Talk:Virtual-OS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thank you for your interest in Virtual-OS and the recent events that led to our submission of this info to wikipedia. As mentioned in the article the open source distribution of framework has currently been suspended. Perhaps I did not make the reasons for this or the circumstances surrounding the events totally clear in the article and would appreciate your help to clarify the article.
The software was initially released for closed beta testing with public distribution of the script in August 2006. Regardless of a liability of fitness disclaimer the online windowed desktop emulator was implemented on several sites that contained sensitive user data. In December 2006 an exploit was found in the application which resulted in the compromise of these sites, potential release of private information and defacement, which subsequently reported to press in Toronto, ON.
The (very one sided) article "How Safe is Your Pivate Information on the Web" was ran in The Mississauga News in the first week of December 2006 which basically (IMHO) held Virtual-OS and the developers personally responsible for the incident and attributed interactive websites to the lost of personal security on the internet. This sensational article was picked up and briefly reiterate on ChumTV CityNEWS the main televised newsfeed for the Toronto area (link provided).
This resulted in an out break of copy-cat attacks on our main server which really was endangering the safety of private info. The server is currently operating in a limited "safemode" with a forum for open discussion and distribution channels for the script archive has been restricted to limit further exploits of live beta sites that have opted to continue testing regardless of the vulnerabilities. These sites have been patched to a reasonable degree, and several other Virtual-OS beta sites are running in a secure CMS configuration.
The security issues should be fully addressed and resolved by February 1st and distribution of RC 1 will continue free of charge from SourceForge.net. This is a free MIT / X11 style licensed PHP Application / framework, and in no way do we intended to sound like we are advertising this as a commercial product. The main intent of this article is to address the security issue from a neutral point of view to address recent negative media attention and to provide basic information about the features and potential application of this framework.
I understand that you may not be familiar with this product or events but please feel free to contribute to the article to present it in a more appropriate manner. As the developer of the product, and the focus of much public scrutiny it is difficult for us to maintain a totally objective point of view.
Kind Regards,
AdvancedWebhosting 08:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the detailed information. My main concern with the article is that it does not cite any reliable sources. There was one news link, but the article it was pointing to was removed. Searching Google, LexisNexis, Newsbank, etc. I can find no significant mentions of Virtual-OS. If sources can be found we can fix the article to not read like an advertisement, but without them, it won't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. -SpuriousQ 09:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
