Posted on 08/04/2010 10:58:19 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
"Security through obscurity" may be a catchy phrase, but it's not the only thing that's catching among Windows users.
The expression is intended to suggest that proprietary software is more secure by virtue of its closed nature. If hackers can't see the code, then it's harder for them to create exploits for it--or so the thinking goes.
Unfortunately for Windows users, that's just not true--as evidenced by the never-ending parade of patches coming out of Redmond. In fact, one of Linux's many advantages over Windows is that it is more secure--much more. For small businesses and other organizations without a dedicated staff of security experts, that benefit can be particularly critical.
Five key factors underlie Linux's superior security:
****************************EXCERPT*****************************
1. Privileges
2. Social Engineering
3. The Monoculture Effect
4. Audience Size
5. How Many Eyeballs
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
H/T to HardOCP .
I am running Ubuntu on a used dell 810 I got for $30 (nothing wrong with it really) and really like it a lot.
For those of us who compile our own kernels (2.6.35 just came out a few days ago), we can turn off a lot of code that for devices and facilities we don’t need. This limits the attack horizon and reduces system overhead.
I had a few with Ubuntu.
There is a live CD....
Hmmm... not so sure here...but what the hey... I suspect that unix/Linux is more secure because it is less used than Windows and not exploited as much. May be untrue, just my feelings. Now I do love Ubuntu so am not totally prejudiced...just that I think you might be a bit unfair.
Windows has become more secure (Windows 7) and really should not be denigrated so much. I do think that Ubuntu is a really nice alternative though.
Security will eventually depend upon which operating system is in the majority. I do like the faster response to fixing problems in Ubunto though - that is a plus.
Otherwise, this is not much of a revelation - the dominating OS will always be a target and have the most problems.
To all those that look for reasons to NOT use Windows, well good luck... It is a good operating system and will probably remain the dominate system for the next decade.
Hardly anybody uses it...
Our ISP stopped “supporting” W-98 a couple of years ago, so I can no longer connect to internet with my old collection-of-spare-parts back up box which does not have sufficient RAM to run XP. About all I use it for now is a spare word processor.
A friend gave me a LINUX emulator CD, and it was pretty interesting - connected on line, too. When I tried to install a version of LINUX that I downloaded to CD tough, I was too old and stupid to install it; something about “tarballs” (???).
I guess Linux and such is only for smart people, and that leaves me out. Pity; had my hopes up for a while there.
Oh please... Most survey’s show Firefox use at over 25%.
Yeah, exactly my point. Now, go into a corporate office, and see what viewer they are using...
Actually, he has a point... I have used Firefox for years but do understand that virus makers always attack the most obvious targets and that is currently IE (thank goodness). Now many can say the IE has way too many problems and Firefox few but in reality, Firefox may have fewer problems, but is still vulnerable, just not as much as others. It is still one of the best against all comers...
Yea, eventually, all systems outgrow the hardware (and hardware outgrows the software). Sometimes it is best to give up the ghost and expand our horizons. Of course it does seem to cost...so expansion can be slow...
Yea, it is only the second most popular browser so it will not have the problems that IE has but what the hey... It is not the dominant browser so you’re right...
I correct myself... It seems that after looking up Browser popularity, it seems that Firefox is number one..(even adding IE8, 7, and 6 together) so I take back some of what I said...
When Windows 95 was created, MSFT made some deliberate design decisions that have hobbled security and reliability on Windows forever since. MSFT is finally starting to address the biggest of these issues:
The registry.
The Windows registry is like one-stop shopping for someone writing an attack on a Windows system. You can discover all manner of information about the hardware configuration, the software configuration, licensing, user information, etc in the registry. Microsoft very helpfully gathered all this information together into one place, with a very fragile format and a very non-robust access method, and made the system utterly dependent upon it.
Unix systems don’t have a system like the Windows registry, where so much information is in one place. There’s quite a lot of configuration information scattered in the /etc path in different files - some of them text, some not. But they’re not going to be easy for the hacker to go on a one-stop shopping trip for critical info.
Microsoft realizes the problems with the registry, and they’re trying to plot a path out of the morass with .Net and other ideas, but it will be a long road due to the amount of third party s/w that now reads and writes the registry.
Windows 7 is improved, but if I had to run a system where I needed real security, Windows would be last on my list of operating systems. Unix (and derivatives, such as OS X) would not be #1. VMS would be my first choice, followed by secured versions of Unix, such as OpenBSD, FreeBSD, SunOS, etc, followed by less secure Unix variants (Linux, OS X) and then, at the bottom, I’d put Windows server editions. The problem IMO in Unix (and variants) is that there are three levels of privilege: super-user/SUID, group ID and lowly user. Under a system like VMS, I have lots of priv bits - so I don’t need to give a program god-like powers when all it needs is a very narrow level of privilege elevation. I can set up a program with these narrow priv’s and that’s it.
As for the future of Windows: I think that Windows has unprecedented competition now. There is a new paradigm of computing gaining ground for users, and that’s the smart phone/iPad-like widgets with WiFi and wireless data plans that are going to increasingly cause users to leave their desktops behind. That increasingly takes the issue of Windows’ installed base of desktop applications off the table (the strength behind Windows is the breadth and investment in applications, not the OS itself) and now leaves MSFT on a more level playing field with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
Microsoft doesn’t win so easily on level playing fields.
Well, okay, I can understand what you are saying, but disagree a bit. Yes, Windows went to the registry system for good reasons but it did leave it open to problems. They have solved those though (mostly) so it is not really an issue today.
Now I can understand your disregard for their corrections and actually hope that a free program version of Unix prevails. Wouldn’t that be great for everyone! The problem is that it is not reality today - Windows is sill the number one system and has some validity in being that.
Until businesses transfer to a free and unsupported version of Unix, we will not see a transfer of OS. You have to understand that businesses will never go to an unsupported version of an OS. Until there is a supported version that is both reliable and supported, businesses will stick with MS for good reasons.
Unix may very well become the personnel version of an OS in the future, but until they become embedded in businesses, they will remain a secondary option.
Linux is a derivative of Unix, and Unix was developed by programmers for programmers.
The cherished dream of Linux zealots is that they’re going to displace Microsoft (and for some of them, Apple as well) from the desktop. It won’t happen, because of your experience.
Here’s the brutal truth: Unix systems are about as friendly and forgiving as a bucketful of badgers.
I’ve used Unix systems since the mid-80’s, so I’m well used to the crap that Unix dishes out. I also use Unix systems because they’re very productive for programmers. For programmers, there was never anything like Unix before it came along. Programmers and software jocks were the cobbler’s children of the computing world from the 60’s until the 80’s - companies investing in computers would often not give programmers a budget for tools. There was no standard set of tools on many systems. The first three jobs in my career, I re-wrote the same collection of tools I carried around with me on four different systems. When I got to a point where I was working on a Unix system, I didn’t have to write my tools. Every Unix system came with a bunch of tools that was largely the same from system to system. It was hugely liberating.
But for end users who just want to have a simple, lightweight system to use? Unix is hell.
A “tarball” is a collection of files into one file, the name of which ends in “.tar” or “.tar.gz” or “.tar.zip” or “.tar.bz” or something similar. The suffixes with something more than merely “.tar” are “compressed tar archives.”
When you get these tarballs, you uncompress them (if they were compressed) and then feed them into the tar program to unpack all the files out onto the disk, with a command like:
“$ tar xvf tarball.tar”
and you’ll see the ‘tar’ program extract all the files.
If the tarball were compressed (eg, with a .gz suffix), you’re uncompress the tarball and then feed it into tar:
“$ zcat tarball.tar.gz | tar xvf -”
and so on. The “zcat” command uncompressed the .gz file and writes the result to the “standard output.” If you didn’t re-direct the output into the tar program with the pipe “|” command, you’d get a huge screenful of stuff and then you’d be left with the original .gz file and no net results.
By shoving the output of the zcat command into the input of the ‘tar’ program, you’re seeing why Unix is a favorite among programmers. You don’t write one program to uncompress *and* un-tar a file. You have a program that only uncompresses the file and writes the result to the standard output. And then you have a file that creates or reads tar files.
In Unix, you use the power of of input/output redirection (the “pipes” facility) to glue these smaller, discrete programs together into more a much more capable system. That’s why programmers love Unix. And the complexity of this trivial example is why users who are not computer nerds hate Unix - often with a passion. I went through this example to give you an idea of why nerds love Unix and rave about it...
But you see why I don’t think Unix is going to take over the world of users who just want to browse the web and write spreadsheets and letters any time soon.
I don’t see business going to an unsupported (or even supported) version of Unix on the desktop any time soon. I was just answering your issue of why Unix is more secure than Windows. Unix is inherently more secure than Windows, because Unix lacks a registry. That’s just a fact. MSFT is improving the security of Windows, but their efforts are mostly just band-aides on a sucking chest wound. Windows has many fundamental security issues in the design of the OS - and two of them are the registry and active content.
The business sector will continue to tolerate Windows until such time as an alternative arrives on the scene that a) will migrate their applications, licenses and data with a minimal cost, b) have a lower TCO than Windows (which won’t require that it be free, BTW) and c) has good support.
With the increasing penetration of virtualization, issue (a) is becoming less of an issue. (b) is up in the air, and (c) hasn’t materialized yet.
Heh... have to agree with you! Have had to maintain both Windows and Unix systems and I certainty agree with you, Unix systems can be hell! Never had so many silly problems with just printing! Oh well...
With that said... the latest versions of Unix or Linux or whatever you want to use... have similar interfaces as Windows. When they get to the same...look out, you can’t beat a free user programmed OS.
Yes...heh, they really do have to do away with the awful requirements of a Unix professional just to keep things going - after all, in today’s world, every teenager should be able to maintain a system! Unix is not ready for that yet but it is getting there... Windows is there now...
Interesting thread.
Now what would be more of a challenge is to write an article about an OS that is *not* more secure than Windows.
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