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Monocultures: Find once, fix once

The author of this "News Analysis" explains the monoculture criticism of Sun Java and Microsoft Windows IE as if introducing the concept. Of course, as we know, the criticism has been highlighted in a report by security professionals (who obviously had an anti-Microsoft bias) some time ago. The Analysis should have included a reference.

More significantly, any discussion should consider the fact that, once a flaw has been identified, it can be fixed in most of the world's pc's (100% Java, 90+% IE; the Analysis appears to underestimate IE's share) by a single patch.
The vulnerability is more widespread, but so is the repair.

Another point to consider: Microsoft, including Bill Gates, has stated that the company's products have been more thoroughly tested than any competitors, by the bad guys. They've therefore had to make more repairs, fix more holes.
The company argues that this makes their products better defended, simply because more has been fixed.

The obvious answer is, maybe there's more to fix, and Microsoft's products are still catching up. But given the types of errors, such as overflows, is it possible that they are correct, in that they've had to find flaws that are present in most software, while others have not?

I think they're probably wrong, but not certain. Any comments?

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 11/29/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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