[Elecraft] Old DOS computers

[Dave B]

If anyone thinks a "New" PC out of the box, is "secure"?

Think again, they are far from secure, unless you spend several hours 
disabling a lot of "phone home" & auto update facilities in all the 
pre-installed (and usually unwanted) crap-ware (sometimes including 
parts of the OS itself) that are often nigh on impossible to un-install.

If you want "security" never connect it to any network, certainly never 
the internet!

If you do use the internet, then at the very least disable UPnP in your 
gateway/router device.   And keep said gateway/router device firmware 
up-to-date (and ensure that UPnP is OFF after such updates!)

And as for efficency...   Have you measured the power consumed by a 
modern PC when watching streamed video for example?

Much of the older technology was built for reliability too, not the 
cheap mass produced lead free tin whisker prone stuff of modern times.   
Dont either fall into the trap that SSD's last forever.  They wear out 
too, but in different ways.

Best to use a SSD to boot from (largely read only) but keep the swap 
file and user working data on a rotating-rust drive. Archives can go on 
the SSD (as well as an off site store...)

I wonder if the Linux based OS in the K4 is locked down, firewall on and 
configured to drop incoming requests by default, with certificate only 
based remote access for example where needed, and full (different 
certificate) authentication when/if it phones home to Elecraft, to help 
mitigate MITM spoofing issues.   (Man In The Middle.)

If you can "see" it (or any other PC/device) on your network, it(they) 
is(are) not secure.

You wouldn't want your shack to be compromised by malware in the radio, 
or lightbulb!  (Yes, there is malware/ransomware for Linux, not common 
yet, but nasty.)

73.

Dave G8KBV.


On 29/06/2021 02:34, elecraft-request at mailman.qth.net wrote:
> yet they keep old PC?s that are not very efficient at all, nor are they secure. It just defies logic !

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