revolution for people that believed that PCs were too complicated and smartphones allowed a lot of people of the world to communicate and have access to the Internet. But the smartphones are focused on consuming content, like reading books, webpages, videos and basic communication. But smartphones are a very limited tool to create content.

To create content the traditional PCs is still required, and more specifically the keyboard and mouse input devices are still required to create things. It is still too hard to create some kind of content with a phone using the screen keyboard and the touch screen. 

I don't personally think on the death of personal computer, maybe it is more that the people that only consume content/information no longer needs a full PC for it, they only require a smartphone (with no mouse or keyboard) to do that today. But people that requires to create content like documents, videos, images, etc, still require a better input device like a keyboard and mouse.

Regards
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 19, 2020, 10:13:44 am
I already live in a hybrid world of iPhone/iPad + OS/2. It's certainly not the iPhone/iPad that are replacing OS/2. It's iCloud and the other on-line services. The new OS/2 browser cannot come soon enough.
Curious what you mean by the iCloud replacing OS/2? Personally I think cloud services are largely a scam. I use google drive for storage but I feel a lot of "cloud" services are just tricking you into paying a monthly fee for something you could have owned, like an office suite.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 19, 2020, 10:19:47 am
Well.. the majority of people is most likely unable to use the potential of a PC. It`s far to complicated, expensive, huge and nerdy.
Most people I know, use PCs for organising via Outlook, writing letters in Word, organising address data in Excel (yes, not in Access.. :>), and some more for writing e-mail.
Keep in mind, that each topic goes for one person.

Interesting - but I remember as a teenager the first time being exposed to a mac classic computer lab at my school.
There was nothing complicated about it - we played games & wrote documents and painted.
The point is it was a consumer friendly device.
Personally I like OS/2 better but I don't think it's impossible to keep making such devices - the tech companies are more interested in pushing cloud services now for the monthly costs associated with them.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 19, 2020, 10:28:42 am
I don't personally think on the death of personal computer, maybe it is more that the people that only consume content/information no longer needs a full PC for it, they only require a smartphone (with no mouse or keyboard) to do that today. But people that requires to create content like documents, videos, images, etc, still require a better input device like a keyboard and mouse.

I work retail part time and it keeps amazing me that people still have to buy windows 10, which is about one of the worst operating systems available. It starts out slow out of the gate and a few months down the road and it will grind to a halt because of malware. The only alternative is the crappy Chromebook, which is limited in its functionality.
I do see your point about content consumption though.
Not sure it's a great that we live in a world which people are just being pushed to be consumers instead of creators though.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on February 19, 2020, 03:45:41 pm
I already live in a hybrid world of iPhone/iPad + OS/2. It's certainly not the iPhone/iPad that are replacing OS/2. It's iCloud and the other on-line services. The new OS/2 browser cannot come soon enough.
Curious what you mean by the iCloud replacing OS/2? Personally I think cloud services are largely a scam. I use google drive for storage but I feel a lot of "cloud" services are just tricking you into paying a monthly fee for something you could have owned, like an office suite.

I mean the cloud is slowly removing my personal need for OS/2. However, the cloud has already replaced Windows, Linux and Mac on the desktop. All of these companies make far more profit on their cloud service than on their PC hardware and software.

There will always be a few PC, and even a few PC servers. But even looking at chips, Intel and AMD are designing for the cloud.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Pete on February 19, 2020, 04:42:47 pm
Hi All

A little point of interest here.

The Wife has over the past year gradually moved more of her "internetting" onto her mobile and rarely boots Her pc these days.

However a Paypal problem has caused her to rethink whether she should dump pc use completely. The problem with Paypal was that she needed to add another Currency to her "accept" list. Which should not have been a problem except that the option needed simply does not appear in her Paypal app.

No problem setting that option from her pc/browser.

An email from Paypal confirms that a pc/browser is required for some Paypal options - but no explanation as to why.

She is currently at her pc using A004 to type a letter to someone - something else that is not as easy to do on a mobile.

I suspect pcs are going to be around for a few more years yet.


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Doug Bissett on February 19, 2020, 08:52:11 pm
Quote
I suspect pcs are going to be around for a few more years yet.

I am surprised that somebody hasn't built a USB video adapter (perhaps they did, and I don't know about it). Attach one of them (with a full size screen), a mouse, and a keyboard, to USB on your phone, and you can use it as a computer. WiFi, and/or Bluetooth, could also be used.

My phone is Android 7 (not new). If I attach my USB hub, with keyboard and mouse (wireless) attached, they both work with the phone. Obviously, whatever problems your wife has, could easily be fixed, if somebody took an interest.

The bottom line is, that the average phone can already replace the average PC, but a couple of pieces are still missing, and some software tweaking is probably required.

The major "problem" is that you can't leave the phone  to monitor the internet (or do other things), when you go out, because you probably want to have the phone with you. Of course, a second, or third, phone (probably without a SIM card and phone plan), could do the job of a PC. It all depends on what you use each one for.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: hakuchi on February 19, 2020, 10:19:23 pm
Personal computers are not going to die. Sure there are new concepts arriving every now and then. Purism for example has very interesting bundle thingie with their Librem 5 phone. Which seems to be quite nice Open Source gadget. They have monitor, keyboard and mouse bundles. Bit pricey they are, but if you don't like being tracked and being part of data sucking beast it might be a choice. Of course there are others also.

These solutions works for many and are very "convenient". But will not replace good ole personal computers.

The fact that I have had only laptops for past 10 years or so is the fact that I have been living in such places that it has been only way. And for my use hardware I have had has been efficient. Since I don't game or need latest and greatest there has been very good laptops to choose from.

But even though I have had laptops I count them more or less "personal computers" and desktops. External monitor, keyboard and pointer device of the choice makes them more or less personal computers when I haven't been carrying my main one ever. I have my dedicated travel laptop that I take with me when on the road.

What comes to could stuffs there has been moving away from those thingies lately. People like to keep their stuff private. This is not the mainstream by any means. most of the people don't really care about anything of their privacy when it comes to computers and networks. I wonder why those people keep their homes and cars locked but I'll never even want to know.

Oldschool decentralised things like Gopher and BBS' have seen more and more interest lately. And I'm not surprised that there will be somekind of separation between "the web" and "the net" at some point when people who don't like all the tracking and ads we see brought to our face via HTTP protocol. Decentralised services are growing more and more every day.

But we see what happens in the future ... we are living interesting times anyway.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 20, 2020, 03:37:17 am
I mean the cloud is slowly removing my personal need for OS/2. However, the cloud has already replaced Windows, Linux and Mac on the desktop. All of these companies make far more profit on their cloud service than on their PC hardware and software.
Just wondering what specifically about the cloud replaces your need for os/2? What are you doing with it that you would have previously used your computer for?
Personally I can't imagine life without a PC - It's interesting to me that you can.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Martin Vieregg on February 20, 2020, 10:42:26 am
In my opinion, the Personal Computer goes back to the way of usage he had in the late 80s and beginning 90s, before the WWW has been invented. It was a working tool for brain-workers and a toy for nerds. The "consumers" prefer tablet and smartphone. But I wonder that all the people accept the small screens. A big screen and overlapping windows alre an important advantage of Personal Computers.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: hakuchi on February 20, 2020, 05:06:36 pm
In my opinion, the Personal Computer goes back to the way of usage he had in the late 80s and beginning 90s, before the WWW has been invented. It was a working tool for brain-workers and a toy for nerds. The "consumers" prefer tablet and smartphone. But I wonder that all the people accept the small screens. A big screen and overlapping windows alre an important advantage of Personal Computers.

Exactly the separation I was referring to. Shiny-swipey-thingies keep consumers consuming and interwebs keep bombarding them with the stiuff they "defititely need to buy" while those who value the information and content more that bling-and-whatnot will eventually gravitate to decentralised ways to get info/data/whatnot. If you ask me, HTTP protocol is FUBAR already and will never be same again. There is no going back to good old days of RFC 1945 ... but RFC 1436 cannot experience the same faith. Same goes to good old BBS'

Also we will see that only consumers are going to be online all the time and doers will eventually go back to the good old ways of 80's and 90's when we weren't online but just couple hours a day or so.

Or at least this has been the path I have seen many to take in last 10 or so years and more and more within last couple years. And I think it's good path.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on February 20, 2020, 05:58:19 pm
I mean the cloud is slowly removing my personal need for OS/2. However, the cloud has already replaced Windows, Linux and Mac on the desktop. All of these companies make far more profit on their cloud service than on their PC hardware and software.
Just wondering what specifically about the cloud replaces your need for os/2? What are you doing with it that you would have previously used your computer for?
Personally I can't imagine life without a PC - It's interesting to me that you can.

Well, OS/2 provides storage and applications.

Many of our applications are out of date, and better handled by more modern software. All the latest versions are cloud-based and eventually trickle back down to the PC. But I'm used to the OS/2 apps, so I only change when I have to.

Browser - Firefox is increasingly incompatible with websites I use. I often have to go to an alternative, and the phone is conveniently close by.

Storage is nice on OS/2, up to 2 TB, which is OK for now. I can see where backup to cloud may be coming. I'm concerned about privacy, but it's not like OS/2 has any protection against snooping.

I run an OS/2-based business. I need access to my business assets at all times. It's a lot more convenient to have this on the phone. Yes, of course I'm running the OS/2 desktop on my phone via VNC. I still see cloud services taking over as I move to a hybrid OS/2, iOS environment.

Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Graser on February 20, 2020, 09:17:28 pm
My problem with the cloud is that one is storing their personal and business information on someone else's server.    I want none of my info on anyone else's computer but my own, even if it is more work to do so.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Dave Yeo on February 20, 2020, 09:46:27 pm
It is handy for stuff that you don't mind being public such as GPL source code. Also you can encrypt stuff before putting it on a cloud.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: hakuchi on February 20, 2020, 10:02:25 pm
It is handy for stuff that you don't mind being public such as GPL source code. Also you can encrypt stuff before putting it on a cloud.

Yeah. Make encrypted slices of compressed archive and stuff it into do-no-evil 10gb per slice ... or just make proper zip-bombs and put those in there and see how the beast likes them when crunching through your bits and bytes :D
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 21, 2020, 09:25:44 am
Many of our applications are out of date, and better handled by more modern software. All the latest versions are cloud-based and eventually trickle back down to the PC. But I'm used to the OS/2 apps, so I only change when I have to.
Well I envy your lack of attachment  to older software and maybe even os/2 from the sounds of it. Personally I love certain old software like smartsuite, so don't see myself changing from it unless I really have to.

When I was younger I felt technology was always moving forward and making progress (with personal computers,  the Internet, PDAs and then smartphones) but I feel like in the last 5-10 years it has really gone a direction I don't consider progress,
Before personal computers, people had to rent usage of shared computer resources on workstation and mainframes.
The whole idea of the personal computer was to give you your own computing resources that you owned.
So it ironically seems to be back sliding to renting computing resources again, which doesn't seem like progress to me.

Devices like Alexa also seem silly to me, like it gives little real return and instead just pushes consumerism. Whereas the PC actually made a difference in the lives of regular people, with things like spreadsheets, organizational software, word processing, research applications, drawing and image editors etc. The Alexa on the other hand adds very little real value, like no one really needs a device that can turn on music when you just have to click play on your phone.. or it can turn on your lights as if it is difficult to hit a switch. Just really don't see the appeal.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 21, 2020, 09:47:23 am
I'm concerned about privacy, but it's not like OS/2 has any protection against snooping.
Isn't OS/2 generally considered pretty secure?
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Paul Smedley on February 21, 2020, 09:56:47 am
Security by obscurity maybe..... If you're going to write malware, why would you target OS/2 given it's miniscule market share?
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 21, 2020, 10:00:08 am
Security by obscurity maybe..... If you're going to write malware, why would you target OS/2 given it's miniscule market share?
Yeah, I know Security by obscurity is supposed to be not really considered security, but in reality it is right, since like you said, no one is really going to bother with making viruses and trying to hack OS/.2.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Dave Yeo on February 21, 2020, 05:17:21 pm
The browser is a weak point. There was a case years back of something trying to run C:\WINDOWS\CMD.EXE from the browser, it turned out ours was too buggy for it to work as well as Windows cmd.exe not working on OS/2 but they could have targeted plain old %COMSPEC%.
More possible is one tab spying on another tab.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 21, 2020, 06:42:52 pm
The browser is a weak point. There was a case years back of something trying to run C:\WINDOWS\CMD.EXE from the browser, it turned out ours was too buggy for it to work as well as Windows cmd.exe not working on OS/2 but they could have targeted plain old %COMSPEC%.
More possible is one tab spying on another tab.
Ah didn't know about that. Yeah I can see how using an older version would put things at risk.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Doug Bissett on February 21, 2020, 07:02:22 pm
Quote
I feel like in the last 5-10 years it has really gone a direction I don't consider progress,

That depends on how you define "progress". From a user point of view, small steps happen, mostly to keep users interested. From the point of view of those running the spy uhm advertising uhm cloud services, huge steps have been taken. People have been sucked in, so they can inspect whatever you store there (you do agree to that).

Back in the early days of OS/2, IBM came out with a plan to do something similar. The idea was to make a PC smart enough to attach to the IBM service (not called "cloud"), where they would be able to start a program (paid per use, or on contract), and run it. The data was supposed to stay on the users computer. That idea went nowhere, mostly because the internet was way too slow.

Quote
The browser is a weak point.

Actually any ported windows program can have holes in it, but the browser (including Thunderbird) has huge holes in it. The main protection, that we have, is that malware usually just crashes the program, or itself.

Not long ago, I got some "Smart plugs" from Amazon (Yuton brand specifically). After plugging one in, I noticed a constant, low level, network activity. I checked my firewall, and it wasn't blocking it, but there was a constant probe of port 6667, on every attached device (all OS/2, at the time) from the Smart plug. That, in itself was not malicious, but it didn't make any sense (the excuse was, that that is how the devices connect to the "cloud", so they could be turned on/off). So I fire walled my windows machines, immediately. A few days later, when I started up Firefox (OS/2) Something started to cause process dumps, about every 10 seconds. When I investigated that, it was a program called HELLO. When I investigated that, it was probably one of those things that encrypts your data, with an offer to decrypt it, if you pay <whatever> within a few hours. So, technically, the plugs didn't cause the problem, but what they did, was open the path through port 6667 (internet relay chat), and as soon as something (Firefox) opened the port, it was in, and tried to run. If it had actually succeeded, it probably still wouldn't do much damage, because of an unknown directory structure, but. After that, I also had some weird settings in my router. Fortunately, a factory reset fixed that problem. The plugs went back, since they didn't seem to be interested in fixing the problem.

So, OS/2 saved me, that time. Over the years, I have often noticed that Firefox would simply crash, for no obvious reason. I assume that some of those crashes were bad code in Firefox, but I am pretty sure that a lot of them were malware trying to do something.

One BIG problem, that we do have, is that we don't have any virus protection. We do have CLAMAV, but that is mostly not usable, for a number of reasons (super SLOW is one of them, even when using CLAMD, which uses HUGE amounts of upper shared memory).

Quote
no one is really going to bother with making viruses and trying to hack OS/.2.

The biggest exposure, is that one of them could actually run, by accident. Chances are, that it wouldn't do what it was designed to do, but it could still do severe damage. Our best defense is to have good, tested backups, that are done on a regular basis.

@Dave: PLEASE don't make suggestions about how to do it.  :o
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Dave Yeo on February 21, 2020, 07:14:12 pm
Not just older browser versions, there are often zero day vulnerabilities that target the latest or close to the latest.
Likely the biggest danger to our old Mozilla is old malware that has been laying around since ours was released whereas generally malware goes for the popular, which is the most recent.
Still a good practice to use adblockers, including a hosts file and/or NoScript as ads are a common infection vector.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Dave Yeo on February 21, 2020, 07:17:54 pm
Another interesting attack vector is USB sticks. There's cases of them having an extra keyboard controller to inject commands, not really a worry for us besides making things unstable and the scariest is USB devices designed to kill your computer, a big capacitor or such injecting a large voltage through your USB port. Depending on the motherboards design, it might only blow a fuse or might fry the board.
Always be careful of USB sticks found in a parking lot :)
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 21, 2020, 09:09:03 pm
That depends on how you define "progress". From a user point of view, small steps happen, mostly to keep users interested. From the point of view of those running the spy uhm advertising uhm cloud services, huge steps have been taken. People have been sucked in, so they can inspect whatever you store there (you do agree to that).
I guess my definition of progress is making a real positive difference in peoples lives, such as I mentioned spreadsheets were a pretty huge development in the dos era as giving people power to compute and crunch numbers in all different ways not previously easy or possible.
Or the car allowed people to travel further distance in shorter time - measurable and real progress.
Or the mobile revolution allows people to compute on the go, something no one could do before.
Other than cloud storage and integration of apps with internet services, I think the cloud is mostly hoodwinking people. Sure people have been taken by the concept because of marketing, but that doesn't actually make it progress unless the marketing is telling a real story.
For example I don't think office 365 is really offering anything that standard office or open source office suites like libraoffice, in fact it's worse since you have to keep paying for it. Microsoft might suck some people into the marketing, but it isn't really progress, at least from my point of view.

I admit some things are subjective, like features you might like that I don't care about -- but things like the car and the PC actually transformed peoples lives.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: ivan on February 21, 2020, 10:23:26 pm
Hi Dave,

Regarding the USB problems you mentioned we had a client that was worried about that so we made a test unit using a Raspberri Pi board, several high capacity zena diodes, a couple of replaceable fuses and a USB socket.  Don't know if it worked for his company but it did work when we tested it.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Mathias on February 21, 2020, 11:06:41 pm
Exactly.. cloud makes you pay to access your stuff.
Some cloud services are free to use, but then of course it might be taken away/offline all of sudden, once the hoster is no longer in business or willing to grant you access. - Does not even need to be your fault. - It`s enough to come from the wrong IP range.. like in my case some days ago.

Some brickheads at spamhaus thought that blocking my provider`s full IP range was a good idea, in order to block out the bad guys. Unfortuantely they blocked not only the bad guys apparently.. ;o

So.. what *I* do not like about the cloud is, that you might loose access to your data all of sudden. You do not have control. Only seems like it. Next day the data can be inaccessible for unforseeable reasons.. atleast for a limited time.

And of course in case of an application cloud.. they make you pay to access the stuff, you need... which is often more expensive than simply continuing to use the offline software version as long as it is supported.

Most offline software is still patched nicely for years and years. So why use the cloud version? Well.. 1) you always use the newest version and 2) no need to care about licenses, since your cloud management tool will also take care of this... you book x users for y hours/days..
And it might be cheaper to rent the software, cloud wise, for a short period of time versus buying the full offline product.
That goes, of course, only if you plan to use it for a short time..

But then again..
using cloud services always means taking the risk of ....
1) taking part in telemetry (or even data) collection or harvesting
2) being locked out when you are no longer wanted
3) being locked out in case of hard/software problems at the provider or the hoster
4) paying more than you might need to..

Of course running everything offline means, that YOU are also in charge of backing up everything yourself! Also the cloud hosted stuff mostly is highly available.. if one location fails, you can be sure the cloud switches access to another location, where everything is also duplicated to.
To have the same infrastructure in the same high availability can quickly get expensive..

So.. cloud is both.. good and bad thing at the same time..
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 22, 2020, 07:36:54 am
Another interesting attack vector is USB sticks. There's cases of them having an extra keyboard controller to inject commands, not really a worry for us besides making things unstable and the scariest is USB devices designed to kill your computer, a big capacitor or such injecting a large voltage through your USB port. Depending on the motherboards design, it might only blow a fuse or might fry the board.
Always be careful of USB sticks found in a parking lot :)
After you mentioned it I surfed around and found a video of the killer usb stick being used on different devices, including a car:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4OmkBYB4HY

Yeah i'm not using strange usb sticks now :). Not that I was before but i'm really not now.

So enough of these being distributed could definitely lead to the death of the personal computer  ;D
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: David Kiley on February 29, 2020, 05:10:40 am
A few days later, when I started up Firefox (OS/2) Something started to cause process dumps, about every 10 seconds. When I investigated that, it was a program called HELLO. When I investigated that, it was probably one of those things that encrypts your data, with an offer to decrypt it, if you pay <whatever> within a few hours. So, technically, the plugs didn't cause the problem, but what they did, was open the path through port 6667 (internet relay chat), and as soon as something (Firefox) opened the port, it was in, and tried to run. If it had actually succeeded, it probably still wouldn't do much damage, because of an unknown directory structure, but. After that, I also had some weird settings in my router. Fortunately, a factory reset fixed that problem. The plugs went back, since they didn't seem to be interested in fixing the problem.

So, OS/2 saved me, that time. Over the years, I have often noticed that Firefox would simply crash, for no obvious reason. I assume that some of those crashes were bad code in Firefox, but I am pretty sure that a lot of them were malware trying to do something.
Wait are you saying this program was running from os/2? How did it install itself?
Seriously freaky if so.
Title: Re: Future death of the personal computer?
Post by: Doug Bissett on February 29, 2020, 07:24:35 am
Quote
Wait are you saying this program was running from os/2? How did it install itself?
Seriously freaky if so.

It came in on the IRC channel, and tried to run. I got a Process dump of it failing, about every 20 seconds, until I closed Firefox. I added port 6667 to my firewall, and haven't seen it again. I do hope that those who produced it feel very bad that I didn't pay them.

It is not so freaky. Firefox is full of holes like that. Fortunately, I didn't find out if Firefox, in windows, would do the same thing.