On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 14:52:34 -0400 JoeHill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 07:25:59 -0700 > John Wilson disseminated the following: > > > Sorry but Walmart boxes are security problems waiting to happen. > > And this is > > something that the entire Linux community needs to address. > > Security problem? Yes. However, Linux boxes, even with no root > password and the user running as root, are still not going to come > *anywhere near* to causing the egregious effects of the worms and > viruses and trojans that plague Windows machines, choking networks > with malicious and illegitimate traffic. I would be more concerned > that these Walmart/Lindows boxes are going to be an example that > people with an anti-FOSS ideology are going to use to propagate > yet more of their FUD. > > > That said, the situation is no worse than Windows which happily > > ships W2K and XP completely unprotected and most users don't > > even know that there is a administrator password waiting and > > needing to be set up. Sadly most don't care either. This > > applies to some of the dimmer MSCEs out there who feel that it's > > easier to telnet into a box than ssh in. > > No worse? No, it's infinitely better. On it's worst day, *nix and > OSS are far superior to Win on its *best* day. Is GNU/Linux > perfect? No. Will it always need improvement and development to > make sure it is as secure as possible? Yes. But no matter the > sickly and wasted arguments that come from people like Mr. Hanson, > it is the future, whether they like it or not. Proprietary, closed > standards and code are a dead concept economically, only the > political punditry hasn't caught up with this fact. > > The fact that the writer of this column uses Linux/FOSS as an > 'example' for his'theory' is telling. It is quite clear to me that > this dolt wanted to write an article critical of Linux/FOSS, and > then slapped on some lightweight dogmatic meanderings to mask that > fact. He provides no evidence to back up his argument, which is > not surprising, since there is none to be had; this is of course > why all the 'columnists' who write pieces like this are a little > weak in the empirical knees. > > "Ship it now, fix it once it's sold" is *not* the same as 'Release > early, release often', it's comparing apples and oranges. 'Release > early, release often', in fact, is a philosophy meant to overcome > the problems with releasing a so-called 'finished product' that > one knows is buggy (that pretty much describes MS perfectly, but > of course Mr. Hanson never mentions *them*). It's a completely > different model for software development that you either get or > don't, and this guy doesn't get it. > > This is most clearly evident herein: > > "Viruses, generally speaking, are written to target popular > systems. If we consider the number of end user systems (popular > targets for social engineering viruses), it is likely that a large > majority of these systems are running Windows. It seems to me that > Unix and Linux users are relying heavily on security through > obscurity, in that the number of Linux/Unix systems deployed are > not great enough to warrant learning how best to manipulate them." > > Bullshit. Apache is the most widely used web server on the 'Net. > Is it the most exploited? No. IIS is, even though it has a > relatively very small market share. Viruses are written for > Windows because it's easy to do, not because there are more > Windows desktops. I'm so fucking sick of hearing this shit, I > think I'm gonna lose it. > > -- > JoeHill > Registered Linux user #282046 > Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > "Well, he might as well have been bombing Denmark." -- Gore Vidal, > on the bombing of Afghanistan after 9/11 > > Why don't you just say what you mean, Joe?
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