Live Spins

R A Jon Hamelin jon_hamelin at shaw.ca
Wed Nov 14 01:47:15 UTC 2007


Rick Stevens wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 12:49 -0800, R A Jon Hamelin wrote:
> <snip>
> 
>> 4) My original post was to inquire if the Developer spin was available 
>> via a straight download, not to discuss the pros and cons of torrents. I 
>> downloaded the F8 DVD as a regular download in 42 minutes. Why would I 
>> want some insecure software exposing me to who knows what risks for 12 
>> or so hours? No Thank you.
> 
> There is nothing inherently insecure in bittorrent.  You'd be exposed
> in EXACTLY the same manner if you were to perform an HTTP or FTP
> download of a malicious file.  Anyone who uses a downloaded file of
> ANY type without at least attempting to verify its validity is (pardon
> me for being blunt) foolish.
> 
> Now, is bittorrent faster?  That depends.  If there's only a few sites
> that have the stuff you want and they're really busy...yes, it's faster.
> It was designed to "spread the load around".  Now if you find a site
> that has what you want, isn't busy, and doesn't throttle long FTP
> sessions back then no, bittorrent won't be any faster.
> 
> The point is, there's no single "best way" to do ANYTHING.  It depends
> on what you're trying to do and what resources are available.  There is
> also absolutely no guarantee that what you download (via any method...
> even a disk you physically pick up somewhere) is what it purports to
> be.  There's an article in PC Week right now that says that a bunch of
> hard drives shipped from Taiwan _came_ with viruses pre-installed!
> Wonderful!
> 
> Ok, I've had my say.  Let the flaming begin!  (ducking his head)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
> - CDN Systems, Internap, Inc.                http://www.internap.com -
> -                                                                    -
> -  Tempt not the dragons of fate, since thou art crunchy and taste   -
> -                         good with ketchup.                         -
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 

Sorry to disappoint, however, being the old hippie that I am, I'm not 
into flaming. I suppose that like most things in life there is more than 
one way to accomplish a task. It all comes down to what you are 
comfortable with. Myself, I was bit once so I won't go there again. The 
company I downloaded from hasn't gone near torrents since either.

Sincerely,

Jon

-- 
R A Jon Hamelin
Hamelin Graphics
324-1985 Wallace St
Vancouver, BC V6R 4H4

778 327 9302




More information about the fedora-list mailing list