long running sessions, restarts, etc.

Jeroen van Meeuwen kanarip at kanarip.com
Tue Sep 29 18:08:19 UTC 2009


On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:51:29 -0400, Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com>
wrote:
> Really? I think we're moving more towards a model on mobile devices where
> there *is* no logout/reboot except by accident in a large number of
cases.
> 

I think the mobility argument is a very valid one, but it isn't truly
specific to mobile devices. I log out/log back in on my desktop or laptop
about as much as my phone runs out of juice, sorta speak (unless I forget
my phone in Rheinfelden, that is).

What we have to remember is the type of security issue you would want to
require a reboot/restart for. If it's a memory leak, for instance, then hey
all of a sudden my device isn't going to work the way I want it. I'll
restart the application myself, or reboot my device. Either one is pretty
much intuitive to a no-know, including my girlfriend (in fact it's the
first thing she does and *then* she calls me her PC was sooooo slow, and
she's glad a reboot solved the problem *sigh*).

If it's a majorly important
"you-are-going-to-be-hacked-standing-too-close-to-starfucks" type of
security issue, then hey... your call drops, your application restarts, and
maybe you lose a session where you had this amazing one-liner with all
kinds of ifs and fors and whiles and awks and seds. There's a price either
way for these kinds of bugs, right?

-- Jeroen




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