In message <20050725171652.GA26608@kyyhky.embedtronics.fi>, Jukka Marin writes:
>On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 09:32:14AM -0700, Bill Studenmund wrote:
>> Why not just unmount the stick before disconnecting it?
>
>No modern operating system should have the user do things like this unless
>he/she has a specific reason for it.  The users don't even know what
>mounting a disk means.
>

Of course, DOS/Windows has gone the other way -- you never needed to 
tell the OS anything when you removed a floppy drive, but you do need 
to "stop" a USB disk or PCMCIA device before removal.  I believe the 
same is true on MacOS.

In other words, maybe people shouldn't have to do it, but on most 
modern systems they do; it's not a new concept except, perhaps, for the 
word "unmount".

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb