Posted on 06/22/2007 7:53:18 PM PDT by Rodney King
Attention Linux, Vista, and Apple fan boys: put on your gloves... it's time to rumble! A 6-month vulnerability report issued by Jeff "Security Guy" Jones has caught the eye of Redmond and the ire of places beyond. The report which bases its security assessment upon vulnerabilities found (not actually exploited) claims that Vista is "more secure than OS X and Linux." In fact, the much maligned XP even crushes the competition using their calculations. Of course, it's worth noting that Jeff is a member of Microsoft's Security business unit which will probably sway your opinion as to the integrity of the data. Still, as incomplete as the assessment may be, it certainly appears to be a good showing for Vista considering the vast community of hackers attempting to thwart its security. We can predict what Billy G's probably saying right about now: Dy-no-mite JJ!
Look at that old 8086 in the background. I can still hear that floopy disc drive churning. What was it, all of 10mb of storage on-board.
But, there still was not faster word processor than Word runinng in DOS. Fast, fast, fast!
Who has stats on the 8086.
It is a layer of protection as long as it remains undiscovered. I agree that secrecy has benefits when one is at a vulnerable stage. For instance, suppose you are planning a bombing run on an enemy's camp. Usually it makes all kinds of sense to keep the time and manner of that attack secret while you are preparing. But why? Only because that knowledge, in the hands of the foe, makes it less likely that you would be successful.
Suppose that instead, you had the opportunity to use a bomber that couldn't be easily shot out of the sky, and it delivered a bomb that was overwhelming in its power. In that instance, you might very well eschew secrecy, and tell your enemy they'd be better off surrendering rather than be obliterated. I seem to recall we did that in WWII prior to dropping the A-bomb. During development, the Manhatten Project was highly secret, because it was vulnerable during that phase. But once it was ready, and there was nothing to stop it, it became possible -- even desirable -- to announce it publicly to the enemy.
The "many eyes make good software" theory of open source says that the better development (which you mention) results in a better end product, which is strong enough to withstand the assaults of the hackers.
The strength of UNIX, most of which has been open source for many years, attests to this, IMO.
That's not to denigrate the usefulness of secrecy during early stages of development when hackers could break in easily -- indeed, there is justification for not telling the world what you're doing while it's vulnerable. But if the end result is supposed to be a secure operating system, I believe it should be possible to show the world the result, and withstand attack nonetheless.
UNIX is mostly closed source outside the BSD’s. SunOS was originally BSD but the most secure Solaris is now closed.
I'm not trying to justify anything, I'm merely pointing out the simple fact that what we ultimately want is to not get hacked. If you buy the most secure system in the world the chances of your being safe still have more to do with factors other than the technical security of the machine. They have to do with how much of a target you are and how safely you operate your machine.
In my estimation Unix derrivites are still more easily hacked than Win platforms. Being Open Source certainly helps in that regard. In the early 90's or so Unix was more prevelent and more hacked. Windows then became deployed in a very major way, and therefor was exploited more because there was a huge desire to do so.
I just bought a Dell only because I could get it without Vista. The CAD program I use runs quite well on XP thankyouverymuch.
BTW, MS Office Basic 2007 doesn't include PowerPoint. Thanks guys.
Oh and it's flavor of Word saves documents in .docx format, which opens as utter gibberish in earlier versions of Word.
On the plus side you can save in what they call earlier versions, and get the text to come through, with only the formatting screwed up.
I loathe microsoft.
Point granted.
> SunOS was originally BSD but the most secure Solaris is now closed.
Not for much longer. (I know you're aware of this, you've mentioned it in other threads.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris
Future Solaris builds will be based on the work done in OpenSolaris, so if Sun is uneasy about it, they're not showing signs of it. That said, if Sun wants to keep Solaris secret, that's their right, of course.
LOL!!
*shrug* the manufacturer of my main CAD program assured me that he would absolutely guarantee that it might run OK on Vista...
The latest entry in the Free Republic Factoids are Fun! contest.
That's only one of many things "we want" that are functions of good design, configuration, and use. For instance, stability and accuracy. An awful lot of the hackable flaws in operating systems are also causes of instability and inaccuracy. Consider the ubiquitous "buffer overflows" that get exploited so readily. They aren't just hacker fodder -- they are flaws in the code that also can cause over-writing of data space, which can undermine the stability of the system in addition to yielding wrong answers.
So while you are correct that we don't want to get hacked, most of us want much more than that, and those other things require good design, etc.
> Unix derrivites are still more easily hacked than Win platforms
Source? I disagree 180 degrees.
> In the early 90's or so Unix was more prevelent and more hacked. Windows then became deployed in a very major way, and therefor was exploited more
Unix more hacked in the early 90's? There was hardly any hacking at all in the early 90's, in the sense that we mean today. Unix prevalent? I love Unix, but I wouldn't for a moment claim that it was widespread, ever. You're thinking DOS, perhaps? MacOS 7?
OpenSolaris is a beta of sort for Solaris. I know of no plans to open the actual Solaris code though.
EM’S SLICK graphics hombre, kudos
I have a friend with a WinXP notebook, who sincerely believes that "the Internet is on his computer".
E.g. "I downloaded the internet last night. Installed it, and it works!"
Uh, huh, great.....
Could well be. I'm not following the project closely, only vaguely aware of it.
Hey, for all we know, Sun might be doing it as a marketing "feel good" project.
I was just thinking of that very quote.
i have a macbook ...just bought it ....very nice...one thing
dont buy the mac mouse ..it has no left right keys and you lose those great drop down immediately available menu choices under them....instead you have to move the mac mouse up top to access them.... very exhausting...other mice work ....kinsingtons ....they work with the inboard antenna...so you don’t need to plug one in every time you use it..they’e cheaper to.
Dear God people...wake up!
A computer is a tool.
If you hate Snap-On buy Craftsman!
Get it?
Such people are frightening.
I don’t know anyone using OpenSolaris either. But if you feel you need open source there it is.
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