On Fri, 2004-10-08 at 14:32, John Thompson wrote:
> Temlakos wrote:
>
> > I'm sure that's comforting--for now. And we all hope that Linux is
> > inherently more secure against viruses of all types. Maybe we're right.
> > But as more people get fed up with "WinDoze" or "Window$" or however you
> > want to spell it, what will happen when cyber-terrorists start attacking
> > Linux directly with virus operations? That's what some of my clients are
> > asking me right now. What do I tell them?
>
> There seems to be an unfounded notion that the only reason linux doesn't
> have any notable viruses is because of the small market share, and from
> that that the number of viruses for a given platform is roughly
> proportional to its market share. So under this "logic" Windows having
> 95+% of the desktop market can be expected to suffer 95+% of the
> exploits. If this were true, however, we would expect that in markets
> where Windows has less penetration -- e.g. internet severs, where
> Windows servers comprise ~40% of the market -- that Windows should only
> suffer ~40% of the exploits in this arena. That is not what we see,
> however: even with ~40% of the internet server market, Windows still
> suffers ~95% of the significant exploits. One can conclude from this
> that Windows is inherently less secure than other platforms.
No, my outlook (pardon the pun) is that WE actually do something
about it, whereas Microsoft owns stock in McAffee, Symantec and all the
other household names based on Windows shortcomings. Plus, if there
wasn't such a zoo for the personal user (who supplies so little money to
the company, actually) it wouldn't make sense for these Fortune 500
companies to spend millions of dollars on support contracts.
They're too large to go chase down bugs (especially when they
actually make money for them) and release fixes immediately. They
probably have to pass through not only legal, but social and cultural
acceptance standards before getting out the door.
Here, we say "This sucks" and the fix is on the repo for tonight's
update. There, well, let's say they have to think about it. Case in
point: PopUp Ads.
I'm not sure I ever saw a popup ad, until recently. When Slashdot
marked their arrival, people at Galeon and others started adding code to
eliminate them. So while IE people have had to battle them for 3-4
years, my updated code has captured them and left me blissfully ignorant
of how irritating they are.
And they are irritating. Why else would ISPs and software makers
actually create code to patch the concept? (Meanwhile, Linux rolls on,
because that, too, is what we want it to do.)
--
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Brian FahrlÃnder Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
Evansville, IN http://www.fahrlander.net
ICQ 5119262
AIM: WheelDweller
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