On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Rick Welykochy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: >> >> On Mon, 2 Jun 2008 at 14:59, Jason Ball <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> >>>> Not wishing to start an OS war, but I rarely if ever have seen a BSD >>>> or Sun box compromised. Is this due to sheer numbers of Linux and >>>> Doze? >>> >>> More than likely. >> >> I've seen a range of plausible reasons and hard statistics to back up >> Linux supporters' assertions that the frequency of compromises on Windows >> systems is due to far more than just its sheer install base. >> >> I'd hate to see Linux users start to solely use the 'market share' >> argument against other, less used, operating systems. > > As pointed out previously, one contributing factor to x86 Windows > and Linux architectures being popular targets is that there is > significant payback in writing attack software for platforms that > are ubiquitous. The rarer the system, the less likely there is > blackhat experience to crack it. > > Market share is a factor. But as we all know, a house of cards > built of shakey foundations is another factor. > > BSD and Sun zealots do claim that their software systems are much > more robust/stable than Linux and Windows. I cannot respond to > that claim. > > > Regarding your sig: > > Your toaster doesn't crash. Your television doesn't crash. > Why should your computer? http://www.linux.org.au/linux > > The answer should be obvious. A dedicated computer running an > appliance runs heavily tested software dedicated to one purpose > and a well-known hardware set. > > A general purpose computer running any variety of software you > install along with a conglomerate of possibly never before tried > hardware suffers the combinatorial explosion of interactions and > complexity that a toaster never experiences. > > The devil is in the detail of general-purpose vs purpose-built.
That said, I know a great knife-related toaster bug. For some reason instead of fixing it the designers just added warnings to the user manual saying "don't use this combination of inputs". Sam -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
