Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on December 23, 2003 05:39 AM
Their entire OS is almost retardly designed to be as insecure as possible. In order to attain any level of security with the latest versions of Microsoft Windows you have to apply tons of patches and registry tweaks to get anywhere near the security level provided by Unix/Linux.
Thats true but users also wanted to share files and printers for example so something had to be left open to allow for that. More options such as by say filter by machine name or ip address would have been helpful.
Even when all the tweaks and updated and patches are installed you are still vulnerable to Viruses, worms, and spyware that are virutally non-existent in the Linux world.
Well viruses because it's the most popular OS. That has nothing to do with security if a virus infects the system because of a user running an executable with a virus attached to it. It would help though if the user didn't need admin privaleges to run it. As for worms, most spread by using a previously known security hole for which a patch has been released. It's users lazyness of not wanting to patch that cause it to spread. Maybe closing the feature that used it in the first place would help as well but for users that want to share files and folders, you sacrifice something. Spyware is basically the same thing. Enabling plugins to install easily was microsoft's main idea in activex and so they only allowed signed activex components to run. Limiting what they could do like java's sandbox would definately help their.
Contrary to what many think, Linux inspite having many security holes of it's own is still far more secure then Microsoft Windows will ever be. For one thing, Linux doesn't automatically make every program you download executable. You have to manually make it executable in many cases.
But once linux comes to the masses, they WILL want certain files to be automatically executable. For example<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.bin files. The paranoid can still disable this feature but for the mass amount of users out there, they want this feature.
Secondly, a user on a Unix/Linux system can only modify files that they created or that they have full read/write/execute abilities over.
And the same thing with a windows users system if they're not running as an administrator.
They cannot modify critical system files without logging on with root access. Taking advantage of security flaws in Unix/Linux requires a much more in depth understanding of the operating system then in the Windows environment.
And one linux company, lindows, has set this up so that by default you login as root access because thats what end users want. If you don't cator to them you lose market share.
Therefore, in the Unix/Linux world there are far fewer people who know how to exploit the weaknesses.
Only because there are very much fewer actual end users and far more people that care about security then how easy something is to use. Once linux is fed to the masses, and is as easy to use as windows, then it will be open to the same security weaknesses that windows has right now that you've pointed out.
Because Linux is less predictable due to the many flavors available, it is also harder to hack.
But if one organization decides to go with one linux distributor and someone finds a security hole related to that distributor it doesn't matter how many flavours of linux are out there. It also doesn't matter that a flaw was discovered recently in the linux kernel, therefore every flavour was effected. Besides, when was the last time you heard of a flaw in the kernel microsoft uses in a particular form of windows?
In summary, Linux is far more secure, catching up in usability and multimedia, and makes a far better platform in a server environment then Microsoft Windows. I have had months upon months of uptime with my Red Hat Linux and Sun Boxes which would be unthinkable if the same systems ran Microsoft Windows. I never run into viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, or large amounts of spam that others experience. Unix/Linux is just a better platform!!
True linux is a better server, but its not a good gaming/workstation/multimedia platform. As for security holes, I seem to get just as many notices for security holes in the linux servers here that run redhat as I do for windows. If a linux distributor took out all the programs that they use and start concentrating on the usability aspect I believe there would be less patches then. I want a linux distribution as easy to use as windows and so far lindows has come the closest to that offering the bare minimum for applications included just like windows. Now all we need are better hardware support, easier driver installation, easier program install/removal, a standard gui so that the user doesn't have to choose, etc...you get the gist of what I'm try to say.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:Some of my survey answers
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 23, 2003 05:39 AMThats true but users also wanted to share files and printers for example so something had to be left open to allow for that. More options such as by say filter by machine name or ip address would have been helpful.
Even when all the tweaks and updated and patches are installed you are still vulnerable to Viruses, worms, and spyware that are virutally non-existent in the Linux world.
Well viruses because it's the most popular OS. That has nothing to do with security if a virus infects the system because of a user running an executable with a virus attached to it. It would help though if the user didn't need admin privaleges to run it. As for worms, most spread by using a previously known security hole for which a patch has been released. It's users lazyness of not wanting to patch that cause it to spread. Maybe closing the feature that used it in the first place would help as well but for users that want to share files and folders, you sacrifice something. Spyware is basically the same thing. Enabling plugins to install easily was microsoft's main idea in activex and so they only allowed signed activex components to run. Limiting what they could do like java's sandbox would definately help their.
Contrary to what many think, Linux inspite having many security holes of it's own is still far more secure then Microsoft Windows will ever be. For one thing, Linux doesn't automatically make every program you download executable. You have to manually make it executable in many cases.
But once linux comes to the masses, they WILL want certain files to be automatically executable. For example<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.bin files. The paranoid can still disable this feature but for the mass amount of users out there, they want this feature.
Secondly, a user on a Unix/Linux system can only modify files that they created or that they have full read/write/execute abilities over.
And the same thing with a windows users system if they're not running as an administrator.
They cannot modify critical system files without logging on with root access. Taking advantage of security flaws in Unix/Linux requires a much more in depth understanding of the operating system then in the Windows environment.
And one linux company, lindows, has set this up so that by default you login as root access because thats what end users want. If you don't cator to them you lose market share.
Therefore, in the Unix/Linux world there are far fewer people who know how to exploit the weaknesses.
Only because there are very much fewer actual end users and far more people that care about security then how easy something is to use. Once linux is fed to the masses, and is as easy to use as windows, then it will be open to the same security weaknesses that windows has right now that you've pointed out.
Because Linux is less predictable due to the many flavors available, it is also harder to hack.
But if one organization decides to go with one linux distributor and someone finds a security hole related to that distributor it doesn't matter how many flavours of linux are out there. It also doesn't matter that a flaw was discovered recently in the linux kernel, therefore every flavour was effected. Besides, when was the last time you heard of a flaw in the kernel microsoft uses in a particular form of windows?
In summary, Linux is far more secure, catching up in usability and multimedia, and makes a far better platform in a server environment then Microsoft Windows. I have had months upon months of uptime with my Red Hat Linux and Sun Boxes which would be unthinkable if the same systems ran Microsoft Windows. I never run into viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, or large amounts of spam that others experience. Unix/Linux is just a better platform!!
True linux is a better server, but its not a good gaming/workstation/multimedia platform. As for security holes, I seem to get just as many notices for security holes in the linux servers here that run redhat as I do for windows. If a linux distributor took out all the programs that they use and start concentrating on the usability aspect I believe there would be less patches then. I want a linux distribution as easy to use as windows and so far lindows has come the closest to that offering the bare minimum for applications included just like windows. Now all we need are better hardware support, easier driver installation, easier program install/removal, a standard gui so that the user doesn't have to choose, etc...you get the gist of what I'm try to say.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
#