Re: Viva le Same! Linux

Subject: Re: Viva le Same! Linux
From: David Neeley <dbneeley -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 18:52:05 -0700 (PDT)


Andrew,

I believe any reasonable examination of Microsoft
operating systems and Web software yields an abundance
of evidence that it is much less secure than the
various other choices.

Yes, it's true that effort must be expended to keep
*any* system current with regards to patches and with
the settings required to achieve relatively good
security.

It's also true that architectural differences make the
situation *much* more difficult with Microsoft stuff.
For example, a few months ago the Gartner Group
strongly advised their corporate clients to move off
Internet Information Server and go instead to the free
Apache web server--even if they still insisted for
some reason upon using Windows as their server OS of
choice. According to Gartner, the security flaws are
simply too numerous and too severe. It should be noted
that Gartner does not make such recommendations
lightly--and they have not to my knowledge ever
participated in any of the "religious wars" about one
type of software against another.

The simple fact remains that attaining a highly secure
UNIX or Linux environment is far easier than
attempting to reach the same level with any version of
Windows. As you are probably aware, there is even a
secure version of Linux developed by the NSA.

To attempt to excuse Windows as being a "bigger
target" is simply nonsense. If Microsoft's "security
by obscurity" model were correct, one would assume
they would be *less* vulnerable than other systems.

Again, the huge monolithic bodies of code lumped into
an architecture never designed originally with
security in mind assures that tens of thousands of
bugs still reside in their systems (inevitable with
source code containing 25 to 40 million lines!), some
of which at least result in security holes.

You are correct, however, in observing that most
people will not take the steps known to be reasonably
necessary to provide reasonable security from most
threats. However, information regarding the various
resources that must be locked down and why is readily
available for Linux systems--while to a distressingly
large extent Windows users are subject to Microsoft's
relatively poor responsiveness to new threats. Time
after time, the Linux community has fixed security
holes or bugs within 24 to 48 hours of discovery--a
record far different from Microsoft's dilatory
practices.

I agree that the differences in vulnerability between
typical Linux or UNIX systems and typical Windows ones
are similar--but radically different in degree.

David Neeley

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Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: Viva le Same! Linux: From: Andrew Plato

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