On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 2:47 AM, Nagarjuna G. <[email protected]> wrote: > The possibility of virus in a Unix machine is possible in only one > condition: all the applications are running as super user. But, this > situation actually defeates the very idea of a multi-user design.
Not really. You could have a remote buffer overflow exploit for the iptables code running your firewall. A properly crafted packet would wreak havoc. A simple program running as a normal unprivileged could have a exploit that could escalate the user's previledges. Infact all or most buffer overflow exploits exist due to this. > Therefore, it is correct to say that Unix OSs are practically immune No that would be too arrogant to say. Many Linux boxes get compromised everyday all over the world but they're quickly identified since *nix admins are inherently more knowledgeable than their non *nix counter parts. > to virus problem, and M$ machines have virus problem not due to their > popularity but due to bad design choices. Yes and theres a lot of political agenda behind that. The whole malware, anti-virus, OS, application ecosystem exist. No vulnerabilities mean that the ecosystem collapses. McAffee, Norton and the hundreds of vendors depending on the existence of holes will be out of business and so will a lot of software engineers :) > M$ is not using a known invention (25 year old, even before their > company is born) for the benifit of human kind. Therefore they a are > actually liable to be sued for the crime they are committing for not > providing the benifits of computer science to their customers. Heck UNIX model isn't the best that there is. Infact there are far superior kernels out there. Check out L3 / L4 kernels. They'll beat the crap out of any microkernel. They're far more secure than the Linux kernel. Theres L4 Linux which runs Linux kernel in userspace on top of L4 kernel. UNIX is mature but definitely not the best :) -- Regards, Dinesh A. Joshi -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
