On Sat, 1 Jul 2023 20:18:30 -0400
"Newyana2" <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> "Johnny" <johnny@invalid.net> wrote
>
> | This guy has been working on and outgoing fire wall for Linux for
> | several years. He needs some help.
> |
>
> For years. Typical Linux.
>
> | I tried it about a year ago, and it worked. I used it long enough
> to | know I didn't need it, and got rid of it.
> |
>
> I find that most Linux people feel as you do. They don't
> believe Linux can have malware or spyware, so they don't
> want control. I don't mind that on my Raspberry Pi, which
> I only use for streaming movies. With that it's fine to let
> it update itself. But I wouldn't want a system that I actually
> work on to be an opaque sieve like that.
>
> | https://douaneapp.com/
> |
>
> There isn't even a webpage there. It's just a URL going to
> a javascript software program. Strange that someone who
> appreciates the value of a firewall would think it's OK to
> ask visitors to his webpage to let him run software on their
> computer, sight unseen. There's no HTML at all! I just get
> a blank page that says, "This app requires javascript." App!
>
>

There is a complete website there. It shows the versions, the bugs,
and an installation tool.

"Johnny" <johnny@invalid.net> wrote

| There is a complete website there. It shows the versions, the bugs,
| and an installation tool.
|

Sorry to be so critical, but you ARE trying to sell
Linux in a Windows group. And to me Linux is a
tragic tale when it comes to Desktop. It could have
been a solution to greed and corporate privatization.
Instead it's just a bitter geek club.

I'm guessing you don't know anything about webpage
coding. There's no website there. If you don't allow
script then you get a "webpage" file that's simply a
block of script, calling more script. It's literally a software
program. All executable code. By visiting you're asked
to download and run an unknown quantity and quality
of executable code. And why should I trust that? The
douaneapp.com domain also has a private whois listing.
So I'm being asked to run an unknown executable from
an unknown source. I can see why you don't need a
firewall. You don't even know that your front door is
missing.

This is why there's malware. Virtually all online risk
requires javascript, which is generally unnecessary.
The bulk of online tracking and privacy intrusion is also
using javascript. You can get some sense of the risk
in terms of privacy at sites like this:
https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

Ironically, that site now requires script. They used
to tell you what information you were giving to a
site, with or without script. Now the webpage won't
even work without script. ("We can't tell you whether
your pants are down unless you first take them off." :)

Not so long ago, good webpage coding meant that
if you wanted to make some kind of webpage special
effects with script, your page should still work fine
without it. A webpage should be safe by its very design.
That's how HTML and CSS were designed to work. They
specify content and layout, not executable code.

Now we have webpages that are not webpages at
all. They're software programs made of javascript and
json. Some sort of webpage will be displayed when the
code runs, but what's there is not actually a webpage.
That would be like saying Firefox and Chromium are
windows. They show you a window, but that's not what
they are.

So visiting webpages with normal settings is no longer
safe. So-called driveby installation of malware is made
relatively easy. At the same time, a lot of software
doesn't respect privacy and tries to call home without
asking... All of that is why you need a firewall. Neither
Linux nor Windows will protect you. They're designed to
assume that you, the user, can't be trusted but that the
network is safe. The default Linux firewall *might* block
your risky ports, but it won't block anything from calling
home once it's on your computer.

On Sun, 2 Jul 2023 08:47:50 -0400
"Newyana2" <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> "Johnny" <johnny@invalid.net> wrote
>
> | There is a complete website there. It shows the versions, the bugs,
> | and an installation tool.
> |
>
> Sorry to be so critical, but you ARE trying to sell
> Linux in a Windows group. And to me Linux is a
> tragic tale when it comes to Desktop. It could have
> been a solution to greed and corporate privatization.
> Instead it's just a bitter geek club.
>
> I'm guessing you don't know anything about webpage
> coding. There's no website there. If you don't allow
> script then you get a "webpage" file that's simply a
> block of script, calling more script. It's literally a software
> program. All executable code. By visiting you're asked
> to download and run an unknown quantity and quality
> of executable code. And why should I trust that? The
> douaneapp.com domain also has a private whois listing.
> So I'm being asked to run an unknown executable from
> an unknown source. I can see why you don't need a
> firewall. You don't even know that your front door is
> missing.
>
> This is why there's malware. Virtually all online risk
> requires javascript, which is generally unnecessary.
> The bulk of online tracking and privacy intrusion is also
> using javascript. You can get some sense of the risk
> in terms of privacy at sites like this:
> https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
>
> Ironically, that site now requires script. They used
> to tell you what information you were giving to a
> site, with or without script. Now the webpage won't
> even work without script. ("We can't tell you whether
> your pants are down unless you first take them off." :)
>
> Not so long ago, good webpage coding meant that
> if you wanted to make some kind of webpage special
> effects with script, your page should still work fine
> without it. A webpage should be safe by its very design.
> That's how HTML and CSS were designed to work. They
> specify content and layout, not executable code.
>
> Now we have webpages that are not webpages at
> all. They're software programs made of javascript and
> json. Some sort of webpage will be displayed when the
> code runs, but what's there is not actually a webpage.
> That would be like saying Firefox and Chromium are
> windows. They show you a window, but that's not what
> they are.
>
> So visiting webpages with normal settings is no longer
> safe. So-called driveby installation of malware is made
> relatively easy. At the same time, a lot of software
> doesn't respect privacy and tries to call home without
> asking... All of that is why you need a firewall. Neither
> Linux nor Windows will protect you. They're designed to
> assume that you, the user, can't be trusted but that the
> network is safe. The default Linux firewall *might* block
> your risky ports, but it won't block anything from calling
> home once it's on your computer.
>
>

I use NoScript. There is only one script. douaneapp.com

Allow that and you get this without pictures.

Douane personal firewall for GNU/Linux

Douane is a personal firewall that protects a user\'s privacy by allowing a user to control which applications can connect to the internet from their GNU/Linux computer.
Gitter
The built-in features available in Douane
Douane Dialog window
Simple as answering a question

As soon as you have access to a network, applications will try to send whatever information.

Behind your traffic (emails, social networks, online videos, ...) you will discover some network activities that you did not expected.

The Douane firewall will blocks all the unknown traffic and let you decide if you allow it or not thanks to this dialog box.
Clicking the Allow or Deny buttons will create the desired rule for you.
Douane Configurator window
A single place to control Douane

This is the Douane control panel.

It allows you to:

Start/Stop the firewall
Enable/Disable the autostart feature
See and delete created rules

Compatibility

Douane runs on any GNU/Linux distributions having a kernel version 3 or higher, and it requires Python 3 for the configuration panel, and GTK 3 for the dialog and the configuration panel too.

You can find the complete Douane dependency list in the Douane Wiki page.
Download
Warning: unfortunately the project is suffering of a kernel freeze bug that can break your machine!

You can follow the bug resolution from this issue.
Have a look at the Roadmap to see when this issue should be fixed!

The current version is 0.8.2.
douane-installer (Recommended)

The Douane architecture is a puzzle, on purpose, in order to allow Douane to fit in the giant Linux ecosystem.
But flexibility comes with complexity and makes Douane hard to install for many people.

That's why I created douane-installer which automatises the download, compilation and installation of Douane on your machine.
Douane installer screenshot
douane-installer automatise the Douane installation process.

Download it, and run it as described in the project's README.md file.
The hard way

Finally, in the case you know what you are doing, you can follow the compilation wiki page and compile/install each parts manually.
What about distribution packages?

Unfortunately the project is not packaged in any distribution format.

Packaging an app takes a lot of time, therefore I decided to not take care of this part, even do I was doing it in the past for the Debian package format.
You can find some files here.

Another reason is because of the low popularity of the project since it has this bad bug about kernel freezes which is the top priority in the entire project.
Roadmap

In this section you can have an overview of the project's roadmap.
Version 0.9.0

Bug
douane-dkms
Kernel panic in Ubuntu 14.04
Bug
douane-dkms
netfiler_packet_hook: Something prevent to sent the network activity
Enhancement
douane-dkms
Replace printk by pr_* macros
Enhancement
douane-configurator
Update the enable/disable switch in order to support systemd
Enhancement
douane-installer
Install the lastest version instead of the master one

Version 0.10.0

Enhancement
douane-daemon
Daemon process using too much resources
Enhancement
douane-daemon
Write the help message
Feature
douane-daemon
Don't stop the daemon anymore, but disconnect from the kernel module instead
Bug
douane-dialog
Dialog crashes when multiple processes trigger simultaneously
Enhancement
douane-dialog
KDE implementation needed
Enhancement
douane-dialog
Logging place should be changed
Enhancement
douane-configurator
Enable/Disable switch not checking

How can I help?
If you know the C programming language

You can be very helpful by stabilizing, optimizing, debugging and refactoring the Douane DKMS code which is the heart of Douane.
If you know the C++ programming language

First be sure to know about D-Bus, which is the backbone of Douane. Then you can help on optimizing the Douane daemon but also implementing new features!

The Douane dialog, that inform the user about unknown applications, trying to access the outworld, and ask them if they allow or deny it is written in C++ too.
You will need to know about GTK and GTKmm in order to update its look & feel or add new features.
If you know the Python programming language

The Douane configuration panel, which gives the control of Douane to the users, is written in Python 3 and needs improvements and new features too.

You will need to know about D-Bus too in order to communicate with the Douane daemon.
If you know about packaging apps

You are very welcome to make the project popular and accessible to all the people who are not technical people.

Have a look at existing issues in order to help. Or open a new one in order to get some help where you need it.
If you know the JavaScript programming language and React

You can improve this website and suggest modifications by opening issues or merge requests in its repository.
If you are a translater

You can help on translations in the following projects:

douane-install
douaneapp.com
the Douane Wiki pages

More places where translations can be updated will come over time.
Still want to help?

First, let me thank you for your motivation!

You can open issues about bugs you find, or new featues you think that could improve Douane.
All the feedbacks is welcome of course!
Meet the developer of Douane
Zedtux's avatar
Guillaume Hain
I am the main developer behind Douane with many years of experience in C/C++, Ruby, Python and some more.

I have developed Douane, during my free time, because I need this kind of tool which exist on other operating systems, but don't for Linux.

In message <d622aipkm1l2u4tu8ujqnq68amreemsoia@4ax.com> at Sun, 2 Jul
2023 00:20:52, Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> writes
>On Sat, 1 Jul 2023 17:03:57 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>Presumably, the same applies in Linux: some app.s (there, you've got me
>>using the term; at least I put the dot in!) don't pick up the standard
>>settings, but draw their own interfaces? (Or only part pick them up, so
>>make a mess?)
>
>OK, now you have to explain the significance of the dot in app.s :-)
>
>I think I've seen you use a dot before, when an apostrophe would have
>been the better choice, but this looks like a new thing.
>
Means same as the apostrophe would. Not sure why I prefer a dot -
perhaps I feel the apostrophe would be working too hard, indicating the
omission of 8 out of 11 letters.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Radio 4 is one of the reasons being British is good. It's not a subset of
Britain - it's almost as if Britain is a subset of Radio 4. - Stephen Fry, in
Radio Times, 7-13 June, 2003.

On Sun, 2 Jul 2023 14:33:21 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

>>I think I've seen you use a dot before, when an apostrophe would have
>>been the better choice, but this looks like a new thing.
>>
>Means same as the apostrophe would. Not sure why I prefer a dot -
>perhaps I feel the apostrophe would be working too hard, indicating the
>omission of 8 out of 11 letters.

It means the same... to YOU.

--
croy

On Sun, 2 Jul 2023 14:33:21 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>
wrote:

>In message <d622aipkm1l2u4tu8ujqnq68amreemsoia@4ax.com> at Sun, 2 Jul
>2023 00:20:52, Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> writes
>>On Sat, 1 Jul 2023 17:03:57 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Presumably, the same applies in Linux: some app.s (there, you've got me
>>>using the term; at least I put the dot in!) don't pick up the standard
>>>settings, but draw their own interfaces? (Or only part pick them up, so
>>>make a mess?)
>>
>>OK, now you have to explain the significance of the dot in app.s :-)
>>
>>I think I've seen you use a dot before, when an apostrophe would have
>>been the better choice, but this looks like a new thing.
>>
>Means same as the apostrophe would. Not sure why I prefer a dot -
>perhaps I feel the apostrophe would be working too hard, indicating the
>omission of 8 out of 11 letters.

Thanks for the explanation, but it's a bit unsettling to see one
character randomly selected to replace another. Maybe it'll become a
trend and come into general usage, but for now I'll stick with the
apostrophe. :-)

In message <o6o4ai1cm1j8bpllfv545t6e5llnbgbl5v@4ax.com> at Mon, 3 Jul
2023 00:49:24, Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> writes
[]
>>>OK, now you have to explain the significance of the dot in app.s :-)
>>>
>>>I think I've seen you use a dot before, when an apostrophe would have
>>>been the better choice, but this looks like a new thing.
>>>
>>Means same as the apostrophe would. Not sure why I prefer a dot -
>>perhaps I feel the apostrophe would be working too hard, indicating the
>>omission of 8 out of 11 letters.
>
>Thanks for the explanation, but it's a bit unsettling to see one
>character randomly selected to replace another. Maybe it'll become a
>trend and come into general usage, but for now I'll stick with the
>apostrophe. :-)
>
It's not selected at random; a dot has been used to indicate
abbreviation for a long time - e. g. in Mr., railway (railroad) names,
and so on (even in e. g. there!); it only tended to disappear from about
1950-1980. (On railway rolling stock somewhat earlier, allegedly to save
paint.) The trend to use capitals instead - without any dots - e. g. MPH
for speed - came in I suppose around the '90s. (Dropping the capitals as
well probably came in with texting, but those of us who are civilised
eschew lots of things that came with texting.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If something works, thank an engineer. (Reported seen on a bumper sticker.)

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote

| It's not selected at random; a dot has been used to indicate
| abbreviation for a long time - e. g. in Mr., railway (railroad) names,
| and so on (even in e. g. there!); it only tended to disappear from about
| 1950-1980. (On railway rolling stock somewhat earlier, allegedly to save
| paint.) The trend to use capitals instead - without any dots - e. g. MPH
| for speed - came in I suppose around the '90s. (Dropping the capitals as
| well probably came in with texting, but those of us who are civilised
| eschew lots of things that came with texting.)

Same is still used here. For example apt. is short
for apartment. But if necessary I'd write apts., not
apt.s. That still doesn't explain app.s. Application is
a word used in the industry, but "app" is not a
shortened version. As far as I remember, it's a
cutesy slang word made up by Steve Jobs. Most people
who use "app" wouldn't recognize "application". Nor
would they say it when speaking. But someone would say
"apartment". No one says, "I need to go look for an apt."
Though I suppose your friends might look for a fla.t. :)

In message <u7uat2$1ko5p$1@paganini.bofh.team> at Mon, 3 Jul 2023
07:19:56, Newyana2 <Newyana2@invalid.nospam> writes
[]
> Same is still used here. For example apt. is short
>for apartment. But if necessary I'd write apts., not
>apt.s. That still doesn't explain app.s. Application is
>a word used in the industry, but "app" is not a
>shortened version. As far as I remember, it's a
>cutesy slang word made up by Steve Jobs. Most people

I think it's the "cutesy" aspect of it I object to ...

>who use "app" wouldn't recognize "application". Nor

.... and that.

>would they say it when speaking. But someone would say
>"apartment". No one says, "I need to go look for an apt."
>Though I suppose your friends might look for a fla.t. :)
>
(-: A Brit "wild about my flat" is enthusiastic about his apartment; an
American ditto is furious about his puncture. An American going out in
vest and pants could be quite smartly dressed, but a Brit would be
arrested - even if he didn't offer to knock you up in the morning!
>
(Plenty more examples. Not sure who said "two nations divided by a
common language" - if Oscar Wilde didn't originate it, he almost
certainly re-used it.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Bother," said Pooh, as Windows crashed into piglet.