Posted on 07/15/2016 6:57:53 PM PDT by Utilizer
I always thought that people who used Linux were a bit cocky and would eventually be put in their place. Nice to see I was right.
Or "Changeme"
Linux has those applications available for its die-hard desktop users (I count myself among those, incidentally), but the vast majority of Linux "users" are the System Admins who run the servers.
So while I don't disagree with your assertion that today's full "OS" distributions have a lot of user-application stuff in them, in the case of Linux, most of that stuff is not in fact installed in the vast majority of installations.
I certainly agree with your last assertion. However, despite being a personal fan of both Windows 7 and now 10 as primarily client-side desktop operating systems, I'd still really like to see the Linux desktop client machine distros become more popular than they are, to challenge the dominate commercial offerings from Micro$oft and ABC/Apple.
But if this happens, we'll unfortunately start to see more cyber attacks on these greatly expanded distros if they become more popular, just like Windows. And it will be precisely because they'll be adding many more capabilities and software applications to support human desktop users, on many additional client machines that are not typically administered by relative experts as servers are.
This was really my main point - that it's easy to attack the OS's that have the greatly expanded suite of less-secure software that's needed to support human interaction, but that it's unfair to then compare this against other OS's that do not, because they are primarily server side offerings. Apples and oranges in many ways.
This being said, if industry projections regarding the huge future market for the "things" that comprise both the consumer and especially industrial Internet of Things (IoT) are anywhere near accurate, Linux will soon start to become more of a target for cyber crime. Embedded Linux already has over 70% of the market for the embedded devices, sensors, and other "things" at the network edge. More & more it is becoming less of a server side OS, and more of an embedded OS vs. desktop. Granted most of these embedded distros are pretty stripped down and do not include the desktop aggregate packages like KDE or Gnome, but IoT projections claim there will be billions of them, no doubt full of all sorts of vulnerabilities.
Lately I've been involved in experimenting with the tools evolving per the Linux Foundation's Yocto Project. They are used to build & customize all sorts of custom Linux distros - including embedded, client & server focused builds. Again, if specific base builds start to pop up in large numbers on edge IoT computing devices connected to the Internet, and if these devices happen to be controlling, sensing or just interfacing with critical infrastructure elements, I can guarantee they'll be ripe targets for attack. As such, we may soon start hearing more about the "security holes" in Linux vs. everyone's current favorite desktop centric punching bag Windows.
Excellent point. I agree.
One of my all time favorite XKCD. I used it as a learning tool for the coders working on our database UI a while back. Everyone laughed, but then they're like, "Hey gimme a couple minutes, I want to check something in my last commit..."
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