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It's not. Condoms aren't used against a hostile opponent. If your partner is intent on exposing you, a condom won't provide any protection.
by MichaelGG 11y ago
It's not. Condoms aren't used against a hostile opponent. If your partner is intent on exposing you, a condom won't provide any protection.
- nikanj 11y agoI can't think of a more hostile opponent than an HIV virus. And we're still not sure if Transmission was spreading the virii intentionally, making the condom analogy even more fitting.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoHIV is not a threat crafted by an active adversary, it's a product of evolution.
- jdc 11y agoI think the point is that viruses can exploit properties of their hosts regardless of how they came to do so.
- tedks 11y agoBut humans and viruses aren't competing in the same game. A better metaphor for the adversary in that situation is the person you're having sex with poking a hole in your condom.
- uxp 11y agoThese metaphors are hard to follow. Does anyone have a car analogy to phrase this better? Seems like that's all we're missing in this thread.
- mort96 11y agoIt's like not putting a condom on your car. Sure, HIV might stick a hole in it, but I'd still use one.
- ctrlalt_g 11y agoIf you're worried about contracting STD's, don't have sex with a dirty prostitute, not even if you're wearing a condom, nor if you're sitting inside of a car.
- tedks 11y agoAnti-lock breaks won't help you if your brake line is cut.
- exprI 11y agoPerhaps a person who wants you to contract the said virus?
- Crito 11y agoRunning software in VMs to stay safe is not a new idea. So is it effective in this case? Just because attackers can break out of VMs, doesn't mean that they always do. I wager most malware out there isn't set up to do that. Locking your car door won't keep a dedicated attacker out of your car. Simple ceramic shards from a sparkplug will get them through the window with barely any effort at all. Nevertheless, locking your car doors is an effective way to reduce your risk, as it dissuades more opportunistic attackers.
- mirimir 11y agoAs far as I know, malware generally won't run in VMs. Because its enemies use VMs to study it. The side benefit is that VM breakout is rare. Except from the NSA ;)
- raesene9 11y agoPerhaps a better analogy is "everyone knows locks can be picked", but people don't leave all their doors unlocked...
- comex 11y agoMaybe closer to "everyone knows safes can be cracked". Compared to lockpicking, or the other, more brute force ways to get past doors, the skill needed to find and exploit a new (0day) vulnerability is relatively specialized, albeit abundant enough for worry.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 11y agoThis is what happens when you start using analogy instead of logic.
- conceit 11y agoWhat do you think the logy in analogy stands for?
- thaumasiotes 11y ago"ratio". > from Greek analogia "proportion," from ana- "upon, according to" (see ana-) + logos "ratio," also "word, speech, reckoning" (see logos). A mathematical term used in a wider sense by Plato. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=analogy http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...
- conceit 11y agoso, what do you think where logic comes from? I'll spare you the effort: > [...] from properly feminine of λογικός (logikós, “of or pertaining to speech or reason or reasoning, rational, reasonable”), from λόγος (lógos, “speech, reason”). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/logic https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/logic There is no analogy without logic. I even fail to recognize a difference between speech and logic, speech without logic, by analogy, would be just noise.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoYour extremely ignorant argument immediately implies that the clubs used to hit baseballs are necessarily related to flying mammals. The facts that the english word analogy descends in a complicated manner from a greek word referring to mathematical proprotions, and the english word logic descends in a somewhat less complicated manner from a greek word referring to speech, and that those greek words shared their pronunciation, tell us nothing about the relationship between analogies and logic. A standard chinese term for "analogy" (also, "metaphor") is 比喻 biyu. The term for "logic" is 逻辑 luoji (it is a loan word from english). Are you prepared to grant that, while analogies and logic are necessarily intertwined for people who speak english or greek, they are unrelated for people who speak modern mandarin chinese?
- dang 11y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11235220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11235220 and marked it off-topic.