Security pro: Windows easier to 0wn

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You just don't get it

Your biggest point appears to be that the assumption of the white paper is that Windows users are clueless while Linux users are competent. However, the actual point of the paper is that it doesn't matter.

In fact, the reason Linux turns out to be more secure is because it deals directly with the expectation that most users are clueless, by protecting the kernel better in a number of ways and by making everything transparent to the user.

Aitel didn't need to belabor that the Mac OSX can be hacked the quickest. But to say he didn't belabor it does not mean it was dismissed. To be dismissed it wouldn't have been included at all.

It isn't Apple spending beaucoup bucks on misleading folks about Linux and what Linux does and doesn't do. It is Microsoft. It hasn't been Apple paying for one phoney TCO study after another to misrepresent itself and Linux. It has been Microsoft.

You act like installing postfix manually from source is a big deal. A lot of people install from source on Linux boxes. In fact, a much greater percentage of Linux users install their operating systems. That is very unlike the typical Windows user who gets his Windows preinstalled.

However most clueless Linux users do not install or upgrade from source, they do it the same way Windows users do it. They download the patch provided by their distro as a binary.

I don't know any even competent Windows admins who can tell you what every process on a Windows box is doing. In fact I don't know any Windows programmers who work for MS -- and I know a bunch -- who can tell you what every process is doing. Frequently identifying every process is an issue on a Windows system, particularly when troubleshooting.

Anyone who cares can indeed identify every process, every file on a Linux system.

Many, many very competent Windows admins have been fooled by worms or trojans adding users they didn't know were phonies. With regard to a worm like Download.ject, many systems were compromised that had been fixed. The admins could not determine that from within, but had to be told by one of the outside agencies that monitor those things that their patched system running Windows Server 2003 Rel. 6 (which was supposed to be immune) had been compromised.

These issues transcend competence. They are endemic to the operating systems -- which is the point.

Posted by: dhk   Posted on: 08/14/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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