-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On June 4, 2004 01:11, Alex wrote: > I like best of all info about Blaster worm how it shut down Linux system!
well, what they actually said in that article is that the Linux system(s) didn't provide patching services for the Windows clients (though i thought that was what Windows Update was for?) and they didn't put server-side mail AV software (e.g. clam AV) so the virus got through their SMTP server onto the desktops. it's worded so that it may sound like they meant it took out the Linux system, but if you read carefully that's not what they were saying. all the same.... it's amazingly dissapointing and frustrating to deal with this public attack being coordinated by MS, SCO, Sun, Symantic, etc... at the show one fellow who works in sys admin / support in a Windows shop came along and sputtered a list of MS propaganda against Linux: o Linux is slow (turns out he tried a recent Red Hat on a P166 laptop. turns out XP doesn't run on it either. i suggested that if he ran Linux on his old machine w/out a GUI or ran a Linux GUI from the late 90s time period he'd do just fine. or maybe just run it on reasonable hardware. he conceded that was probably true.) o Linux is expensive to switch to and expensive to manage (sure, if you pick certain insane scenarios, such as a MS-only shop with no Linux experience switching everything over at once to all Linux and then only proceed to count the first 3 years of cost (e.g. one rev cycle). or if you ignore the fact that you don't need RH[AE]L or SLES on all your systems, or that everyone's update services except RH's are free-as-in-beer (though even RH has YUM now)) o Linux is hard to manage and update (easy to debunk with a modern distro. i happened to be installing 1GB of development packages when he came by. seeing as i was doing nothing but changing CDs to set up a full dev env while the little progress bar whirred on it was good timing for him to try that bit if FUD on =) o there is no central company guiding Linux so it has no direction and therefore will fall apart (ignoring the last 10 years of successful development that has created a finely working system, ignoring the fact that large and highly skilled companies/organizations are involved providing expertise, ignoring the fact that this bit of untruth is a way to justify vendor lock-in which is a real threat as opposed to the "many contributors" boogey-man. when confronted with a full SUSE 9.1 install, it was pretty hard for him to believe the claim that the process doesn't work.) .... etc ... it was almost like he was going through a mental checklist of all the FUD MS has been spewing for the last few years. i was tempted at times to check if there was a MS sales rep behind me coaching him ;-) i asked him where he was getting all his information. he said his MS rep and stuff he read in the trade press. i asked him who sponsored these negative articles he read in the trade press. he said probably MS. at which point i got more than a little annoyed and said (paraphrasing, don't remember the exact wording, but this was basically it), "So. You gave your money and entrusted your networks to Microsoft and in return they repay your loyalty to them by lieing to you and taking advantage of you. Then you come here and repeat those same lies to me, someone who has spent a considerable amount of time helping creating the things Microsoft is slandering. I hope you can understand how that's a little insulting to me, and quite sad for you. I would think that if you give your money and trust to someone that they wouldn't treat you so badly, that they wouldn't outright lie to you like that. It's unbelievable." i call this the "How does it feel being Microsoft's bitch?" line of reasoning, and have found it quite effective in the past. before leaving, he said was going to try Linux again. this time on decent hardware. =) - -- Aaron J. Seigo GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 while (!horse()); cart(); -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-rc1-SuSE (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAw1jC1rcusafx20MRAnLZAJ9vIJe1H32OAEFiZ3U/CjTd14fjxACgldkY sW4IRWbO2ziXk0iFm4bjcs0= =FJ86 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca
