Vista and the Future of OS Security, Part 2

I say bring on the hackers - windows is a model of how not to write an os. linux is light years ahead of windows in this category.

I don't know about the rest of you but I am tired of so called security analyst saying linux is just as vulnerable as windows but just isn't a target for hackers yet. They are probably getting funded by anti-virus companies.

Bull - it isn't a target because it takes a heck of a lot more work to do it if they could (vb script kiddies) and with additions like selinux and apparmor it is down right impossible to do. I think redhat has really made great progress with selinux and the troubleshooting tools. They are pretty easy to use if you can read.

windows was written to be a single pc non-networked gaming os. It was never written to be put on a network or the internet to run a business. one other thing - nobody should have to pay any money for an up to date virus program. you are paying for a faulty os that a whole industry has been created and now that industry won't go down without a fight.

Rather weird that linux and the other free *nix's aren't being subjected to much probing, given that the majority of servers run Linux or a *BSD. We might be giving the story too much credit calling it FUD, it could just be cluelessness and greed.

There are a number of factors at work here. First, their are people making a lot of money fighting virus and the like on the Windows platform. AV has become a huge industry tied to the Windows platform(s). Likely that's a planed market, which really doesn't exist in Linux or any other serious OS in which security is a priority. So the loss of that market is a $erious concern. I see that the AV people see the writing on the wall, and, need to get their foot in the door with Business that might take up Linux. Obviously they will try, by any means possible, even if that means 'vastly' exaggerating the threat.

Secondly, there is nowhere near the animosity toward Linux as their is toward Bill's evil empire. Just too many bad deeds, shabby business practice, and, contempt for the customer make MS a very easy and satisfying target for people writing a virus. This also follows the theory of basic security, which says that the bugler will always hit the house or business with the poorest security. That's certainly not Linux.

"cluelessness' is the right word. Red Hat Linux servers probably out number all windows servers combined, yet windows servers are the ones most compromised making security by obscurity a non issue.'