Security pro: Windows easier to 0wn

TalkBack 8 of 73:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Without data the whitepaper is opinion, not fact

unless of course it matches your opinion which would be adequate proof of research; at least in your mind.

The paper is dribble. Having superior development tools such as Softice and Visual debugger makes Windows less secure than Linux? If using printf or a simple toy like GDB makes you feel like more of a man then go for it, however it does not make anyone a superior engineer. It just means that the quality of the software is not up to the same level of sophistication as Windows software, and you Linux evangelist think that the consumer is ready for your hobby OS? Right.

Why is this white paper targeting Windows? In the authors most authoritative opinion he states:

'If the pond is over fished, it's harder to find them. Hackers are rather evenly split between running Linux and running Mac OSX. As much as few professional NASCAR drivers drive Dodge Neons, a negligible amount of skilled hackers use Windows as their primary OS'

and not one paragraph later he lists Mac OS X as *3* times easier to hack into than Windows and 6 times easier than Linux. The hackers in the know are not likely to be in a over fished pond? Sooooo, where are the Neon==Mac evangelists on that one?

'Modern Windows (as of XP SP2) contains heap overflow protection. This raises its TC0 dramatically, but is not yet in production and has not been considered for this survey.'

The paper was published August 12th, SP2 had already been released a couple of days and was available long before that if you had a MSDN subscription (which I am sure many people do) so update your survey before making comments unless of course you want to compare Windows to the 2.2 kernel.

'Both Fedora Core and Windows systems include automatic patch updating. However, only Fedora Core supports non core OS products, such as image manipulation programs. As such, Fedora Core is more likely to be updated than Windows systems.'

I did not allow Redhat 9 and earlier to update my system automatically for the same reason why I do not allow MS to do it, both of them have screwed up in the processes. I tried Fedora 1 for a short time but found that anything that received patches on nearly a daily basis spelled instability; this is not what the author would have people think. If you can't adequately test before release patches then you have more security issues than MS. Fedora NEEDS to be updated that often; it is not a feature, it is a flaw with their process. I do not see this with SuSE.

This whitepaper is just a bunch of opinionated rants which is why I am not surprised that so many of the Linux evangelists on this board think that it is gospel truth, it is just a case of the minister preaching to the choir.

Posted by: balsover   Posted on: 08/15/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Wireless Lab Delivers Technology and a Better Education Dell Steve Spangler, assistant principal of Middlesboro Middle School in ... Download Now
• Designing a Balanced Architecture With Oracle RAC and VERITAS Software for Linux Dell Introducing Oracle RAC into an IT infrastructure and using Linux as the ... Download Now
• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now