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YA Microsoft Linux Screed
"Microsoft Windows has better security than Linux out of the box" is my favorite line -- but there are many other good ones, find them and trade them with your friends -- in the polemic
"Linux in Retail and Hospitality."
This is actually from February apparently, but c't and
LinuxToday
have called attention to it. If you don't feel like reading their .doc file (I'm still looking for a robust .doc reader that doesn't suck), the IGLU LUG comes to your rescue with
their HTML version.
This is about using Linux in point-of-sale systems, in case you were wondering what POS stands for.
This is why there is the customize button so you can actually tell the installer to allow traffic for certain services such as DNS, WWW, SSH, etc.
actually win2k comes with quite a few services running.. RPC is one of them which i can remember, along with all of M$'s active directory bullshit. But then, you need to download a win32 version of ps to see what is really running on an NT box.
that IS the default. it does it to all your hard drives. \\yourmachine\C$ (note the $). Its called an administrative share. it is removable (or at least was under nt4 or below). Only NT or its derivitaves do this. Do not know about XP or 2k. but i susspect that they do as well. the 9x vers of windows do not do this by default.
What disturbs me the most is that they still are not down because of a Slashdot effect! Well, what the heck, those Solaris servers still should be good enough ;)
You will have to pay for support when you need it.
Anyone here get free support from Microsoft?
Most Linux distributors will only support un-modified versions of their software.
Will Microsoft support my version of Office, even though I've hacked up the code?
Some of them also require you to meet certain hardware requirements before they will support you.
Microsoft however will support you no matter what hardware you use. I wish I'd known that before I installed LinuxPPC.
There are over 188 different distributions of Linux available today, with the number growing all the time.
So instead of having multiple competing vendors, you should use Windows, and have to pay whatever MS demands.
there is no guarantee that any software you develop on one distribution will run under another distribution.
All Windows apps run on all versions of Windows
Linus Torvalds makes the final decision about what gets included in the latest Linux release, and he has no accountability to the retail industry.
If you disagree with what Linus has included in the kernel, you can add or remove things at will. Wasn't one Linux vender shipping with ReiserFS long before Linus accepted the patches?
Less Secure ?Open source? means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
Which is why so many more security holes are found in Open Source products, right?
Feel free to add your own.
You know, I just getting ready to read the funny comments, but then IE crashed. I'm starting to think Bill Gates is like Santa...he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, and apparently he knows if you've been good or bad :)
Have you ever heard of openbsd? Ever use it? It is definitely secure out of the box. Really.
Less Secure
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't this say that MS is less secure because developers can't find security weeaknesses in their software? Now I know this is true, as will most linux advocats, but is this really what MS meant to say?
You are a Microsoft troll. Either MCSE that is trying to convince himself that he is not inferior to real sysadmions, or an astroturfer. What is your experience as "solaris admin" -- logging into a box as root, saying "rm -rf /" and loudly complaining about results?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Of course Microsoft understands, but that view isn't good for their business (so they think), so they're trying to pretend it's not true, and convincing everyone else of same.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Since when do you get someone to blame with Microsoft's products? Their license agreements pretty much disavow suitability of their products for any purpose whatsoever! The only reason they care so much with big companies is due to the visibility - a story like "Dell web site hacked via new vulnerability - software giant Microsoft unwakened" just wouldn't go over well on the ol' home front, nam'sayin?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
C2 is not any of the above - it is a certification of the whole enchilada - the machine, the software installed on it, the installed hardware/peripherals, and the physical environment (i.e., characteristics of the facility where it's installed). One particular install of NT 3.51 was certified - with (as others have mentioned) no removable media and no network - therefore, completely isolated from the outside world.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
What i'm wondering about: Why is M$ putting so much effort into this? According to them Linux is a loosing OS anyway?
Definitely. For a company that claims not to be threatened by Linux, they sure do talk about it. A lot. If it's so obvious that Windows is (supposedly) an all-around better choice than Linux for everything, then why do they have to spend so much time pointing it out?
Methinks they doth protest a bit too much, eh?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Funny you should say that. I thought defaults were for people who have no idea what they're doing, the Custom option is for the other ones. Then again what do I know, I'm posting against /. think.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
passwd will complain, but just retype the password and it will be accepted, regardless of how stupid it is.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Last time I checked LinuxToday with IE (a couple of months ago) IE crashed. Every single time, always reproducible. I don't know whose fault it is, but I've never had IE crash every time it loads a particular page.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Hate to break it to ya pal, but these companies are about as enlightened as a three watt lightbulb when it comes to what they're running (Dell probably moreso than the others since they're closer to the computer end of things). Generally companies get sold a service, and they work from that. They don't care what it is as long as it works for them. (Unless someone who "cares" (aka has an interest) is on the board making the decisions). If it does not work, then the company gets riled. You'd be amazed how high Microsoft will jump when something goes wrong with a solution they put into place (remember the outlook debacles of the past?) The only thing you don't get with Linux is someone to throttle when things go wrong...
[This is where the criticism of the short, choppy writing style goes. Sorry, I tried, but I just can't write that poorly.]
Unfortunately, I've seen even worse recently. It was an article about a football palyer who recovered from massive burns and now shows up in burn units to be there when badly burned kids wake up. The writing in this article was bad; the footbal article was actually painful to read (the writer seemed to fancy herself swinging for an award, and fancied herself melodramatic.)
Anyway, the POS referred to the writing, in which case I'd agreeed.
hawk, who only received one term paper this term with worse writing than the article
...only the ones that "installed everything" and then never bothered to "turn things off" afterwards.
If you could actually offer a meaningful answer to your own question, it would be able to leave the realm of pure rhetoric. Otherwise, it's pretty meaningless.
The exploits in question came out AFTER the fixes in question. This wasn't exactly Bughat being caught with it's pants down.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yes we've heard of it. We're also aware that it installs the same bugware 3rd party applications that Linux distros do.
The actual effective difference is minimal at best.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...all of your "criteria" basically come down to one and only one thing: "is is DOS compatible".
This was Microsoft's saving grace when the competition was between DOS 3.3 and Macintosh and this is still Microsoft's only compelling characteristic.
NT5 as a pure server or OS platform is bested by everything else out there as Microsoft platforms always have. They merely have the vendorlock to keep and attract users.
In this market "success" doesn't necessarly imply quality. Your reasoning is shown to be fundementally flawed by bringing this up. Also, the lack of any actual details is glaring.
There are 3 OSes you could soundly bash on their merits if you were remotely capable of such a thing. Surely there are enough actual flaws there for you to have a field day if there was anything to your argument than empty rhetoric and psuedo-economics.
One does not "rebuild kernels" every two minutes, even on a 5 year old Slackware installation.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If VHS did not and does not now suck, DVD would not be displacing it. Since there is also a network effect to entertainment media, it is not entirely clear who exactly chose what.
Also, your first point is just plain WRONG.
It was quite common for WHOLE movies to be available in beta. In the early days, they were even freely available as VHS is now.
Although "cheap over everything" does tend to drive the market a little too much. This is less of a problem where you have to "go along for the ride" with the rest of the tasteless.
VHS wasn't "better", it was just "cheaper".
That was Microsoft's savior. It could also be it's undoing.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"major league"?
Are we talking about businesses or baseball here?
OTOH, in such a realm all of this talk of demi-consumer equipment is really quite absurd. Such institutions quite frankly require more computing muscle than can be delivered on a Microsoft-centric platform.
Linux is just fine in the domains where NT would ever be considered an option.
You are a little leaguer arguing over whether or not your little league team or some other little league team has the best home run hitter.
Banks are remarkably conservative and neither "server that runs on consumer desktop hardware" is even going to get to the bullpen.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What trouble? Most linux installers have you decide what services to run right from the installer. These days, you'll even get a second warning if you're doing something dangerous. Then there are those canned security profiles.
I don't remember any of that in any of the WinDOS/NT installs from 3.1 to NT5...
You can't even lock down the users properly in NT5 without breaking legacy apps.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Have you ever encountered a REAL phb or project manager in your entire life? They do indeed care about all the "nickels and dimes". Actually, they can quite add up.
Licencing costs in many case may make the overpaid Unix admin salary seem meagre by comparison. Besides, the M$ solutions are still going to require admins as well.
Also, support is not free with either option.
Microsoft is trying here (and in general) to slyly ignore certain key aspects of TCO as it relates to them.
Plenty of cheapskates have tried to deploy M$ based server solutions that "looked" cheap. Many quickly got burned.
Some things you just don't get for free, no matter how badly you want them to be that way.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No it isn't. NT should provide a nice self-contained sandbox for just this sort of thing. It doesn't infact do this and the end result typically is that you trade off some of your system security for a little bit of convenience.
If a user can install it, they should be able to clean it up again without going through ANY hoops.
Discerning consumers merely should demand better, rather than bothering to add bad hack on top of bad hack.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That's deliberate. Otherwise, you you lock a system administrator out by repeatedly submitting the wrong password for their user name.
Actually, AbiWord has opened this doc quite painless. I can't say how faithfull it is to the true document, but you surely could get its gist.
As a colaborator of the project I might be biased, but I think its a pretty decent ms word doc viewer for linux.
Hugs, Cyke
It must be a mistake on Microsoft's part (with all the other mistakes). I think it refers to GNUstep. Both GNUstep and GNOME are part of the GNU Project, of course.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Your security lies not in your OS, it's in your admin.
This is one of the most insightful observations on the nature of security that I have read in some time. When people start to realize that security is more about people than products, we will all have gained.
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
</Quote>
It's possible they meant to say hackers/crackers but this Freudian Slip was wonderful for me
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Linux itself wouldn't be affected by Y2k, but Linux SOFTWARE can be. It really depends on the programmer. An incompetant programmer can screw things up royally, no matter what the operating system.
I saw plenty of websites running CGI's hosted on linux boxes that were broken during y2k due to attempting to display only 2 digits for the year. That would be linux software.
you forgot the important middle bit to that pipeline:
strings stuff.doc | fmt -s | less
This at least makes it legible.
Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
As always, MS proves they can lie out their ass without actually saying anything untrue - by implying a vague statement to lean in one direction, they create FUD, while their statement is true in the opposite direction.
Yep - "Limited Device Driver Support".
Steps around the real issue. MS has "persuaded" hardware companies to develop their drivers ONLY for Windows. Whether due to market share (Windows has 90% of the desktop market, *nix about 5-7% - supporting *nix doesn't help the bottom line, while not supporting Windows hurts the bottom line signifigantly), or due to strongarm tactics (exclusivity contracts), or due to architectural design (winmodems), Microsoft has made it tough for manufacturers to support another OS, whether they want to or not.
The other big issue is "Intellectual Property" and the clash between it, and the *nix tradition of "rolling your own" drivers.
There are plenty of people who are fully willing to spend the time to write good drivers for new hardware under *nix. They have the skills to do so, and most probably would purchase the hardware themselves, in order to test their drivers.
Manufacturers, on the other hand, are either bound by exclusivity contract to only allow driver development for Windows, or have so totally shut up their hardware's specs behind closed doors (NDAs, etc...) that it's impossible for them to give out the specs to a developer, in order to have this thrid party driver for a third party OS written.
So it's nearly impossible for potential device driver writers to get their hands on the specs for hardware tha they have purchased and wish to use under a different OS. THeir only option is to try to reverse-engineer through legal means the methods by which to operate their hardware.
This takes time.
A lot of time.
And a lot of patience.
This is why *nix's device driver base is so far behind. Without the specs for the hardware, and with companies that are unable or unwilling to provide specs for their hardware, and who possibly threaten driver developers with lawsuits or worse -- it takes a VERY long time to get decent drivers "out the door", so to speak.
SO we look at the situation. On the Windows side, we have developers being paid by the manufacturer of the hardware, with full disclosure and access to the specs of the hardware they're developing a driver for.
On the *nix side, we have some talented, dedicated volunteers that tear their hair out trying to figure out how to access hardware that the manufacturer won't tell them anything about.
You tell me which side is going to get drivers out faster!
Now, some of this could be helped if the *nix community didn't insist that everything be made open. Look at all the flak that nvidia has taken for their binary-only releases. Admittedly, they require the use of a kernel module - which allows their video driver to have low-level access to the hardware - but it also allows that video driver to potentially crash the system (same type of thing that happens under Windows) -- but the point is that they have at least TRIED to provide the *nix community with a working set of drivers. While I agree that it would be better if they were to open their hardware specs, at least on their older boards, so that the community could write decent drivers that don't require a kernel module, I applaud them for at least doing more than most.
Both sides have to give for this to get better. Both sides want total control. Both sides quibble about baby steps in the "right direction". This ain't the way to get things done.
Retail environments, at least most of the ones I've dealt with, don't generally buy an off-the-shelf PC and then select their POS software. They buy a full system - and they usually buy it from a company that specializes in retail systems integration. A lot of them don't know what the underlying system is and don't care, so long as it works well and saves them money.
The vast majority of these machines are not going to be Internet-connected in any way at all, and are not readily accessible to script kiddies in the first place. Chains will use either low-speed frame relay lines or dial-up to report numbers back to HQ, not an Internet connection. They also don't need "support for all sorts of devices", just the ones that are sold with the system in the first place. I don't need half a dozen different credit card slip printers - just one good, working, reasonably priced one. And I'd buy them in bulk for each terminal. A lot of how Windows became such a blivet to begin with was by having to support everything under the sun.
I mean, that's an argument that was used against Apple for years by the Windows minions - Windows had (at least, before Office became pretty much the only alternative) dozens of available word processors and spreadsheets, and the Mac (read today as "Linux") only had (has) a handful. OK, this may be true, but how many do you need at once? I'd rather have one good word processor on my platform of choice, for instance, than a dozen crappy ones. POS systems are even more of the same - when a register is booted it generally runs nothing but that app. The distro of Linux isn't even relevant - it'll be customized to the maximum possible and stripped of anything that can increase support work.
While not exactly FUD, this whitepaper mainly fights a war that retailers don't care about. And a lot of the "main street" type businesses that might buy off-the-shelf POSware aren't going to be caring about Microsoft's message because they don't even research it far enough.
Heck, there's even thriving Mac POS vendors - there's enough room for everybody. Too bad Microsoft doesn't appear to understand it. They must be more threatened than I thought.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
To be fair, 3rd party developers can find lots of things wrong with Windows without even having the source code. So it's obviously better or something ;-)
This month >80% of the hacked sites are running NT/2K, but only 20% of the web servers in the world run IIS This implies that Windows based servers are 25 times more likely to be hacked than Unix systems.
If open source != secure, then how does MS explain OpenBSD? Do they really want to compare their record to Theo's?
And it sounds like the kinds of tools that were used to find the recent IIS hole (they scan binaries, not source) are more effective than pouring over source code. At least with open source people can fix the bugs that are found.
One poster said that security is pretty poor on both sides of the fence, and I think he has a point. It's the #1 problem with OSs now, IMO. It's not a problem of open source vs. proprietary software. It's a matter of security being a priority.
That means telling the marketing or tech people with bad judgment that the whizbang feature they want (like automatically launching docs that are emailed to you) doesn't make sense from a security point of view.
Someone else posted about RH 7.1, and how RH seems to be improving things. I installed it, and was also impressed with the config screens. Of course the real test is in how well it works, and it's too soon to tell. But they seem to be taking things more seriously.
I believe that Linux is almost wholy responsible for the massive improvements in MS's reliablity we've seen in the last couple of years. Perhaps RH and other companies can clean up their own houses to the point where MS is obliged to take security more seriously as well.
I concur. Just remember good and better have no relation except the good, better, best of adjective escalation. It is a well established tenent of barkering to never stand on a products own merits, but to give leading statements of comparison to a competitor. "Step right up and see Mr.Moral, he's more upright than the President. Treats the fairer sex better than St.Paul." You walk in and it's still the geek decapitating chickens.
I automatically discount/disqualify/ignore any essay about a products merits that basis itself apon a comparison to a competing product. If you can't sell apon your own merits, then you really aren't the best product.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
they're really scared aren't they?
Somewhere in that massive Wired article on the anti-trust trial, Gates (I believe) says that "the moment we start worrying about anti-trust we become IBM."
Obviously the transformation is complete. This reads exactly like an IBM FUD (a term Big Blue is supposed to have invented) white paper from the last days of mainframes.
Microsoft's fear is baffling: they have so much more to worry about from Sun than Linux. Sun is a direct rival to Microsoft from servers to mobile phones.
I know they attack Sun as vigorously, but this current open source obsession is intriguing. Did someone read the 2.4 source and realise it's actually quite good?
-- need more time?
And Windows NT and Windows 2000 are based on VMS, which is based on RSX/11, which is older than that.
History is sometimes a capricious mistress.
Linux is a fine OS that is currently smacking the crap out of Windows (and rightly so - Windows is just shit at this) in the high-density server arena; it's got a long way to go, however, before it becomes as manageable as Windows 2000 on the desktop.
Horses for courses.
Naturally, for Real Work you need a Real Computer, and that means NOT x86...
--
Peter
to a weak/crappy/nonexistent root password on a Linux box?
Crappy security is crappy security.
--
Peter
but every Linux distro I've installed recently (that being Mandrake 8, Red Hat 6 and 7, and Debian potato) all *allowed* a rubbishy/not there root password, even if they muttered about the fact.
--
Peter
Yep, domain admins and up only.
Fud isn't funny in EITHER direction.
--
Peter
The admin shares are admin only and if you can see them you've authenticated to the ACL and passed (hence you're an admin and you should be able to see it). In any case if you really don't like it shut off the Server service (in reality most people don't need it anyways and it consumes memory).
But he's specifically looking for a robust .doc reader, and one that doesn't suck.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
This is slightly off-topic, but when I visit that page with Netscape Navigator 4.76 on my FreeBSD system, the page appears blank in my browser window. I've noticed this happening on a couple of other Microsoft pages, but not all. I guess if they don't want me to view their pages, that's cool. I mean, I wouldn't have gone to this page if it hadn't been linked from /.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Has anyone here checked that out and disseminated that already?
--
Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!
2048? No... 2038, around Jan. 19. HTH HAND :)
--
Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!
In the early days, Beta only held 90 minutes (which worked out to 80-something), while VHS held 120m. Well, no shit, you might say, the VHS tape shell was much bigger.
Anyway, that meant that a large percentage of movies would fit on 1 VHS tape but required 2 Beta tapes. Which is not "technically superior" from the movie studio point of view.
Not to mention that Beta's visual superiority wasn't all that apparent on the shitbanger early-80s VCRs and people's bluratron early-80s TVs, and the crappy mastering jobs studios tended to do back then. So it was essentially a non-feature to most users, and there was always LaserDisc, which was/is superior to both tape formats, if you happend to be the sort who cares.
Although, I would agree that VHS's "won" on the strength of it's manufacturing model , just that back then, Beta and VHS weren't as differenced as people's histories tell it (as in, it wasn't a question of Cost versus Quality).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The fact is that ANY business application of any software requires an expert (in-house or consultant) before people should roll it out.
You may think that and be correct. But the fact remains that many small NT shops limp along OK without expert assistatnce, and maybe a little tech support from the guy who sold them the comptuer. You can slap Great Plains on an NT box and have an accounting system.
These small businesses will never pay a Unix admin the money he's worth, nor would they pay a good NT guy the money either. And retention would be a problem in an environment where the guy is rehabing old 486s and refilling the copy machine toner. So, they do the rational thing and limp along with part time or slightly retarded computer help.
Open source software + contracted service would be a great solution for small businesses with no inhouse experience, and cheaper than paying MS licences. However the customer base is never going to pick up the phone and sign a service contract with RedHat or IBM (nor should they). The only real answer is that it's going to take a phalanx of Linux saavy people in the small system integrators that are out there.
And that I don't see. It's easier for the corner comptuer guy to build a computer and slap MS Small Business server or Exchange on it and send the money back to Microsoft. If he could find a skilled Linux admin to hire, the guy is going to figure that he's got better things to do than screwing in IDE drives in his spare time and go and make $90K doing Unix admin for a big corporation.
(As a sidenote, Novell essentially built their business on these Corner Computer Store integrators, but it took a massive channel push and lots of product education. So, it's possible, but it's a long haul for someone.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Actually I do hae win98 on a box at home and I am a major admin for my corperation.
In order to run many good games, you need to boot into win98 for Halflife,Unreal Tournament, and Others. That is the only use for Windows.
Games..
I now understand why microsoft is pushing the Xbox, their os is only useful for Games!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
WRONG,
Almost all of that hardware is supported, the barcode devices are serial or keyboard, the cash drawers are serial (in fact just on/off) and the other printers are also just ersial/parallel. the CC readers are useable.
I have used almost everything (except for a check reader) sucessfully in linux without drivers.
linux dont need drivers for standard devices.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As someone who has been responsible for securing WinNT boxes on the internet, I would question your claim that they are in any way secure out of the box.
:P.. You need to come up with some mechanism to audit the log files in a regular and tamperproof fashion. Why do microsoft's logs suck so much anyway? It's impossible to analyze them without a third party tool or a syslogd adapter. The log viewer as shipped doesn't scale beyond workgroup use. You also need to install a file integrity checker.
/proc.
As anyone would know who deals with these beasts, the filepermissions are pre-configured so that many critical system files are open to the world. When it comes to the security vs. convenience tradeoff, MS sides with convenience every time and it's up to you to fix it.
The up-front cost of securing an NT box is very similar to that of securing a *desktop* linux distro. You have to audit the running services and remove the ones that are uneccessary (printer servers anyone?) you can have fix all the broken filepermissions. You should configure ip filtering. You need keep up with the security patch of the week, or of the day if you're running IIS
The reason WinNT/2000's security stinks so much is because it's so opaque.. The only way to really tell if it's working is to download a sniffer, l0pthcrack, a scanner, etc etc.. Not that you don
t have to do that with unix either, but at least most of the tools are you need come with the system already (gratis), and in the case of linux you can compile the kernel yourself with what you know are secure settings, whatever additional patches you want, and have fun with
I don't know very many systems that are secure out of the box, other than openbsd, but in the case of NT it's harder to configure and there's more limitations as to what you can tweak. It's silly to argue that NT is secure out of the box. If there's anything that came out of the recent chinese hacktivism, it's that microsoft's code is too bloated and their release schedules are too aggressive for them to audit it properly by themselves.
-OT
Well, Redhat 7.1 is much better in this respect. I dont think it actually turned on any of the daemons that I installed by default and it offers a nice firewalling option during the install. Check it out.
If you haven't tried Redhat 7.1 you really should. I stopped using Redhat from 6.0 through 7.1 because of their terrible defaults (I switched to Debian). Redhat 7.1, however, actually does most things right. By default, no services that were installed were running. The installation had a pretty simple, but effective firewalling tool that could either block everything, nothing or everything under 1024 (you could also selectively allow certain services to run). Permissions weren't perfect, but definitely better than they were. I really suggest taking a look at Rehdat 7.1 before dismissing it.
You Have Been Tolled. You Have Lost. Have A Nice Day.
Uh, yeah, sorta. About as amusing as breakins get. :-)
People in general need to stick to what they know best. Bosses generally don't have the required paranoia level required to be an admin. Were I Scott, I don't think I would have even asked that question of my boss... If his boss had the background to make that sort of decision, he'd be an admin.
The previous rant is still wearing off... No one should be offended by this post.
Actually, I meant "any NT admins" when I said "admins". I live up here in the land of Microsoft (Seattle area), and all of the NT admins that I know are NT geeks. They're mostly elitists who only run Win2k at home.
:-)
I don't personally run any Windows OS on my home computer, but after using Windows 2000 for about a month, my girlfriend decided that Win98 crashed WAY less, and I reinstalled it for her.
And, BTW, your guess is quite off the mark. I probably touched a nerve, but I'm not calling you an idiot. Relax, guy.
There have been few times when I wished I had moderator points more. Moderators: A post should only be judged insightful if you KNOW that it is. YHBT YHL HAND.
But so have I.
This is not a rant against the parent post, it's a troll. This is a rant against stupid moderators.
setup scripts, and do some last minute checking on up2date daemons
OK, besides the fact that up2date is a Red Hat Linux specific feature, connecting any system to the internet without looking at the services that run at startup time and applying errata/service packs is extrememly irresponsible and arrogant. Windows NT is worse than good UNIX systems in this respect, because just about everything is *on* by default, and many of those services are exploitable, or need good hard configuring not to be.
admins all use windows95 on their system at home
I don't know ANY admins that use Win95 on their home systems (or 98, or ME). At least none who have one clue what they're doing. The resemblance between Win95 and WinNT is totally superficial. There is nothing even related to administration of an NT server that you can practice on a Win95 box. Win95 doesn't have features as basic as file permissions or services. The only thing you can practice on Win95 is point and click.
I still do not know how to lock the ports below 1024 like redhat linux does
Every UNIX I know of does this by default. It's a feature of the kernel, and not something that you have to DO.
NT is quite secure but not really stable
And in the breath before, suggesting to visit Bugtraq to check the bugs in each. Look at the number of hacks per OS (I beleive that attrition.org keeps track of that sort of thing), and you will see that NT has a disproportionally large number of breakins. Although they are not the most commonly used servers, they are the most frequently hacked. Repeat after me: security is not a feature, it's a process. Your security lies not in your OS, it's in your admin.
That is true, but it is also true of Netscape - there are pages which won't load with Netscape too. My favorite is when Netscape downloads the page just fine, but doesn't actually display it. You hit reload, and it re-downloads but still no display. I have to stop and restart Netscape to see the page.
Although I'll admit that Netscape on Solaris or Linux is a vast improvement over Netscape on HP-UX. The HP-UX version crashes left and right and often took 30 seconds or so to complete the core dump, preventing any use of the machine until it was done. It was so bad that I had made a symbolic link from ~/core to /dev/null. At least it only crashes once a day or so on Solaris and/or Linux.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
You can bet that Los Alamos and the NSA don't trust the out-of-box security of NT any more than they would for Linux. In both cases I'm sure they have a security administrator lock down the boxes, which kind of destroys the motivation to use NT because it requires less administration.
Really, anyone who relies on out-of-box security is asking for it; if you don't have someone on-site who's knowledgeable about security and the OS you're using, you'll eventually have problems.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
If you look around there is more fun!/ ne ws/2501.htm
Take a look at
http://www.microsoft.com/europe/industry/retail
where you will find
Teil_A_Management_Summary_englisch_appr.doc
a Microsoft report on a cross comparison of Windows 2000 and Linux packed full of fun FUD
Who owns your data?
Such as using MSWORD for documents on the web!
Geesh. The rest of the world uses html and pdf, but noooo, 'not invented here' reigns big time at Microsoft.
Thank god that that inferior OS I'm using has 'mswordview' to create a
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
"and to this day I still do not know how to lock the ports below 1024"
And now you do:
ipchains -I input -s 0/0 -d 0/0 1:1023 -p tcp -j DENY
ipchains -I input -s 0/0 -d 0/0 1:1023 -p udp -j DENY
Closes all incoming tcp connections and all incoming udp packets targeted to ports 1 through 1023 of your system.
It's not so hard, really.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Heh, thanks for the laugh, Microsoft... now where's your REAL case against Linux?
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
It was the C-2 certification, IIRC. The NT 4 Resource Kit comes with an auditing applet to apply the "easy" fixes to meet the cert., ie. turn off HPFS and POSIX, disable the floppy and remove the NIC.
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
First thing I thought of was the Will Smith quote from Men in Black, "And we drive around in a Ford POS."
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I've never had VC++ warn me about any possible security problems.
3 i. It shows up in Event Viewer with the message: "The error is in the data." A long, drawn-out search on the KB will bring back results 1-10 each of which say the same thing, couched in different language, "The number is reserved for a future error."
Actually, it tries. The error is something like 127ur498812vxd734023l-4792j540021k;rf-43580-4ghd7
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Piece Of Shit.
"Shit" is an offensive, not considered fit for polite conversation, kids get their mouths washed out with soap for saying it, slang term for feces.It can be used as a swear:
"Shit! That hurt!"
It can be used in a derogatory manner (This is the POS thing):
"You shithead! You're a piece of shit."
It can be descriptive:
"That pot was the SHIT!"
On and on and on.
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I would say "pee-oh-ess," or the whole phrase. Saying "poz" would be like pronouncing URL as "earl".
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
When you want security you need a distro made with security in mind.
:)
RedHat is a joke. Plain and simple...
Slackware is neat but it's more a learning level. I like it. But thats just me. Hardly a system to use out of the box.
Linux from Scratch dosn't exist out of the box
This one really gives you an idea of what most Linux distros are thinking.
This is a START.. go forward from here.
Rock Linux, Debian and some others were made with security and stability in mind.
Windows is one box...
Linux is many boxes...
Microsoft can pick and chouse what Linux box to pull a comparison from...
I honnestly don't believe ANYTHING could be worse than RedHat without trying.
Slackware leaves a huge hole in the system by default to make setup easyer.
I don't actually exist.
I think maybe you did a close miss as to the problem.
It's easy to determine if an NT box is secure or not.
Linux changes a lot normally so testing for a certen behavure is a bit problematic.
For each bug there are like 80 patches. Only one is needed to fix the bug. Testing for one patch is easy.. But 80?
Oh and here is where the fun starts...
Not all Linux patches fix bugs. Some of them are hunny pot patches. I rember a patch that fools script kiddys into thinking the Linux box was a Windows box with a bug in place. When you try to use the bug the patch then explotes a bug in the script kiddy pacage...
I don't actually exist.
No need to say it. Linux advocates are occasionally raving loones.
Think of fans of a sports team, advocates for a cause or a fan of some cool software... Seems like Linux advocates right?
Now look at Microsoft marketing..
Profesionals who should be behaving in a profesional mannor. You can forget the rude fanatic but not a rude profesional.
It's quite clear why Linux adocates have a fedish level fixation on Microsoft. Microsoft has majority marketshare and market control. Linux dosen't.
Whats Microsofts excuse?
Microsoft overshadows the Linux userbase many times over. Why spend so much money attacking something so minnor?
There is but one reason I can see for Linux advocates to attack Microsoft with such intensity..
Fear.. Microsoft controls the market. Linux users are consistently living in the shadow of Microsoft. Every website and Internet service says "Requirement: Windows"
Now why is Microsoft attacking Linux so often?
There is one reason I can see....
Fear....
Fear that Microsofts products are not anywhere near ready to compeate with Linux.
Linux isn't an ideal product.. far from it.. It's got problems.
Picture it this way...
Linux is like a timex watch... the watch band keeps breaking but the watch seems to last forever.
Windows is more like a cheap watch... It works.. usually...
There are better watches at higher prices (Solarus) but the whole point is that Linux exists and remains an easy upgrade path for technosavy users.
Now if we can get the less savy users to buy Macs life would be easyer.
I don't actually exist.
A really flexible (and free!) ms word conversion program is wv http://freshmeat.net/projects/wv/ . It can convert to html & latex formats, amongst others. It's quite configurable regarding the output that it can produce.
Note: I'm not in any way associated with this project other than having used it and being satisfied with it in the past.
http://www.iglu.org.il/linux_report.pdf
If you want more, just get Abiword and do it yourself!
Yeah... ok... everyone who understands how to read/write "open source" computer code is an evil little bastard out to "get" something.
The statement _is_ true, however but the obvious spin is not. Yes, it is easier to find bugs in software where you can see the code - it is also just as easy to fix in a timely manner those same problems. In a beast like Windows, you can very easily find bugs but you can't do anything about it until the vendor decides to release a patch - and they only do that when the problem is serious enough for them to care - which is only when their big industry clients have problems (so much for your "small business" retail thing...).
To Slashdot editors: please help stop Microsoft by ignoring them. If everyone just ignores Microsoft and gets on with the things we need to do, the beast will surely die.
---
Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Linux is making strides but the average user does not know what a partition is and why you just can't simply resize it.
The average user shouldn't be installing servers! This is why companies who hire to people to install and maintain servers look for people with certifications, especially for Microsoft servers.
Contrary to popular belief, Joe Consumer cannot just walk down to CompUSA buy the nt software, stick it in a box and setup in a weekend any easier than he could do with a Linux distro. Using either operating system, Joe Consumer *might* be able to fumble his way through it, but it certainly wouldn't be the most secure or reliable thing on the planet.
My journal has hot
Yeah, I'm aware of OpenBSD. And -- I'll say it again -- any security expert will tell you right off the bat that you *must* tweak *any* system for your security needs.
For example, suppose you're running a Samba file server. In most cases, you want to to turn password encryption ON because it is inherently more secure than sending plaintext passwords.
However, some versions of Windows 95 do not support encrypted passwords. Whether or not Samba can negotiate this on a client-by-client basis (it can't) is actually irrelevant: if you have such clients on your network, you will need to make sure that such clients are isolated from any parts of the network where packet sniffing could be in use. This might involve hiding the Windows 95 clients behind a router, for instance.
You have to know this. If you just install the default installation of Samba, or even a Windows NT server, without this piece of knowledge, you might be assuming that your setup is secure "out of the box." But obviously, it is not.
My journal has hot
You average linux distro out of the box will have just about every known service running (ftp http telnet, etc etc).
:)
Uhh...what's your "average" Linux distro? Mandrake 8.0 will warn you that it installs every service by default, but will allow you to opt out of this. 'Sides, if you don't want the service running, then just don't install the service to begin with.
*Nothing* is secure out of the box. This deserves repeating. *Nothing* is secure out of the box. Really. Good security requires tweaking the system -- any system -- for your particular situation. Being Open Source, Linux is definitely the most tweakable of the two choices. And if you want a truly secure system from a networking standpoint, heck, just unplug it from any unsecure networks. (this would include the Internet).
And Microsoft operating systems are very secure. Provided you follow instructions and leave the power switch on the machine in the "off" position.
My journal has hot
Windows isn't secure out of the box. File system and registry ACLs are completely fucked (especially directory inheritance, eg if u install just one driver, just one appli, copy just one file from eg system32 etc. u probabily have files/registry entries owned by Everyone with full control). There are too many unused serviced / subparts active by default and some others bloat around. Windows can be hardened with a lot of work (and a lot of 3rd party tools/utilities, coz lack of non-gui and admin/scriptable friendly tools), but ISN'T secure OUT-OF-THE-BOX. Many Linux/Unix are also full of bug/very unhardened by default. Obsd is still too opened imho (too many services, lot of unused +s), but the auditing of all the kernel/user space is a very good idea, and the design is very KISS/useful. Obsd rocks!
best regards
Kobaiashi
Irrelevant. The point is that Windows 2000 DOES have shares open by default, contrary to your assertion that "your average win2k install has nothing running". If it can be safely assumed that all of the open services are safe, then it doesn't matter how many services are open, and we all know that SMB/CIFS is perfectly (ahem) safe.
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
just a note, everyone I know says URL as "earl"--say it fast, what do you hear?
anyway, I do happen to agree with you about "poz"--they'd think you were calling them a candy!(pez)
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
Sounds a little like they wanted a "super cheap system" rather than a "Free System". If the builders claimed the fault in the machines was Y2K related then it sounds like you got stung by a bunch of cowboys. Y2K doesn't effect Linux and unless their application ran under DOSEMU, they are not telling you the truth. You should have it all independently examined and take the company who built it to court for your money back. Oh and make sure you ask in court if anyone is funding them. ;)
You should have gone to Red Hat, VA or LinuxCare for advice and taken it from there, not let the first bunch who tell you they can do it.
(I'm still looking for a robust .doc reader that doesn't suck)
I hear that Microsoft Word is good for that sort of thing.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
What I think is much more interesting than the inevitable spin in the white paper is the fact that Microsoft has identified Linux as a threat in the field of point of sale applications. For good reason I think, given the fact that although Linux is not particularily suited yet for your grandma's desktop, it is ideal for vertical applications like cash registers. Take a cheap 486 box, put an embedded browser on it, connect it to a touch screen LCD screen (it is amazing how often I see those in shops nowadays), put your POS application on a webserver and off you go.
-- Spelling and grammar errors tend to be a sign of erroneous thinking.
If the builders claimed the fault in the machines was Y2K related then it sounds like you got stung by a bunch of cowboys.
No, it was indeed Y2K related. As I recall, they designed the Accts Receivable code to purge old data, and they didn't get the math quite right. In 2000, the 1999 A/R was deemed too old to keep around, and it got purged.
What's your damage, Heather?
MS has a huge percentage of the hospitality industry. A lot of people don't realize that most hotels are franchised, owned by individuals (or companies). Hampton Inns, for example, aren't all owned by the same people. However, they have to choose whatever front office system is mandated by the franchise office, because they have to use the same back end reporting.
Whenever a desk clerk checks you in at a Hampton Inn, for example, they're using exactly the same system no matter which Hampton Inn it is. A lot of the franchises write their own front office systems, and MS dominates those systems:
Holiday Inn - mostly *nix
Choice Hotels (Comfort/Quality/Econo) - Windows NT
Hampton Inn - Win95/NT wkstations, *nix back end
Fairfield Inn - Win95/NT
Days Inn - Linux (woohoo!)
There's a catch with the Days Inn system, though. They really broke tradition when they picked Linux, but unfortunately, they picked a bad rollout time (just-prior-to-12/31/1999) and didn't do enough beta testing. The Y2k problem completely wiped out all hotel receivables. All your direct bill records were toast. The implementation was so bad, in fact, that the system's name of "PowerUp" turned into a nickname of "PowerDown".
The hoteliers rebelled, turning the franchise meeting into a yelling match. Nobody wanted the system, and everybody said Linux sucked. It wasn't that Linux actually sucked, of course, it was just that the program was so inherently bad.
The Windows systems, on the other hand, have been rolled out with mostly good reviews. They were deployed on killer hardware (almost everybody mandates Dell workstations) instead of cheap clones, and they got lavish training manuals and videos. It's been a case of throwing money at the problem vs. trying to cut corners, and the Linux camp came out looking rather rough.
Anyway, the next time you go to a hotel, peek your head over the front desk and take a look at what they're using to check you in. You might be surprised. (Then again, you could stay at Days Inn just to support Linux!)
What's your damage, Heather?
I've got the Word document source, so I've made a quick fix...
On page 3 of the Linux report:
7. Less^H^H^H^H More Secure
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find and fix security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
No problem, I've got the Word document source, so I've made a quick fix...
On page 3 of the Linux report:
7. Less^H^H^H^H More Secure
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find and fix security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
I think if I said "URL" fast I would hear something more like "ural" than "earl".
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
From the looks of your post you are just another troll. You say you find Linux to be lacking and that in all the key areas of business it is clearly inferior to Windows 2000. However, you don't actually go on to explain why Windows 2000 is so superior to Linux in key areas of business. The most you do is say that Linux is obscure, hard to use, and inconsistant. Did you read that off of a Microsoft website or out of a ZD net magazine?
For the purposes of the rest of this comment I am going to assume that you do in fact have reasons you have just neglected to mention them.
You mention that you make your living providing solutions based on Microsoft technology-- good for you. I am sure you have quite a bit of knowledge relating to Microsoft products. However, I am also fairly certain that you have not even begun to learn UNIX in the same way that you have learned Microsoft technology. If you actually took some time to evaluate Linux and brought in a real Linux guru, you may find that for many applications Linux is clearly a better choice. Likewise for many applications Windows is a better choice.
You mention that if businesses were not making money from their MS systems they wouldn't stick with them. That is entirely true. If the system is in place and meeting the needs of the business it would be absolutely idiotic to switch to Linux. However, if the system is not meeting all the needs of the business then it is prudent to evaluate all options before proceeding with an information system upgrade. An entry level systems analysis and design class will tell you that. Using another technology may be a viable option, and is at least worthy of being included as one of the proposed solutions.
You also mention that if Linux offered any competitive advantage that businesses would install redhat straight away. This is also not correct for the same reasons as above. Haven't you ever heard the cliche "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?" This is especially true for information systems. If it would cost more money to migrate to Linux than would be saved by migrating to Linux then it is not worth it. That is basic business practice. You can also find that out in any entry level systems analysis/design class or in a more general form in any entry level business course.
You say Linux is obscure, hard to use, and inconsistant. Have you taken a look at Windows lately? Or even MacOS for that matter. Every system is somewhat inconsistant, hard to use, and obscure. Those are pretty vague adjectives, try to come up with some specifics.
In the past Microsoft has pushed out several competitors. You mention OS/2 and Amiga. For one thing, Amiga is a different hardware platform entirely and was never really considered to be a serious business machine. Most businesses used IBM computers and turned to IBM compatible PCs when they became available, so I can't see how Microsoft kicked Amiga's ass. Microsoft did kick OS/2's ass pretty hard. However, OS/2 had some drawbacks as well. Version 1.x was IBMs baby although MS did much of the coding and design. IBMs original purpose with OS/2 was to provide a better operating environment to entice consumers to switch to IBM computers running OS/2. Version 1.x had such shitty hardware support for anything not IBM that almost no one could use it. During that time Windows was not even anywhere near usable. It wasn't until MS decided to split from the project (and go work on Windows 3.0 which could now run in protected mode) that IBM decided to compete on the software level.
At that point Microsoft launched a massive marketing campaign to put Windows on every desktop and have every application written for Windows. They also had Windows preinstalled on every new PC and penalized manufacturers who installed other operating systems. Of course no one used OS/2. Why spend another $100+ when you already have Windows on the machine? It's a wonder OS/2 lasted as long as it did as a desktop OS. However, you may note that OS/2 is still used for many embedded devices and that a new version has just been released renamed eComStation.
In your final paragraph you mention that geeks who want to succeed in the information economy should study some business courses. That's extremely good advice. You also say that their time would be better spent getting an MCSE instead of rebuilding the kernel every 2 minutes. That's true too. If you want a professional quality Linux certification, they are available.
Hmmm,
Linus & Co. absolve themselves of responsibility, but do fix bugs.
Microsoft is "accountable to the industry", but does not fix bugs.
Maybe actions speak a bit louder than words?
IIRC, that happens mostly when the page has some fault like a failure to terminate a table. 6.0 does render pages in that case anyway.
There is a 6.01 beta available for HP-UX, but it still crashes fairly often.
The doc on the Microsoft website is dated 3-11-2000. Not exactly what I'd call news...
I'ts news to anyone who only just heard about it and not to anyone who already knew about it.
Dear all,
I've just read the article and if i read the whole artikle than i see that there are quite a few things that are not true.
From the Artikle: Chances are slim that a POS application designed for the KDE user interface will run under the GNU user interface. So if you change your mind and want to use GNU instead of KDE, any money you spent on designing the application for the KDE interface was likely wasted. Remark: This will work. But you have the install both the QT and gtk libraries. Remark towards windows. Not all win9x programs work under ME.
From Artikle: Another big drawback to Linux presently is the lack of server side software, like database, message queuing services, transaction servers, etc. From the transaction server side, there is no Linux software that provides functionality such as Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) or Microsoft BizTalk1 Server. Remark: There are alot of DB programs out there. And Oracle does also run on Linux. Is this a small DB vendor? Who wants to run MTS anyway, we have sendmail, Postfix etc.
From Artikle:
Support / Maintenance Costs
Remark: M$ never talks a bout license fees. You only need to buy one CD set of Linux and you can install it trough out your whole company. If you have a Linux system manager with enough knowledge you probably don't need and support.
From Artikle: Cash registers in retail stores, hotels, and restaurants have a large number of hardware devices attached to them, such as printers for receipts, bar-code readers, touch screens, credit-card processors, keypads, and cash drawers. Linux has very limited driver support for these devices. What this means for retailers, hoteliers, and restaurateurs is that they have to write the drivers and other functionality themselves, wait for someone else, like the POS vendors, to write them, or pay an outside vendor to develop them. Remark: Does Win2000 also iuse the smae divice drivers than win NT or win 9x? Does M$ write the drivers for old hardware, for free? I don't tink so you'll probably be stuck with your 'old' OS.
From Artikle: Lack Of Formal Development Schedule, Research, and Standards Remark: Standards? I think that is the problem with M$ they make trier own standards and don't share them with other OS vendors. Like SMB, Outlook etc.
From Artikle: There is a great possibility that Linux, like Unix before it, will split into vendor-specific variants. The whole point of the progress that's been made in the retail industry in the past 20 years was to avoid going back to that model. Remark: I don't know if the heart about the Linux Standard Base?
From Artikle: The article discusses how lax security is to blame for the problem and how the worm exploits many of the well-known flaws of the Linux operating system based on a default installation of Red Hat's 6.2 and 7.0 distributions of the software. Remark: I Love You.
I'm missing (but that is not strang as it's a M$ artikle): Compatibility probles between Office 2000 and say office 9x. Office 2000 files can't be read in Office 9x etc. Or better sad newer office files cant be read in the older version.
What i'm wondering about: Why is M$ putting so much effort into this? According to them Linux is a loosing OS anyway? I mean if everything is so obivious. Thatn people won't use it. I think they think differently.
I miss a list of companies that are happely supporting and using Linux. Support: Sap Oracle etc
Regards,
Joop.
"It is sad to say, but there are people out there who get a big kick out of the challenge of finding flaws in systems"
Now, if Microsoft was a car manufacturer, and they took the approach they are hinting at above, would you buy their cars?
Taking the analogy further, would Microsoft then think that people who perform crash tests on new cars are sad?
Einar
"that doesn't suck" [emphasis added, and amplified].
I noticed at the bottom of the article the usual this word is a tradment of this company. Then I took a second look.
It says:
It would appear that MS has forgotten to include: Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvolds.
Go get 'em, Linus! Defend those property rights.
I'll see your "heh" and raise you 2 more "heh"'s and a "HAH"...
Concerning your comment, "but we won't tell you what unstable aplications we were running or how well our employees understand the os"
I just love working with new things that I don't fully understand but want to learn about - it's a theraputic stresser for the brain, an exercise in cognitive abilities. Everyone should just stop whining, get a copy of RedHat or Mandrake - or better yet, a Debian distro - and just install it, tinker with it, experiment with it, learn and become proficient with their chosen brand of Linux. Remember: "Knowledge is Strength"
Never mind that I work at a *huge* Telecom company as a Transport Network Engineer and have to support literally *thousands* of our customers when their 56k Frame Relay ckt does down, or when another CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) is having problems on their portion of a customer's circuit, or even when a new customer turn-up has gone sour and I'm asked to "resolve the issue". I want to learn how to make my system run Linux!! I want to be as cool as the geeked-out 23-year-old uber-hacker that lives down the street and who hasn't seen daylight for a week because he just can't get SuSE to work as well as his similarly geeked-out friend who spent 3 weeks of constant work (excluding breaks for food and "elimination of bodily waste") to port his favorite Enlighenment theme over to the Linux "flavor-of-the-week".
In fact, I think *everyone* should run and install and/or compile Linux (again, depending on the Linux distro I just received) on their computers, and just start using it - destroy Micro$oft's "Desktop Monopoly"...YEAH!!!
...I just won't get any work done, because a lot of my Circuit Design diagrams are in Visio, our Circuit Design & Ticket Management system runs under Win32, our CRM (Customer Relations Management) software also runs under Win32, and our LAN / WAN is managed by Novel. I'll try getting WINE to work so I can get access to those applications...I'll lose my job!!...but that's cool, because then I'll have more time to tinker and play with Linux!!
ScottK
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
/me hands bonzoesc a Homer Simpson costume, complete with instructions on how to say:
"DOH!"
A suggestion: never let relatives - no matter how close - install software on your machine; the results can lead to embarasement. <grin>
ScottK
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
I find it refreshingly funny how you totally avoided the meat of my post and picked on one singular point - thanks for vindicating 95% of my post!
If any technology is un-proven in the market-place, it's Linux. I have yet to see a major corporation completely drop the Win32 platform and have Linux running on every desktop in that corporation. Let's give Linux the 10 years of growth that NT has had, and then we'll talk.
Actually, I have a Sun Ultra 5 running Solaris with CDE sitting at my desk, and I also run Exceed 6.1 to access other X11 boxes on our Network, so your assumptions that we *only* ran on a Win32 environment is incorrect. I have personally seen UNIX go through so many of it's own mutations since I first worked on BSD 3.1 back in 1979 when I was a Computer Operator at Lawrence Berkeley Lab (yeah, I'm realy *that* old!) that it's a mere shadow of it's former self.
Organizations that are "screaming" for Solaris and Linux usually fall under three categories:
1) IT departments run by recent College Grads who got hooked on Linux and feel naked at the workplace without a Gnome footprint on their system's desktop.
2) IT departments run by "old school" UNIX mavens who still get a thrill out of typing "csh" and "grep".
3) IT departments that carefully examine the strongest and best tools, regardless of the Operating System or platform those tools are on, and *then* purchase the OS and platform to host those tools on.
The only people I see doing any "screaming" in the "market" are those people who are vehemently Anti-Microsoft - against the actual market strength that Microsft carries because of their longevity and historical ubiquitousness - not Anti-Windows. They're also "screaming" for Solaris and Linux because they've been told by "the media" that Linux and Solaris are "cool" and are the newest thing on the block - when they really aren't. Don't you just love how "the media" lies to you?
The company that thoughtfully chooses the proper mix of hardware and *commercially available* software is one that *will* choose Win32 for the Desktop, because of the vast quantity of *commercially available* Applications for their users/employees. Chances are that they'll also choose UNIX for large Server-based apps and services because of the long-standing record of reliability and stability, with a mix of NT/Win2k, and maybe a web server or two running Linux w/ Apache.
In regards to this "failed experiment" you refered to in Network Management, I'd like to see your non-propaganda sources for this info - If anything, the NT platform has excelled in LAN/WAN Management functions for some time now; in fact, HP's OpenView - the de facto standard in Network Managment - has been running and available for NT for a while now, and is one of the most popular Network Managment tools running on NT with full support for either DMI or SNMP. Consider your point as "moot"
The hard facts are this:
1) Linux will only become as ubiquitous as Win32 on your average user's system when the quantity of third-party applications are available for Linux as they are for Win32, not just the comparative handfull of apps for Linux. There also has to be an incentive beyond Anit-Microsoft sentiment for a company to adopt a replacement OS for their computers. StarOffice != market-share.
2) Microsoft Windows will remain the dominant OS for general use on the Desktop for the near future and will continue to eat-away at the UNIX market-share in Servers because of Microsoft's historical dominance in the Industry - regardless if some so-called "competitor" wants to employ the US Justice Dept. as their attorney to try to sue Microsoft and cause it's break-up into "Baby Bills". It will continue to do so until some other company can come up with a better solution and have the third-party market support for that solution.
Now, bear this in mind: I think Linux, for what it offers, is awesome; a relatively cost-free and maturing OS. I love the stability of UNIX, specifically Solaris on my Sun Ultra 5. I love the stability of a *properly configured* machine running NT / Win2k. Linux *does* have a place in the world of Computing, but for now it's not going to be on your average user's desktop. I also think that the divisiveness exhibited by the "Linuxophiles" is childish and will do nothing to enhance the broader acceptance of Linux as an alternative to the OS offerings from Microsoft.
Be pragmatic, and you'll succeed - be an extremist, and you'll fall flat on your ass from hitting your head against the brick-wall of logic.
btw - I haven't had to re-boot my NT system at work for 3 weeks - and I didn't have to compile the OS! How's your record?
'nuff said!
ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
This should be a fun one!!!
"MS puts down open source/linux community... "
And the Linuxophiles don't do the same? Let's examine your own post for examples:
"MacroShaft Winblows 98se(shitty edition)"
I see you learned about "humor" from "South Park"?
Linux, without all of those security patches and fixes you mentioned ("...linux/unix when not properly secured and maintained can look like "swiss cheese" with security holes every where..."), stumbles around worse than a druken Sen. Ted Kennedy!
Then, you go on talking about how Windows being "more secure out-of-the-box" but then in the next breath saying "being more secure means less productivity"??
"PUT THE CRACK-PIPE DOWN AND STEP AWAY, SIR!!!"
Of course your OS is going to crash if you screw-up the configs!
Also, the security model for Linux is based on the multi-user model for UNIX, where as the security model for Win98/ME is single-user with profiles for multiple users - or what about that DIDN'T you understand????
Your BSOD with your dad's system when you tried to shut-down was more than likely due to a glitch in the power-saving settings in the BIOS or a problem with the video drivers. Chances are that you used the older, pre-ME drivers for that video card.
If I was your dad I wouldn't let you within 50 YARDS of my computer!
'nuff said!
ScottK
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
now there is a firewalling option during install. evidentally you can tell it to have high security during install. it looked like it was going to lock down the tcp/udp ports using iptables or some such. i didnt try it out because the box was already behind a firewall. has anyone else checked out this option that can comment on it.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
man i started mirroring this when i saw it posted and it took hours to get the whole thing. http://sage.che.pitt.edu/~harrold/tmp/linux_report .pdf
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
They say that MS support is better. Personally, if I had a problem with MS software and needed help, I'd take my luck with the psychic friends network before calling Microsoft.
:)
that would be cheaper. i hear the first reading is free
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
i will agree that the merits of turning everything on with the server is debatable. i would think that the workstation option is for those who dont know what they are doing. you get pretty much the same type of computer when you install win2k without any services turned on.
what i think we are seeing here is two different paradigims. the windows paradigm is we install things like samba and stuff and you have to turn them on. in linux if you install it we assume you want to use it so when a service is installed it is turned on. i really cannot comment on which is best for you or others. i am accustomed to doing things in linux and so it works well for me.
new users who want to setup a server and do more than just play around should be capable of reading a bit. i've had quite a few friends who were used to nt that installed and safely configured linux by just reading the documentation. once you get into the heuristics of running an nt network it's really no less complicated. i've found my expirence with nt to be far more complicated (nt 3.51 and 4.0 i quit using ms before win 2k).
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
At least win2k will ask if you want IIS or anything, with linux its either server or workstation.
actually with redhat it's server, workstation, or custom. it's really hard to see because it is that big icon right below workstation. this allows you the option to select individual packages. if you say server yes everything is running. it assumes that you wanted a server and know what the hell you are doing. wheather or not this is good is debatable, but there are options for everyone. if you are going to blame redhat for the ignorance of it's users then the faults applied to microsoft would be quite excessive for the same reasons.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
under reason 3.
From the 188 total distributions 28 are derived from the popular Red Hat Linux. So Red Hat is derived from the Linux kernel and then those 28 are derived from Red Hat. Nine of the 188 are derived from Debian. Where does this stop This is starting to sound like we're headed back in time to the 1980's and 1990's era where retailers were locked into a single vendor's innovation.
am i the only one who finds this interesting? isn't this what microsoft wants? that is if they are the vendor in question.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Odd that a *huge* telecom company would choose the unproven alternative of Windows for network management and circuit design of your transport networks, snubbing the mainstays of that market - OpenVMS and UNIX. Strange that while everyone else in that market is screaming for Solaris and Linux, that you seem completely lashed to the mast of the unproven technology of Windows... Particularly strange given that four years ago, everyone was screaming for NT. What could have caused the change of heart? Could it be the failed experiment using NT for network management/provisioning?
But hey, if you can't provision that circuit because your NM box running NT is down, you can just tell the customer - "I'm sorry, you'll have to wait half an hour while the system reboots." And they'll nod knowingly and understandingly, and if they're smart, they'll take their business to somebody that's got a clue.
"if you can see them you've authenticated to the ACL and passed"
Or you're using smbclient or a non-Microsoft SMB/CIFS client, in which case you can see the shares regardless of who you are...
From the 188 total distributions, 28 are derived from the popular Red Hat Linux. So Red Hat is derived from the Linux kernel and then those 28 are derived from Red Hat. Nine of the 188 are derived from Debian. Where does this stop? This is starting to sound like we're headed back in time to the 1980's and 1990's era where retailers were locked into a single vendor's innovation.
And, of course, if everyone goes to windows, we won't be locked into any one vendor's innovation, well, except for being locked into Microsoft's...
Who writes this stuff?
That is of course only true if you want to upgrade. Somewhere I remember reading Linus' comment on this which ran something like "No-one's forcing you to upgrade. If your happy with a 1.x kernel, fine!" New kernels generally have new features, but the older series are still in use. Personally , if I was building a POS system, and 2.0.38(39?) suited my needs, then that's what I'd use.
It seems people have such a different mindset when it comes to software. If it works well, then use it. The first thing you should be saying when you think about upgrading your software is "Do I really need to upgrade?" If you need to, then fine! If not, just take it easy and save yourself the hassle (and the money. and the time.)
** Windows has detected a mouse movement.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
No, in both cases it's the webmaster's fault. There are a lot of crappy ones out there, and you DON'T know who you are. I am assuming that by "wrong" you mean "displays in a way that looks horrible".
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
because the people that brought us the pinto, the festiva, the .com revolution, and the intel only desktop line, they don't fuck up
kernel32 has caused an error in "unknown"....
I have been looking through the document as posted. Lot of the things that it contains are in my opinion crap. Example can be given, they say programs made under windows always run under windows.. that's not correct, Program made for WinNT doesn't run on fx. Win 3.xx or 9X, simply because of the platform change and the different "Technologies". If you take a KDE program, it WILL run under other window managers, it's just a matter of having the KDE Libraries installed. The writer of the documents must have forgotten that many programs use libraries, and they are available to be installed. Most programs also comes as Source-code in tar-balls, that means they need to be compiled for each system, which makes it wide "world" portable. Windows has the same thing. If you don't have the correct DLL's installed, some programs might not run! Maybe the writer of that document should reread and get the "lifestory" of how Linux works and how it is supposed to work.
Windows is more secure out-of-the-box than Linux, since way too many distros run stuff like portmap by default. Once you shut these off, though, their statement is no longer true.
------
"The nature of open source is that you can get a copy of the source code and look at it, make changes to it, etc. Whatever distribution you choose, you can get a copy of that exact source code. Because of this open nature, developers can much more easily identify security weaknesses and prey upon them with viruses and by hacking into systems."
I don't know about you but I don't know of too many "developers" who "identify security weaknesses and prey upon them". Also lets compare the number of virus's in Linux to the number in Windows. Now how many of those Linux virii wouldn't have spread if idiot admins didn't run unknown binaries as root? I'm thinking a ratio of linux virii to windows virii is about 1:100,000.
"Recent examples of the security problems with Linux were discussed in the media. According to a January 17, 2001 CNET News.com article entitled "Internet Worm Squirms into Linux Servers", the Ramen worm has been squirming into Linux servers worldwide. The article discusses how lax security is to blame for the problem and how the worm exploits many of the well-known flaws of the Linux operating system based on a default installation of Red Hat's 6.2 and 7.0 distributions of the software."
Nice definition of "recent". How about Microsoft security in the news..any IIS security problems recently? We had a bug in our software, big fricken deal. Again, ratio of linux security problems to microsoft is about 1:100,000.
I really wish Microsoft would suck it up and stop trying to make their products look better by putting down Linux.
Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
I like that they used the word "developers" rather than (h|cr)ackers. Unless I'm mistaken, they are saying that Linux is more secure because the Linux developers can find (and fix) security problems, whereas the Microsoft developers are not very good at that.
NT 4.0 out of the box has both the OS/2 and POSIX subsystems enabled (easily attacked), as well as file permissions for all volumes set to full access and shared on the network at full access ('hidden' via appending a $ to the drive letter - laughable). In addition, default permissions for the entire filesystem are full access for everyone (this includes not merely registered users, but everybody, even people connecting via the internet). Personally, I'd not call that very secure. Win2K goes one step further and makes it impossible to remove 'Everyone' from the ACL. Windows can be made secure enough for most purposes, but doing so requires as much knowledge as securing a Unix box; the difference is merely that with most open Unix implementations, security issues are more easily found (a benefit of peer review vs. the MS security-through-obscurity approach). I'm an MCSE, and I agree that Windows has its place on the network, but I'm finding it more and more difficult to follow the MS party line on other systems. If a client's needs are more adequately served by a Linux box than a MS one, personally I tell them to install a Linux box.
hey people. its nice to see so much love between us linux hackers. its so beautiful, its bringing a tear to my eye. :-)
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Easy fix, use & in your url's instead of &.
Simple huh?
oh wtf
& instead of &.
thanks, you're right. I'm a little ashamed to admit, but I'm more of a java person, although PERL was my first non c/c++ language.
At least win2k will ask if you want IIS or anything, with linux its either server or workstation.
$your_post =~ s/linux/redhat (mandrake and other RH clones)/i
It is irresponsible to add fuel to the redhat==linux confusion.
When it comes to marketing any publicity is good publicity. What happens is, many of those who've never heard of Linux, become more familiar with it via, their own worst enem(a)y, Microsoft. Especially funny is their comment.
Translated to we'll show you why are products are better in biased fashion, at a more reasonable price than $0,000.00 (free). So as stated others will probably take a second look at why Microsoft is even bothering to comment on something they're sure they're better at.
Nothing like having a billion dollar budget in marketing to sell your product for you. Some of these Linux based sites should focus on placing benchmarking data on their sites very close to their [about | links | information] hyperlinks to make that data readily available to those curious with the OS itself, so should they go looking to see another perspective of the OS holy war, they can have it at a point-and-click (l)user-friendly way they're used to with MS.
my two cents...
Q & A with John Young of Cryptome.org
Want Root?
Microsoft's point, which was lost on you, is that there is a huge investment in any OS, free or otherwise. Software licensing is a minimal part. Maybe you pay $4,000 for your OS, or $0. The real
expense is the $50,000 administrator. How many servers that admin can reasonably manage is where
the cost-savings lie.
My point which was not posted still makes more sense. Taking a realistic look at the vulnerabilities surrounding Microsoft, Linux is still cheaper in the long run.
Take a 300 node based network filled with MS servers. Then solve the amount of time it would take an administrator to patch every one of those servers each time Microsoft release a patch. After you've got that number store it in your excel spreadsheet because the adding isn't over yet.
With that 300 node farm, calculate the amount of times servers just go buggy for no reason, and an administrator has to run to the colo to reboot them, figure out what happened, etc. Add that to your spread sheet too. But its not finished yet...
MS releases something else you need lets say someone TCP based which you need to run in order to make things better for you. Let me give that a generous price of 19.99 x 300 node farm x _AMOUNT_OF_TIME_ADMINS_SPEND_INSTALLING x reboot downtime of applying that program. Add it to your spread sheet.
Get the picture? This doesn't even include securing those boxes via firewalls (ever see a Free functional firewall for MS Linux has IPF/IPChains and others) so who do you think MS if fooling? The fools thats who...
Want Root?
An overpaid Unix admin? Take your so called overpaid Unix admin and compare them to a Windows admin. Oh yes those point and click, drag and drop warriors using MS, versus the Unix admin who usually has a good knowledge of programming that has to specially tweak systems, via scripts as opposed to purchasing more products to throw on top of a precompiled executable you can't do anything with.
Yes that overpaid Unix administrator who often has to understand many other aspects of computing such as networking, configuring servers, building servers, benchmarking the products that will work, in comparison to the point-and-click/drag-and-drop Microsoft warrior which still comes out cheaper than hiring a networking guru, along with an MCSE (Must Consult Someone Experienced), atop of all the programs you still have to pay for, ATOP OF EVEN THAT the TCO of other budled software your going to buy to get your network running "slightly" the way you could get it with Nix based systems.
Wow you'd be a poor bookeeper there if you didn't scope out the whole scenario and all everything in its entirety up. Don't you know that MS kills when all is said and done? MS sure has a high Total Cost of Ownership which I wouldn't be willing to pay.
Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing Windows, I know most business would have a hard time migrating over to something more feasible at this point, being they've been marketed to death and frozen into the MS way, this I won't argue, however you have to remember this generation will be tomorrow's CTO's which is MS' biggest hidden fear
Want Root?
""Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows."
See, printing stuff like that in an innocuous document is so rude. I was reading along, drinking my soda, and when I read that it was all I could do to keep from choking and spilling diet coke all over my keyboard. It left a nasty mark on the carpet instead.
You gotta love it. It's easy to find security holes in Linux, just read the source. It's hard to find holes in Microsoft software, because you need a nickel to buy a fucking clue.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
Replace the word "find" with the word "fix", and you've got an equally true but completely opposite argument....
----
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
OK. First, the Los Alamos/NSA connection. If you worked at any of these places, you would know that you could get fired for publicly posting information about what systems they use. It's in your clearance paperwork, that part about not divulging sensitive material. Which means you probably don't work there, so who did you get fired to get this information?
Second, I do agree with you that most Linux installations are insecure out-of-the-box. That's because most Linux installations are Red Hat. Comparing RH7.1 to RH7.0 and saying it's more secure doesn't impress me. Furthermore, UNIX != Linux. Last I checked, OpenBSD kicked ass right out of the box. I do agree that there is a shortage of good UNIX admins out there.
Lastly, computer security is about a lot more than locking down ports. Yes, that's a part of it, and probably the most visible part, but there's a whole lot more to it. Just one instance: Mandrake does a fair job of setting up permissions in the various directories (the security term is "DAC", discretionary access controls). Red Hat's FS permissions have been, and continue to be, abysmal.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
*Nothing* is secure out of the box. This deserves repeating. *Nothing* is secure out of the box. Really. Good security requires tweaking the system -- any system -- for your particular situation.
There aren't any services turned on, including File sharing over tcp/ip, by default!
then...
Make up your minds! Is an excess of choice a good thing or a bad thing?
Huh? I thought that developers finding bugs and fixing/reporting them was a good thing. Maybe they meant to say "those Evil Hackers"
Isn't this one of those things that signifies a monopoly abusing its power? Everyone uses M$, so why use anything else, right?
--
Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
Now the BSDL ALLOWS this, but there is a BIG different between the Linux crowd and proprietary vendors. The idea of the BSDL is to improve aoftware by releasing. It is understood that other groups will use it. ... The hypocracy in the Linux camp is astounding.
Frankly my dear, your hypocracy astounds me. You release code under the BSD (Or support the release) And yet you are enraged when people follow the terms of that license agreement. If you dont want GPL programs to use BSDl code their programs, dont release it under the BSDL. I mean, duh! You also say you prefer BSD because it is "purer". That may be well and good, but I think you should purge your logical cortex of impure fallacies. Like the fallacy that GPL users should somehow not use BSDL code - but hey, it's ok for microsoft to.
Why not just come out and say it. It's so obvious. You are jealous and elitist. You want BSD to be as successful as Linux because you beleive in the virtues of BSD. Well let me tell you something kiddo. It doesn't work that way. It's a religion. Everyone thinks their religion is best, and turns violent against disbeleivers, especially when they are in the majority. (Notice all the anti-christian sentiment now a days? Anti-jew or anti-buddhist sentiment is somehow racist, though, I'm sure.). So lets just chill the fuck out, and take a few minutes to relax, and say, You know, Linux and BSD are fighting for pretty much the same thing. Free Unix for all. Linux might be more popular.. but come on, elitists dont want popularity, they want exclusivity. So just be happy you're not as popular as linux. ok?
I'm not familiar with the YHBT YHL HAND acronym. What is it? Thanks.
Moller
I believe repeating lies eventually causes people to accept them as reality.
I have been told many many times the opinions my friends have of something I do. While they are wrong, I am beginning to accept it reality and I keep catching myself thinking along the same way that they've been telling me for the last few months.
It is dangerous.
Excuse me, I'm off to buy a New Zealand Herald and a 'Designed for Windows' cash register.
They're probaly talking about toolkits, widgets, whatever they're called, such as QT and GTK.
And it isn't really that much of a problem, all you gotta do is have the apropriate toolkit installed.
And you can run programs using different toolkits at the same time as you said so yourself.
I do agree with Microsoft that a standard desktop is good, but a standard desktop on linux will probaly come around by natural selection. One desktop will simply have more users than the others. Forcing people to use one specific is not a good thing.
Linux isn't supposed to have a Y2K problem until 2048...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Starting around 6.2, RedHat in the workstation install mode doesn't even INSTALL inetd. I agree that you SHOULD get a list of services you want to install if you go the server route though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
connecting any system to the internet without looking at the services that run at startup time and applying errata/service packs is extrememly irresponsible and arrogant.
You may find this amusing, then.
(If a Karma Whore posts to get Karma, I suppose a post in attempt to arrange for Karma Whoring is a Karma Pimp. But anyway...)
They have a long list of reasons why linux isn't free. Well in the same respect (and in many cases for the exact same reasons!) we could make our own list of why Windows actually costs you more than ten times the retail price you pay in a store. (BSODs/reliability alone can inflate the price that you effectively pay.)
I'm no expert on this though. So can anyone else produce a proper counter list to MS's list?
J
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
RE: "...also the NSA uses NT quite heavily and may even use it solely for storing highly classified secrets."
Actually, you wanna get fired, court-martialed or otherwise dismissed, fined and face possible jail, put an NT (or any other non-certified) box on any network that carries or in anyway is exposed to CMS data. Most of the REALLY high-access workstations are a variant of Open VMS, Solaris, or HP/UX.
Whoever posted this kark about Microsoft being allowed within two MILES of a secure computing facility is obviously HIGHLY misinformed (must...not...use...the 'I' word...nnnngh...ERGH!) Also, if this were true, why would the NSA and its SCD and R&D offices be using budgeted funds for SELinux....mmmmmm?
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
and C2 means nothing. It is a minimum, not a certified and cleared workstation... again, any auditor worth his or her salt would not let an NT machine into his or her network to process even FIPS docs, much less participate in a classified network...if they are, there's a LOT of CO's about to get their asses burnt...
.dll's and functionality of the system removed and or crippled (ie. no File and Printer sharing, no ability to browse the networks, etc.).
Yes, NT (and, I believe, W2K) is part of many C2-certified configs...so?
Every machine in every SCIF I've ever been in is either a purpose-built, R/T OS or some variant of Unix, cleaned up by NSA...
The original poster I was quoting stated in no uncertain terms that the "...NSA was using NT to process and store classified traffic." That was a lie. Additionally, I asked even if it were so and the NSA was a satisfied Microsoft customer, why would they devote a large chunk of THREE DIVISION'S budgets to SELinux?...
I ask you the same question. Also remember that it took the end of the Cold War and the NSA and OTA deprecating some of their standards before Microsoft was even able to get C2, and it was still with many of the shipping
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
That is such utter BS, not to mention flamebait. Run the page through the official W3 validator and you'll see LinuxToday is loaded with errors. It's their own damn fault if it doesn't load properly.
BTW, if you dislike M$ so much, why are you using Hotmail?
Suck my nuts, lack of drivers for windows2000!! If its not brand fucking new its not supported.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
They do have a point. If you ever installed Redhat you know what I am talking about.
Please moderate as flame since you don't agree with me.
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
Blast it all... To finish this comment...
It's now the general public license instead of the GNU Public License. Does this mean:
A) Microsoft still hasn't even figured out what the GPL stands for linguistically, let alone what the GPL stands for logically?
B) RMS will be demanding that Microsoft refer to it as the GNU-General Public License
C) Cowboy Neal.
Boy is my face red now :) Was it always the GNU General Public License, or is that a GPL 2.0 thing (can't seem to find any O-G GPL's lying around here.) I guess I've just gotten used to anything starting with a G being GNU (or eventually resolving to GNU, as is the case of the (GNU Image Manipulation Program) Tool Kit; hmm... are there any programs that use GTK [I'm thinking Glade] as the first G... mmm...)
At any rate, I stand by the comment that RMS is going to demand the Microsoft change their insulting of the general public license to insulting the _GNU_ General Public License.
Microsoft is really showing their whiney side in this one. This isn't flamebait. I've just heard so much crap from microsoft that Windows NT is "Better" than linux/FreeBSD/whatever that it's really annoying me.
They just have to keep insisting that Windows NT is better, don't they? They should consider giving up, because in other "reports" that Windows NT is "better" they've just gotten ignored and/or flamed by some other guy. Heck, even Sun got medieval on their hiney with a letter some PR guy sent reporters asking a couple of questions that were "supposed" to be hard to answer.
What's wrong with these people? I'm pretty annoyed with these letters, and I'm sure you are, too.
-----------------
Visit www.Peachsoft.net everybody!
As I recall, such Microsoft statements could potentially be construed as a binding promise or full blown contractual obligation. Examples include the Disney case when buying an online toy company with privacy policy... Could Microsoft be sued for breach with such a white paper (or any of them) when they make claims contrary to reality?
Is anyone out there in a position to figure out this?
The Maldese Falcon can be had! ;)
http://www.aisnota.com/slashdot/ Welcome to Logic and the Future
Look, let's be Real, MS has released two UNRELATED Operating Systems. DOS/Win9x, and Windows NT. NT is an ENTIRELY new OS. The only things that are the same are Win32 calls, because a Win32 layer was built into Win95. They are NOT the same OS.
MS started building NT around the same time that Linus released his first Linux kernel. At MOST they had a two year head start.
More importantly, Unix designs are public knowledge and taught in schools. MS does not have a Unix design. Advantage: Linux, because of the common knowledge component.
BSD predates NT by a long shot. BSD code COULD be incorporated into Linux (as long as the original copyright was respected). Linux uses BSD code, and Linus could have just forked one of the 386BSD project like everyone else.
GNU was started in 1984. Much of the Linux distribution is GNU. Until a few years ago (like 3), 80% of a Linux distribution appeared to be GNU. Advantage: Linux
Linux was not some little underdog. Linux HAS MANY advantages in time and prewritten code.
MCSEs are NOT A CLASS OF PEOPLE. NT Administrator is a job description. MCSE is a certification that shows that you understand the basics of NT. I've had one for four years. Guess what, I'm STILL A HUMAN BEING CAPABLE OF THINKING. Insulting people for having an MCSE is childish and immature. Despite having an MCSE, I run a few OpenBSD installations, do software design, etc., etc. One can do many things, and only on Slashdot does it seem that one can either use Linux or Microsoft Products.
Now, I've put live Linux machines up and started to play with them. At times, running Redhat 6.2 with updates, I've found that the box gets rooted if we leave the machine alone for a week while we have other projects.
There is something wrong with some of the code that Redhat installs. The other distributions may be better, but that was a real turn-off.
OpenBSD, however, appears ROCK-SOLID, stable, secure, and FAR easier to configure than a Redhat box. Getting back to a BSD style system from a SysV style takes SOME time, but once you get the hang of it it is a MUCH saner system.
Alex
The NT project was started in '92, Linux in '93... Hardly the 10 year edge that Slashdoters make.
I would NEVER put a web page up with IIS, period. I think that IIS is a dangerous piece of crap with MANY security holes.
When I turn off various services on my NT boxes and only bind protocols to the correct adapter, I've found them to be pretty solid. As a result, they don't do ALL that much, but I've found them reasonably secure.
Linux needs to compete on its merits.
The BSDs compete on the merits of their code.
Microsoft competes on the merits of their software AND their marketing efforts. Their marketing efforts DO provide value, notice the ISV support that they have.
Linux seems content to compete on hype and press releases.
This notion of manifest destiny within the Linux camp is a little irritating. I don't know who declared the Linux users the chosen people, but it is silly.
The BSDs are as far along as Linux, despite a licensing advantage for Linux. Linux takes BSD code, uses it in a GPL application, prohibiting BSD from using it. Now the BSDL ALLOWS this, but there is a BIG different between the Linux crowd and proprietary vendors. The idea of the BSDL is to improve aoftware by releasing. It is understood that other groups will use it. The annoyance with the GPL, is that the users CLAIM to be providing it for free, but they don't give back to the BSD group that they took from.
In this Linux manifest destiny scenario, it is acceptable to DEMAND that others release things through compulsory licensing, while not doing the right thing and contributing back to BSD projects.
The hypocracy in the Linux camp is astounding.
I believe in Open Source, but I don't put Linux on my servers.
I prefer BSD, I find it purer and better.
Alex
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
strings is a very bad word2ascii converter. As I constantly get Email with M$-Word attachments I prefer antiword which is a pretty good viewer.
Because the latter are servers, and running without you explicitly having to start them is the point of a server?
When I'm installing linux, and I see the various programs to install, I don't think "which of these programs will I want to run as soon as I turn my computer on", but rather "which of these programs would I like to run SOMEDAY". Even though I want it LATER rather than now (perhaps, after I have time to configure it), I'd like to INSTALL (not run) it now because, well, if the installation program is going to take care of it for me, why not?
If security is an issue, you don't install anything you don't actually need because it may still create local security holes. Besides, installing stuff when you actually need it isn't any different from installing it with the OS install. It's not the distro's fault if you have strange habits.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Dear Gill, Thank you very much for providing us with this excellent compilation of issues significant to the retail and hospitaliity industries.
We believe many of these issues are well founded and will adress them in our next releases.
Thank you for making your market research available for free
This is not a signature.
Though Windows security is an oxymoron, Linux users should not be strutting around proudly. Every Linux distro I know of is a CD full of security holes "out of the box".
Reading /. for a fair opinion of Microsoft is like watching CNN for a fair opinion of Ted Turner. It just doesn't happen.
Or like reading Microsoft reports for a fair comparison between Linux and Windows? That's the real flamebait in this topic.
No one in the hospitality industry cares about the OS. All they want from a PMS or POS solution is two things, and two things only: the guest to get checked in/out faster and the wait staff to enter the check quicker. Any technology to forward either of those two goals is aggressively pursued by those industries, any technology otherwise is ignored.
maru
There is no "Days Inn" system. Cendant properties choose between "Project Powerup" systems from three PMS vendors: HSS, Multi-Systems, or REZSolutions. These are three completely different PMS apps with Cendant interface modules. Two of these run on UNIX-type OSs, the latter runs on NT. Unfortunately, the hospitality industry is about two decades behind in software development, the *nix offerings all have abysmal user interfaces. With the average moronic front desk staffer in mind the GM is drooling over a Win GUI interface in hopes that his staff, who types one word per hour, might someday take less than a decade to check in a guest. The choice between the three systems (at least for Cendant brands) is indeed made at the property level and not higher.
As for your statement that most franchises write their own front-office, this is just wrong. There is only one chain that writes their own, I think it is Hilton. Most franchises don't care what package (if any) the individual properties use, that was the big whoop-de-do with Cendant's Project Powerup: unified software. Although I don't know exactly how unified equates to three different packages in their case.
The ire over Project Powerup had nothing to do with technical issues. Nobody wanted to install the system because it interfaced directly with Cendant. Hotels pay franchise fees based upon room revenues, with a direct connection to Cendant it would no longer be possible to fiddle with the figures in order to pay less franchise fees. There was also the fact that Cendant would be using your guest database for marketing. Big Brother at its finest! Oh yeah, and Cendant only footed the bill for a minimal installation. For my previous employer, they offered to replace our 15 terminals and custom software with 2 terminals. This, of course, would have made our Howard Johnsons front desk disparate from our other two hotels on the same property that were not Cendant brands, as well as leaving it unable to communicate with our accounting, inventory control, and 75 point of sale terminals at the 14 bars and restaurants located on the property (all running custom in-house software). The switch would've costed our company at least $100K annually in additional staff required to manually do accounting processes that were automated under the existing system. To this day, no Project Powerup system was ever brought to that property.
The hospitality industry's sister, the service industry, is dominated by unix. Micros is the major player there, and their unix offering is rock solid and can support 250+ terminals (cash registers) on one server. Their NT offering can't do above 25. Unix doesn't show its ass there like it does in the hospitality industry because the cash registers are all custom hardware with their own IO that only communicate with the server to send transaction information (over serial cables!). So the wait staff don't have to type
maru
www.mp3.com/pixal
In a world of black, the few bits of white really stand out. That was good for me to hear. --Ryv
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.
It's frightening to think about how many windows security holes we would know about if the source was available. Although what's more frightening is all the windows security holes that only a few people know about, and MS doesn't want published.
Want some indy electronic (and other) music?
This sig intentionally left blank.
way too many distros run stuff like portmap by default
Red Hat is taking the initiative of disabling services in the default installation of Red Hat Linux 7.1. If you're worried about l4m3rz getting in through WUFTPd, use PureFTPd instead.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm still looking for a robust .doc reader that doesn't suck
strings stuff.doc|less
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Where does this stop? This is starting to sound like we're headed back in time to the 1980's and 1990's era where retailers were locked into a single vendor's innovation.
Unless that single vendor is us.
Sony wouldn't allow porn to be distributed on Betamax. V2000 from Philips, the best videosystem in that time, also had this restriction. VHS however didn't.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Errm... I know a lot of people who, like me, did CS on a Unix-is-it- university and after that, swapped to win32 because developing software is just as easy and just as fun on win32 as it is on AIX, SunOS/Solaris etc. If you REALLY look at win2k and play with it, and as a developer, build software for it, like an n-tier app using COM+, you'll understand it's fun, and not the crap that was once called win9x. Developers who still want to develop using vi and make, without transactional support and binary object models right inside the OS, AFTER they've seen win2k and visual studio are not that 'independant' in their opinion.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Default out of the box Win 95 is pretty safe.
Whereas Red Hat Linux has tons of "remote root" services running.
Once you put in the IP stack patches (winsock 2), Win95 is pretty safe from external attacks.
Of course, users are always free to run trojans on either O/S.
Cheerio,
Link.
Thats the admin share and its invisible unless you know the exact name (hence the $). So unless someone knows the admin password or does a brute force attack you are safe.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Just what exactly is that supposed to mean?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
"Microsoft, in contrast to Linux, has a formal development process and is accountable to the industry."
So, if they're accountable, does that mean I can return my Windows 98 CD if the OS irreparably crashes on me?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
If ever there was an industry that exemplifies the split between the 'geeks and nerds' world vs. the 'button down collar world' it is retail.
And focus on drivers for neato receipt printers, scanners, and friendly user interfaces (whether it be for system users or development users) is wide of the mark to begin with.
I can testify that that the retail world is the most demanding I have seen, in terms of what retail systems need to do (100s to thousands of outlets supported from and reporting into one single headquarters), in terms of the audience for the user interface to retail systems (clerks who are hostile to the entries enforced by store-level systems, owners who just want to sell and do not want to deal with ornery clerks, buyers who just want summaries and do not want to deal with unreliable data collection systems, developers who are alienated by the strange and specialized clerk monitoring devices needed to prevent employees from stealing more than 14% of the stock).
One of the most important considerations in retail is those strange and specialized clerk monitoring devices (cameras, product recogition devices, etc). State-of-the-art is always moving in that arena -- receipt printers, cash registers, drink measuring interfaces, etc are a dime a dozen. But good observation devices, robust under- and over-ring detection, resistance to deliberate 'soda and chewing gum in the keyboard' is where the big automation paybacks are to be found in the retail world.
It is hard to consider a 'closed' operating system such as the one M$ sells, with its fixed menu of supported devices and drivers, a viable alternative to an 'open' OS that allows retailers to exploit the latest in security and surveillance devices that are needed in an environment where the employees are out to 'steal you blind' if you do not have them.
"ALso go to some of the l33t rul3z crack3r irc chat rooms and ask some of them what they about linux vs NT in security and most will say unix can be secure but most on the web are not and NT is quite secure but not really stable"
Isn't that like saying my Ford Taurus is dangerous because my neighbor drove his into a tree?
Any of the out-of-box security arguments are simple just FUD esp. when they are talking about business applications. The fact is that ANY business application of any software requires an expert (in-house or consultant) before people should roll it out. It should be safe to assume that those experts would know how to implement the system in a secure fasion on whatever platform you are talking about (if they are truly experts).
Where GNU/Linux shines in this arena is that the security problems are identified and fixed earlier than proprietary OSes. This breeds a culture in OpenSource where everyone takes some responsibility for security.
This point was driven home to me when I took some code I had written years back and compiled on a newer RedHat system. The GNU compiler warned me that I was using wgets() and it might present a security problem because of buffer overruns. I've never had VC++ warn me about any possible security problems.
But then you say that POS means "Point of Sale". I always thought it meant something else.
You can't hack into a Windows system right out of the box, at least not until you install the networking drivers.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Their requirements were that it be simple and run a single application.
So what OS did they choose? Linux? Windows? OS/2?
No.
MS-DOS.
Yes, you heard right. They used DOS5, as I recall. Proprietary PCs, with the LCD touch-screens, and the appropriate drivers, but the thing ran DOS. There's no need for anything more.
Nobody would claim that DOS is a great OS (or even any kind of OS!), but it's damn' simple. It's also cheap. They used P133 CPUs, which were pretty good at the time, and the hardware was overall quite costly. The software was written specifically, so that's a major cost, too. But the OS was the cheapest part of the system.
Why bother about the OS? As the posts have (unwittingly) observed, the hardware and software are the issues; it's these two which SNI (and therefore Tesco's) spent the money on; DOS is far more stable than Windows, and simpler than Linux.
I never thought this was an area Linux was interested in; it's an area where you'd tend to go one of four ways:
a) Simple (who cares?) = DOS
b) Usable (crashes, insecure) = Windows
c) Hard to configure, hard to use = Linux
d) No config, hard to use = Embedded
I've got no problem here with SNI/Tesco's approach. Makes perfect sense.
#include <stddiscl.h>
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
A lot of this white paper is based on half-truths, lies, and problems with Linux that are a direct result of Microsoft's monopoly.
When I read any article, I need to have a reasonable degree of trust in the author. Either the author has to establish that trust in the article or I have to have been familiar with other works of the author that I have found to be accurate. (By "author", I mean either an actual author, or the company they work for.)
All it takes is one or two significant half-truths, "spins", or known falsities in an article to make me stop reading it. In such a case I normally will not read material from that source again and will cast serious doubt over any information I've received from that source before.
The article is obviously targeted at Microsoft-believers. The problem with the article is that even a very ignorant person should have a hard time swallowing at least a few of those points. And at that point they too will probably have difficulty believing the rest.
The obvious solution for Microsoft might be to call attention to specific problem areas of Linux that actually do exist. Problem is, last time they tried that, the Linux folks fixed the problems.
--
C'mon Microsoft, just what the hell are you trying to accomplish here? What intelligent person would take it, on your word, that Linux sucks as a retail/hospitality POS system? Are you authoritative on the subject because, um, you sell a competing product? The whole idea of Microsoft p1mping Windows in the POS while trashing all of Linux' faults is ridiculous! Of course that's what they're gonna say.
Jesus, next thing you know the Ford dealer is gonna try and tell me why I shouldn't buy a Honda because of its faults.
"What we elect to call imagination is mere combination of things not heretofore combined." - Frank Norris
I now officially give up on the w3c HTML validator.
It can't even validate a page with URLs (oh, so sorry, URIs today) containing the ampersand (&). According to them it is wrong because it makes old, old, old browsers fail. They don't mention anything about it being valid HTML or not.
That, and other than the missing </DIV> tag, I didn't see anything wrong that should cause it not to display in any graphical browser (maybe it wouldn't look nice in Lynx, missing all those ALT tags)...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
translates Word .DOCs. Has saved me from microsoft using coworkers many times. Check it out at http://www.wvware.com/.
Less Secure
"Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows
This is microsofts security policy in a nutshell. Hide the errors and hope no one finds them so they don't have to make a patch (read servicepack).
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
http://selenium.dowco.com/report.html
Carousel is a lie!
Try red Hat 7.1...
"Out of the box" (which I still need to buy (-: ) it gives you an option to setup an IPChains-based firewall. The "default" choices result in a fairly secure workstation. Then you can customize...
...before you've even gotten one package onto the system. In this case, my home workstation was about 1000 times more secure than my work machine.
p> Services may be running, but it is kinda hard to exploit something when the packet doesn't even see the light of day...Burlington Coat Factory
In fact, they converted not only their infrastructure, but a number of their corporate offices and their POS systems. I believe they started this in late 1998, but someone should correct this...
They downloaded at 8-10 kBps (yes, that's kilobytes) on my 33.6kbps modem. No other document downloads that fast!
.DOC must be so efficient.
Wait a second, doesn't that mean it compresses well? Microsoft thinking of the consumer, making their documents able to be compressed so well!
(I was being sarcastic if you didn't realise)
Almost forgot, IE taking up a 45MB "Temporary Internet Files" but still having to re-download the document read mere seconds ago, in the [<-] back button.
hehe and flicking through the doc file, there's lots of spelling and grammar mistakes. lots of different coloured squiggly lines.
--
--
no sig for you. come back one year.
"The best way to deal with a Silastic Armorfiend is just to lock him in a room alone, because he would eventually beat himself up."
--Life, the Universe, and Everything.
RIP, Mr. Adams. So long, and thanks for all the laughs.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
"\\boxname\c$" only works if you have administrative privileges on that box. You would expect to do whatever the heck you want when you're logged in as root, wouldn't you? Same thing...
... is that one day MS will need to create versions of its software for Linux ;) (Or, insert your favorite Free, source-not-secret operating system -- "Word for Hurd"?)
If they don't, they will grow increasingly irrelevant. A decade? Three? Who knows! But a system built on keeping software secret, expensive, and always on the brink of expiry can only last in the absence of valid alternatives.
Those alternatives have not only arrived, but keep stripping off masks of perceived difficulty or non-intuitive design. (I say masks because I think they're mostly silly lip-wiggling, just the conventional wisdom repeated as Deep Conviction by the uninformed -- there are *no* really great, easy, attractive SW systems for the general user anyhow.)
Q: "Here, Sir -- a free, tiny non-polluting nuclear reactor you can keep forever and modify as you see fit, and even duplicate for others under certain reasonable terms. Enjoy! Is that OK?"
A: "Uhh, coal is better, and you are bad. All your base. American Way."
ramblingrumbling,
simon
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
There may be some truth in that.
One of the early arguements of NT was that "With unix you had to manually set permissions, setup scripts, and do some last minute checking on up2date daemons before bringing the system live and then its secure.
NT is 90% secure right out of the box. The other %10 is easy becuase the admins all use windows95 on their system at home and can figure it out. You have a complete integrated envirnoment.....". Because of the out of the box securness, Los Alamos national labatories trust NT with all their secret data, also the NSA uses NT quite heavily and may even use it solely for storing highly classified secrets.
However, the truth is that a properly configured unix box can be very secure. You just need to find someone who can do it and there is a shortage of qualified unix admins who are good enough. This is a real problem we all need to address. I have been using linux for over 2 years and to this day I still do not know how to lock the ports below 1024 like redhat linux does. I am not a cs major but you need great training or take multiple university classes to really be good at this.
Anyway the article does not talk about stability. NT is pretty secure. However its not that stable. Go to www.bugtrack.com or cern's website and compare the unix bugs to NT one's. ALso go to some of the l33t rul3z crack3r irc chat rooms and ask some of them what they about linux vs NT in security and most will say unix can be secure but most on the web are not and NT is quite secure but not really stable.
Anyway I just bought redhat 7.1 a few days and its probably the most secure linux distro out of the box. It is alot and I mean alot better then rh7 when it comes to security. Redhat learned their lesson this time and improved it greatly.
Basically even under a medium security setting all the ports below 1024 are locked by default unless you install certaim daemons that use these ports. You can also have custom firewall rules when setting up things like ssh and apache. This is all under medium security settings. Also anaconda by default now wont let you use daemons like nfs-server without degrading the security settings.
I suppose corps with unix newbie's would love a unix that is easier to setup like rh. This is the problem.
Remember the old unix joke? IF computers were airplanes, the os/2 would be a good class of planes but they are only half full and are losing support with most major airports, the NT one would be generating the most buzz and the pilots all get together in a cardboard plane and make buzzing sounds and pretend their flying, but the Unix one would be the best plane but you would have to assemble the whole thing ourself.
http://saveie6.com/
I was with you until I got to your second sentence. Yes, linux/unix is not the answer to every problem but it is certianly not inferior or else NT would run on %95 of the servers out there.
NT has advantages as a great client/server app for vb apps and ms clients and also as a domain controller (until linux has acl). However nothing touches Unix in things like ERP, databases, and some very important and big server apps that can't ever go down.
Like NT has its niche market in client/server apps, I believe Linux has one in cheap web servers and a unix testing platform. IT managers would love to go to an all NT solution and this is why it was gaining popularity a few years ago. But the fact of the matter is that the IT managers can't dump unix.
NT is not reliable enough, it runs on lower end intel hardware, and can't handle being overloaded. As soon as the resources become satuarated in NT it almost becomes non-resposnive. IF a cracker tries the dos attack while you are asleep at night, you need to go to work to fix it because even with pcanywhere or the NT terminal services, the system can respond.
With solaris or hp-ux, if a system becomes overloaded the performance will degrade but its still responsive. You can still telnet in for example and admin it. Also you can admin a unix box remotely. Its alot harder with NT.
http://saveie6.com/
The paper contains some valid points - and some points that are only partially valid.
.IDC and .HTX files BY DEFAULT? I don't think so. For all the 'wizard' based approach of MS stuff, I'd have thought they'd have been able to give you a few installtion options besides 'typical' and 'custom'. Follow that up with the ".printer" ISAPI filter installed by default with IIS5/Win2K and the recent exploit. BY DEFAULT, a typical installation is not secure, imo. I've no doubt they CAN be secure - I've seen some, but it often takes extra hardware and learning time. READ- it's not 'free', and translates into a higher TCO than MS would have you believe. Possibly higher than Linux. :)
Lack of drivers - this is and will continue to be a problem for Linux - and any non-Windows systems. They're specifically talking about the retail industry. Custom cash registers, scanners/bar code readers, etc. Until 'niche' device manufacturers release their hardware specs, the Linux camp will always be behind schedule. If reverse-engineering legislation was created to 'protect' device manufacturers, people might not even legally be allowed to write drivers for Linux, even if it would be a net increase in sales to the manufacturer.
Dev tools - this one is always coming along, I know, but there aren't many big name flashy dev tools for Linux. Yes, I know, they generally aren't needed, but this is a perception case which may never be won. Mid-level managers can at least *look* at MSVS, and get an idea of what's going on when they look over the shoulder of their developers. Looking at someone in vi just isn't as interesting. Again - this is perception we're talking about. Doesn't matter if I can do something in 5 minutes that takes an MSVS user 2 hours - perception will be that it's 'easier' to program for Windows, at least in most peoples' minds (generally the people who AREN'T doing the coding!)
Compatibility - I've lost track of how many cool looking apps I download from freshmeat or sourceforge that simply won't compile. I've had stock RH5.2, 6.1, Slackware, Suse, Mandrake and Caldera installs. They've ALL had problems running stuff. DEVELOPERS - either TEST your stuff on stock installs, or GIVE EXPLICIT instructions about how it was compiled. You will reduce frustration time (and possible tossing of Linux altogether) if people are at least clued in about if it's their fault or your code's fault if it doesn't compile/work right.
LESS SECURE - Windows itself may be secure, but a network app like IIS surely isn't that secure 'by default'. Installations in 1999 STILL being set to parse
Increased development costs - red herring, imo. "Since there are not large numbers of developers familiar with Linux development already, you will have to spend some extra money getting them the training they need. "
I don't think there are too many companies yet clamoring to jump into linux based on management directives. Management may approve, but the push for Linux seems to come from the ground troops - developers. This may change over time, but right now, there won't be many developers choosing/asking/begging to work on a system they don't understand. Conclusion: any company embracing linux is most likely doing so at the behest of their developers, and as such, 'increased labor/training costs' is a non-issue. They're already (at least mostly) trained, either from other projects or self-taught.
BTW - Was this a translated document? What the heck does "Microsoft is also driving better security with its customers than Linux is doing" mean?
creation science book
To Quote: ["Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows.]
Yes Microsoft, would you like to tell us more about your developers not being able to find the security weaknesses in Windows.
-- Conexant/Rockwell Modem HOWTO http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Conexant+Rockwell-modem
There is also a huge void on the Linux platform in server side software, like database...
Uh, yeah, ok... As long as you don't count Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and many more that I'm either forgetting or not aware of.
-ictatha
"... the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy" - Janov Pelorat
This is the only part of the doc that you really need to read...
"The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication."
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
This is funny. MS states that, on one hand Linux is less secure, then on the other, that developers can easily find security weaknesses!
HAHA. This exact argument is why Linux is _MORE_ secure than windows, not less secure.
-vax computer, vi, lynx. 'nuf said
Talk about muddling the waters (and I am an equal opportunity OS user).
A POS system is by default an embedded application. It is not like the typical cashier is going to fire up Word or emacs, and start typing up a receipt. Microsoft should more correctly comparing embedded NT or Windows CE to say embedded Linux.
Driver support. Most POS printers, bar code scanners, etc. don't even come with drivers, and its not like they are printing out on standard letter with colour. If I wanted fancy fonts and graphics a good driver would be useful, but most POS printers are good old dot-matrix serial.
Future proofing. Most retailers are not in the habit of replacing or updating a POS system unless forced to. I know of one retailer who recently upgraded his POS from 386 to 486 systems. But only because of Y2k! Turns out the vendors Y2k version needed more memory. It was cheaper to pickup used 486's than to get memory for the 386 boxes. Why not a modern system? Just more cpu cycles to waste. Besides he now has enough spare 486 systems last a decade (got them for less that $100 a piece, with monitors and keyboards).
Development tools. Every 4-5 years Microsoft makes enough of a change that no even properly written code will survive. Examples are the VB 3-4 transition, and the upcoming VB.net transition. Linux users shouldn't gloat. Kernel and gui changes pretty much means that 5 years from now your code will not compile without changes.
Security. So hackers have access to the Linux source, hasn't stop anybody from hacking either OS or creating viruses. Besides what moron is going to connect his POS network to the Internet. Granted security is necessary, but I don't see anyone downloading and applying bug fixes on a regular basis. Which Linux distribution to use? Only matters to the developers, and you shouldn't be developing a POS on Linux unless you have a distribution you trust. Same applies for Windows.
Cost of ownership. Linux has this one, but only when compared to retail Windows. Embedded NT or Windows CE license fees become noise when you factor in the 5 year cost of hardware, software, training, peripherals, support, etc.
And lets not forget that Linux and Windows are not only operating systems out there suitable for developing a POS system.
Unlike linux it's very easy to setup windows 2000 with a blank Administrator password and there isn't even a warning given.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
Actually, windows 2000 shares your entire hard disk by default. Haven't you ever done a run \\boxname\c$?
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
There is a flaw. Regardless of how many false passwords you give, you never get locked out.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
The article below responds to a paper by Microsoft that criticizes Linux. Microsoft's criticism is discussed in Linux Today: Microsoft Germany Article Regarding Linux Disadvantages
Answering Microsoft's Criticism of Linux
Lack of Technical Support -- Microsoft has a large technical support department, but my experience and that of many others with whom I've talked is that Microsoft cannot answer difficult questions. I know someone who headed the system administration at the headquarters of a $300,000,000 a year company, and he found MS technical support useless. They didn't know why SQL Server was failing, and they could not discover the reason.
In my extensive experience with Microsoft, since the days before PCs existed and we had the CP/M OS, Microsoft has only answered one question correctly. That was a question about a C compiler problem.
Obviously, part of the reason my friends and I don't get help from Microsoft is that we don't call to ask easy questions. No doubt Microsoft provides help to many of its customers who are novices.
I have called Microsoft technical support about operating system problems many many times, and they have NEVER been able to solve the problems, although once a technical support representative and I worked out a solution together, after 4 difficult hours.
Once about four years ago I talked to a friendly Microsoft technical support representative. He was very knowledgeable. I had a written list of questions about Windows. He was able to give me no answers. He just laughed at some of them and said he wouldn't know how to begin finding the solution. He did, however, provide me with some very useful information concerning problems I wasn't currently having. I remember this representative so clearly because I called expecting the usual Microsoft roughness, and he was friendly.
I liked the article published by the Boston Mac User's Group (BMUG) titled: Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network: Which Provides Better Support for Microsoft Products?
Look at the problems mentioned in the BMUG article. They seem to me to have a typical quality to them. To me it seems that many of the most difficult problems with Microsoft products are ones that come from programmers who just don't care about doing a good job.
Neither Microsoft Technical Support nor The Psychic Friends Network were able to answer any of the questions, but the BMUG article says: "... the Psychic Friends Network has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support ..." I liked this article because it is the
only one I've read which exactly mirrors my experience with Microsoft.
I think I would find the BMUG article more humorous if it weren't about such a painful subject.
Microsoft's Flawed Business Model -- The Microsoft business model is extremely flawed because it is heavily influenced by conflict of interest. It is in Microsoft's financial interest NEVER to deliver a good operating system. If they deliver a good operating system, that will be the last operating system most of its customers will buy.
Microsoft is a huge company, much bigger than most of the retail customers they might serve. If you have a problem, chances are they are too large to care.
Microsoft's Abusiveness -- Microsoft has a history of being abusive. The U.S. Justice Department court case pending against Microsoft found that Microsoft was extremely abusive. This document is titled Court's Findings of Fact. What surprised me about the 207 pages of descriptions of abuses was that it didn't mention the abuses that I thought were most important. The U.S. Justice Department mostly focused on Microsoft's mistreatment of large companies. But Microsoft's mistreatment of small users is more destructive, in my opinion.
No one, apparently, has gathered all the abuses in one place. If that were done, we would have an important way to show why Open Source/GNU is better.
Abusiveness is one of the biggest reasons to stay away from Microsoft. Stay away from habitual abusers if you don't want to be abused. Even if Microsoft technical support could answer my questions, I don't like their arrogant manner. I don't want to have to accept abuse to get something I want.
Contrast Microsoft's abusiveness with the friendliness of the Open Source/GNU community. One Sunday about 8 AM, I sent an e-mail message to an important person in the community, requesting information for an article I was writing. I was surprised to get a complete answer less than 3 hours later. It is possible that you have a problem that people in the Open Source/GNU community cannot answer, but they will usually be extemely friendly while they are discussing it.
Closed source software is like sausage. -- Closed source software is like sausage. You don't know what's in it. If you did know what was in it, maybe you wouldn't want it. Has the U.S. government forced Microsoft to put back doors into its software, so that the U.s. can more easily spy? You don't know and you may never know.
Disclaimer Nonsense -- The Microsoft document gives importance to Red Hat's 10-Q disclaimer. But look at Microsoft's disclaimer at the end of the article. It is much more sweeping: MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Basically, this disclaimer says that Microsoft does not have to be honest.
Microsoft Windows Encourages Playing. -- A huge problem with Microsoft's operating systems in a retail environment is that there are large numbers of minimum wage workers who like to play with the OS. Sometimes I have arrived to do system maintenance and found that the cursor has become a spider. Sometimes I have found systems that have been re-configured to allow exploits. Microsoft Windows 2000 may have a lot of security features, but it has no defense against someone who knows the passwords. If you know retail environments, you know that there will be times that the passwords are compromised. It is much better to have an OS that does not look familiar and does not invite playing.
Here is a typical scenario. Joe and John are night shift workers at a fast food restaurant. Joe is senior at 23. He makes $8.50 per hour. John is 19 and makes $7.65 per hour. They often find themselves bored when business is slow.
One night they find that the store manager has left his desk open. In his desk they find a list of passwords.
Joe and John have both had computers since the early years of high school. They decide to try to load a game one of them has at home. But Windows 2000 doesn't work well with some games. The game doesn't run, but they leave the system in an unstable state.
Retail hardware is very standard and conservative. -- In a retail environment, you want a fixed solution. You buy the hardware and software, and the two work together as a unit until you buy new hardware and software. Once you make it work, chances are there will be no need for big changes. In a retail environment, you try to buy very standard hardware.
Usually this hardware interacts in a manner that is well behind the frontiers of technology. For example, receipt printers use very standard interfaces. Yes, Microsoft has more drivers, but in a retail environment you won't need to support the latest game.
This is just a short list. -- This is just a very short list of answers to Microsoft's article. I would like to see a comprehensive list. If we can get a team together to write one, I will help.
If I were Red Hat's marketing manager, I would have no trouble selling against Microsoft. Unfortunately, Red Hat does not have a strong marketing department.
Microsoft receives little effective criticism. -- People who write comments on Slashdot often complain about Microsoft. But, since the complaints are usually brief and not well documented, the aggregate result is that Microsoft receives little effective criticism.
Michael Jennings
Futurepower Computer Systems
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.
Tel: (503) 233-7820
Fax: (419) 781-4606
E-Mail: mikejen@hevanet.com
E-Mail: Futurepower@MailAndNews.com
Futurepower is a registered trademark.
Copyright 2001 by Michael Jennings.
Bush's education improvements were
Let's answer Microsoft's criticism. -- I'd like to see an article that discusses the Linux side of the issues mentioned by Microsoft.
Lack of Technical Support -- For example, I have found Microsoft technical support useless. I know someone who headed the system administration at the headquarters of a $300,000,000 a year company, and he also found MS technical support useless. Microsoft's technical support representatives didn't know why SQL Server was failing, and they could not discover the reason.
In my extensive experience with Microsoft, since the days before PCs existed and we had the CP/M OS, Microsoft has only answered one question correctly. That was a question about a C compiler problem.
Obviously, part of the reason I don't get help from Microsoft is that I don't call to ask easy questions. I'm sure that Microsoft provides help to many of its customers who are novices.
I have called Microsoft technical support about operating system problems many times, and they have NEVER been able to solve the problems, although once a technical support representative and I worked out a solution together, after 4 difficult hours.
Once about four years ago I talked to a friendly Microsoft technical support representative. He was very knowledgeable. I had a written list of questions about Windows. He was able to give me no answers. He just laughed at some of them and said he wouldn't know how to begin finding the solution. He did, however, provide me with some very useful information concerning problems I wasn't currently having. I remember this representative so clearly because I called expecting the usual Microsoft roughness, and he was friendly.
I liked the article published by the Boston Mac User's Group (BMUG) about who is better at answering Microsoft product technical support calls: Microsoft Technical Support, or The Psychic Friends Network? You can read it at Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network
Look at the problems mentioned in the BMUG article. They seem to me to have a typical quality to them. It seems that many of the most difficult problems with Microsoft products are ones that come from programmers who just don't care about doing a good job.
Neither Microsoft Technical Support nor The Psychic Friends Network were able to answer any of the questions, but the BMUG article says: "... the Psychic Friends Network has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support
I think I would find the BMUG article more humorous if it weren't about such a painful subject.
Microsoft's Flawed Business Model -- The Microsoft business model is extremely flawed because it is heavily influenced by conflict of interest. It is in Microsoft's financial interest NEVER to deliver a good operating system. If Microsoft delivers a good operating system, that will be the last operating system most of its customers will buy.
Microsoft is a huge company, much bigger than most of the retail customers they might serve. If you have a problem, chances are they are too large to care.
Microsoft's Abusiveness -- Microsoft has a history of being abusive. The U.S. Justice Department court case pending against Microsoft found that Microsoft was extremely abusive. This document is on the web in the Court's Findings of Fact. What surprised me about the 207 pages of descriptions of abuses was that it didn't mention the abuses that I thought were most important. The U.S. Justice Department mostly focused on Microsoft's mistreatment of large companies. But Microsoft's mistreatment of small users is more destructive, in my opinion. (You can see more information about the antitrust cases against Microsoft at United States v. Microsoft, Antitrust Case Filings.)
No one, apparently, has gathered all Microsoft's abuses in one place. If that were done, we would have an important way to show why Open Source/GNU is better.
Abusiveness is one of the biggest reasons to avoid Microsoft. Avoid habitual abusers if you don't want to be abused. Even if Microsoft technical support representatives could answer my questions, I don't want to be forced to experience their arrogant manner. I don't want to have to accept abuse to get something I want.
Contrast Microsoft's abusiveness with the friendliness of the Open Source/GNU community. One Sunday about 8 AM, I sent an e-mail message to an important person in the community, requesting information for an article I was writing. I was surprised to get a complete answer less than 3 hours later. It is possible that you have a problem that people in the Open Source/GNU community cannot answer, but they will usually be extremely friendly while they are discussing it.
Closed source software is like sausage. -- Closed source software is like sausage. You don't know what's in it. If you did know what was in it, maybe you wouldn't want it. Has the U.S. government forced Microsoft to put back doors into its software, so that the U.S. can more easily spy? You don't know and you may never know.
Disclaimer Nonsense -- The Microsoft document pretends that Red Hat's 10-Q disclaimer is important. But look at Microsoft's disclaimer at the end of the article. It is much more sweeping: MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Basically, this disclaimer says that Microsoft does not have to be honest.
Microsoft Windows Encourages Playing. -- A huge problem with Microsoft's operating systems in a retail environment is that there are large numbers of minimum wage workers who like to play with the OS. Sometimes I have arrived to do system maintenance and found that the cursor has become a spider. Sometimes I have found systems that have been re-configured to allow exploits. Microsoft Windows 2000 may have a lot of security features, but it has no defense against someone who knows the passwords. If you know retail environments, you know that there will be times that the passwords are compromised. It is much better to have an OS that does not look familiar and does not invite playing.
Here is a typical scenario. Joe and John are night shift workers at a fast food restaurant. Joe is senior at 23. He makes $8.50 per hour. John is 19 and makes $7.65 per hour. They often find themselves bored when business is slow.
One night they discover that the store manager has left his desk open. In his desk they find a list of passwords.
Joe and John have both had computers since the early years of high school. They decide to try to load a game one of them has at home. But Windows 2000 doesn't work well with some games. The game doesn't run, but they leave the system in an unstable state.
Retail hardware is very standard and conservative. -- In a retail environment, you want a fixed solution. You buy the hardware and software, and the two work together as a unit until you buy new hardware and software. Once you make it work, chances are there will be no need for big changes. Microsoft's statements about upgrading often are not based on reality. My experience has been that there are few operating system upgrades.
In a retail environment, you try to buy very standard hardware. Usually this hardware interacts in a manner that is well behind the frontiers of technology. For example, receipt printers use very standard interfaces. Yes, Microsoft has more drivers, but in a retail environment you won't need to support the latest game.
This is just a short list. -- This is just a very short list of answers to Microsoft's article. I would like to see comprehensive answers. If we can get a team together to write one, I will help.
If I were Red Hat's marketing manager, I would have no trouble selling against Microsoft. Unfortunately, Red Hat does not have a strong marketing department.
Microsoft receives little effective criticism. -- People who write comments on Slashdot often complain about Microsoft. But, since the complaints are usually brief and not well documented, the aggregate result is that Microsoft receives little criticism that would be effective with non-technical people.
Bush's education improvements were
I work with NT all day, and I am charged with securing some pretty important installs. From my modest time doing what I do (~1 yr doing security) I can say this: NT can be secured, and it can be secured pretty well. However, the problem is that to secure it and maintain security is *way* too time consuming.
/msadc/..%e0%80%af../ string will die, but then some guy on securityfocus.com pen-test will insist he got a patched box with the vuln. Kinda scary, no?
I can lock down an NT4/5 system pretty well, I can apply all of my MS hotfixes and good 'ol SP6a, and I can even dig into the ASP code and check for application level bugs. When I am done I can hook it into a net running a nice IDS, and be sure the routers/FWs are doing their part. And, I can be pretty confident that I will have rolled out a system that will be less than an easy target for the l33t kiddies.
However...I can say that maintaining a state of security is a complete cluster@!#$ in MS land. It is this way because to harden an NT/IIS 4 box it takes litereally about 80 patches on top of SP6a. Plus, you have to ensure that after every hotfix you haven't caused your application to crap out.
On top of that, there is always the underlying "whatif" on if a patch from MS is 100% effective. For example, you can lock out the Unicode bug, and the ol
Then, MS doesn't help things by not creating an SP7. As a result, instead of doing 1 patch I have to do 80 reboots. It is pretty clear they are doing this to drum up sales of NT 5. I mean after all, if they properly supported NT 4, MS would clearly go out of business. (not)
I am still a young grasshopper in terms of Linux know-how, but I have seen enough to know that a out of the box RH install can be rooted just like NT. I think the problem with NT security is that everybody and their mother knows NT, the hacks and scripts are idiot proof, and the exploits are easily discovered (both as exploits and how to use them). For example, any jackass can find a Unicode bugged IIS box, upload hk.exe and nc.exe, DL the SAM, etc. However, if the admin was any good, they would have done lots of things to prevent such exploits from happening.
If hacking NT required busting out the C compiler, building kernels, or anything else that requires actual understanding of computers, I bet you'd see a lot less 'l33t' NT crackers.
So, I think that when people talk about how NT security sucks, they should also think about how the admins who secure those boxes are responsible, and how the tools available to hack NT are for ages 6 and up. NT can be secured, albeit a complete PITA to do/maintain.
Andrew
"Where does this stop? This is starting to sound like we're headed back in time to the 1980's and 1990's era where retailers were locked into a single vendor's innovation."
Where indeed does this stop? Certainly the OS industry is this way in the desktop market... I imagine that POS systems (both senses) are Microsoft dominated... I will have to keep this for marketing info for Linux...
One other great article on the virtues of Microsoft OSs on their web site can is How Microsoft Ensures Virus-Free Software... Essentially, they state that UNIX is the OS of their choice for producing software.
Of course then there is the FUD like "Another big drawback to Linux presently is the lack of server side software, like database, message queuing services, transaction servers, etc. From the transaction server side, there is no Linux software that provides functionality such as Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) or Microsoft BizTalk(TM) Server." OK So there is no BizTalk yet. but come on... (note that Biztalk usually runs on a separate box than the database server and is used to interface with other businesses, so this is absolutely a moot point.) CORBA does many of the things that MTS does, and how many RDBMS's exist for Linux? DB2, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and probably many more I don't know about. In fact if that were the case, would Linux be doing as well in the server market as it is?
Those of us that sell Linux should keep this article for evidence...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Link for article is Q80520
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
As far as POS systems, I spent many years in retail management and I can say that most of them suck, regardless of platform. Security is generally an afterthought if anything. This is improving, but you need look no further than the current 2600 to see how easy it is to break into a Win based POS system.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
> Lets face facts. Linux is an obscure, hard to use, inconsistant OS, with a few cool features and thousands of drawbacks. Microsoft has nothing to fear, and indeed is giving Linux a spurious credibility by even acknowledging it. Spoken like a true MCSE who has never used Linux. MSFT dominates because they had a 10 year head start and a much larger marketing budget. The argument "It's popular so it's better" just doesn't work. The canonical example being beta-vs-vhs. VHS sucks, always has, always will. VHS had more money, however, and convinced manufacturers to support them over the far superior beta (using FUD in intimidating the content producers in the process).
this is getting old and so are you
blog
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Linux != Unix. This seems proof enough that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. If you actually installed linux and used it with an open mind you might find that it is quite useful for many different purposes.
Abusive tone: pot calling kettle black. Get over yourself.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Microsoft also has a formal research and development process and plans to invest over $4 billion in R&D in 2001. Microsoft invested over $3 billion in R&D in 2000. They invest huge amounts of money like this in R&D every single year. Linux has no comparison.
... how does having the source code open for worldwide scrutiny make a product *less* secure anyway?
They there is fightin' words!
Money doesn't develop software. People develop software.
Have you ever known someone who does what they do because they have a love for it? Have you ever known someone else who goes to work only for a paycheck? It's analogous to a student who goes to school for a grade, compared to a student to goes to school to learn. If I were hiring someone to work for me, I would choose the student who loves to learn over the student with the perfect GPA (who only wanted the grade) any day.
In that same sense, I want software written by people who love writing software (whether or not he gets paid for it is irrelevant - but when someone writes software w/out getting paid for it, it's a sure sign of how much they like doing it!); not software written by some guy just doing what he does for a paycheck.
The great strength of the Open Source movement lies in the fact that the people developing the code are doing it for the love of doing it! That makes a difference. A big difference. Microsoft, and most other companies, have to pay people to get anyone to make Windows software.
Oh, and one more thing
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
That is an ironic feature of MS products: no-charge memory leaks. Yep, you pay absolutely no extra money for all the memory leaks you can stand between reboots. Buy Microsoft IIS today and you can serve up error messages when someone happens to [gasp!] load the same page that the last 20,000 visitors also loaded.
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Also, will it run under the different Graphical User Interfaces (GUI's) available for Linux? GNU, KDE, and GNOME are the most popular, but there are others available too.
Gee, I always though GNU Wasn't UNIX, not a GUI... Does anyone have an idea for what GNU stands for now that it's a GUI?
GNU's Not Ugly?
GUIs not UNIX?
Any other ideas?
And why is it that Microsoft keeps stating that Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. but not that Linux is a Registered trademark of Linus Torvalds?
--Volrath50
Which do you think a random kiddie would gain access to first?
- Dan I.
Apparently Mike-row-sopht is making a subtle hint at evilness and world domination. They say, "Almost every organization in existence has Windows running somewhere in their enterprise." They are proud of that, don't understand why they shouldn't be, and never will. Every mother thinks their child is the most beautiful.
.... to me means that they will eventually get there. (Sooner than the Mike-row-sopht thinks)
It also seems that they are also admitting that Linux will be as good them someday by saying, "The Microsoft platform has been tried and tested as an enterprise solution but the Linux platform has a long way to go." A long way to go
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT
</quote>
<translation>
Don't hold us legally accountable if all of the "facts" in this document are completely made up.
</translation>
1) $admin_passwords = L0phtcrack(\%SAM_Database);
Microsoft still hasn't gotten strong encryption right...
2) @hidden_share_listing = open FH "smbclient -l |";
Smbclient will list hidden administrative shares no problem. The $ only hides them at the Explorer level, they are still passed cleartext in SMB.
3) $access_to_C$ = smbrelay()
Smbrelay finally got around to exploiting the sams SMB vulnerabilities that Windows has had since the beginning of time. And Windows 2000, unless run totally natively, is vulnerable to this.
4) This open source nonsense...
Just because the source is closed doesn't mean its more secure, it just means its easier to hide bugs. How many bugs did Win2k have when released?
And WHO REALLY TRUSTS MICROSOFT? With closed source, you're putting absolute trust of everything you do within Microsoft's hands...the same company that is under Federal scrutiny for illegal business practices.
"Who do you want your personal information sold to today?"
5) VB and scripting
Microsoft is the lead distributor of the most insecure programming model in history, COM.
"Which email do you want your web browser to import into Word today?"
6)Microsoft has only been including any security features in their software since around 1995. IMHO, M$ and Linux are on equal security footing...they both suffer from a lack of GSAs.
(Good System Administrators).
For example, there is no guarantee that any software you develop on one distribution will run under another distribution. Nor is it guaranteed, or even likely, that an application you develop for one GUI will run under a different GUI, even on the same distribution.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I am for example using redhat 7.1, develop an application for GNOME(I'm assuming they meant desktop environments or whatever gnome/kde is called, if this is false then substitute something else) and then run KDE2 and start the application it won't run according to Microsoft? Are these people smoking crack? err yeah i guess so
Of course it's better out of the box. I had disable ftpd and telnetd and sendmail from my last install. Windows doesn't automatically enable IIS. Of course, once you do the things to make the platform useful and secure, Linux is way more secure. But out of the box, I do agree that Windows is more secure.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
I've posted my comments (for what they're worth) on the first few arguments here
http://freshrpms.net/misc/microsoft-shit.html
I feel really sad for all the poor retailers that believe all this nonsense...
Matthias
-- Life wasn't meant to be easy...
Given how many people seem to have interpreted `pos', I think I like this line:
"Retailers typically stay with their POS systems for years because of the costs that can be involved in upgrading thousands of terminal devices to a new environment." Suddenly the reason for using Windows becomes obvious...
Molf
One common point stressed by those spreading FUD about Linux and open source is non-existence of a Linux, Inc. company owning, developing, and selling the system. We all know this doesn't matter from a technical (i.e. quality) point of view, and it doesn't matter from a legal point of view either. Buying a software license from some company doesn't mean the software is of high quality, and it doesn't mean there is liability for bugs.
But exactly this non-existence, which doesn't matter in rational analysis, may turn out to be a weakness if we take into consideration the irrational world of markets and competition. Here in Europe there are rather strict regulations to ensure fairness of competition. In Germany, for example, it is now permitted to compare your own product to competing ones from other vendors in advertising, but comparision must be based on hard facts. If it isn't, competitors can easily stop your campaign.
I guess this applies to Linux as well as to all other markets -- but who, from a legal point of view, is the competitor of Microsoft in the case of Linux? Who is going to formally complain and sue Microsoft for unfair competition by making false claims? Sure, the Linux community is organized to a certain degree, and there are the Linux distributors, consulting companies, etc. But could they sue a company attacking just Linux and not a single competitor? After all Linux herself is just there, emerging from coordinated but formally unorganized work of many many people all over the world.
Is there a defense other than advocacy and guerilla education against unfair attacks? And how efficient is advocacy alone if the opponent can buy not only a number of advertisements, but also the newspapers/journals/tv stations publishing them?
My feeling is that Microsoft is currently trying how far they can go unstopped. How far can they?
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
I recently installed a game downloaded from some web site, as a non-administrator on a NT4 machine. All went fine. Since the game was sort of boring and pointless, I tried to get rid of it. NT told me this would require administrator privileges. Uh, I have never seen this level of security in 8 years of Linux usage. =:->
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
Maybe offtopic, but I found this online document converter quite helpful:s e/objweb/
http://wheel.compose.cs.cmu.edu:8001/cgi-bin/brow
Well frankly most distributions are nothing to brag about.
How many comprimised RH 6.2 installs are out there giving a launchpad for other cracks?
Security on both sides of the fence is piss poor.
"""There are limited developer tools available for Linux."""
:o)
:o)
Yes this is absolute true, there is an finite amount of software aviable
But don't tell me windows has an INFINITE amount of development-software aviable
""" ?Open source? means that anyone can get a copy of the source code. Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux. The same is not true with Microsoft Windows."""
Hi-hi-hI-hii!
Especially now that microsoft gave the source to their 100? best costumers, it's pretty lickely it "slipped" through into the hacker comunity, now the difference is the hacker has the source, while the sysadmin doesn't. And also no "discovered" leaks by hackers flow back into the source as fixes as it is the case in linux/*bsd....
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
The Linux security model is really a disaster when the root password is found out by a regular user.
Duh! If you know the password, then there is no security. It's *your* job to keep the password safe.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
No, if I saw Bill Gates walking on water my question would be: How many of his competetors did he bury in that section of the lake? My second question is: If Linux is so much trouble to secure and Apache on Linux is by far the most common web server, how come the largest percentage of web defacements is to IIS? Third qeustion is: Why are most of the compromised systems I hear about Windows? Windows on the network isn't anywhere near the dominate force that Windows is on the desktop but they still manage to garner the majority of security problems. (Just so you all know, I don't get all of my information from /. and would expect anybody looking at the subject with reasonable objectivity to notice the same thing.) If you do the relative math (numbers of servers, numbers of actual hacks) Microsoft still looks like crap compared to just about everybody. Microsoft has deigned to notice Linux now, and that means a deluge of FUD unlike any they have ever produced. They can't compete on merits so they have no other way. If Linux had to compete on their terms it would work. Unfortunately (for them) Linux can go on being Linux no matter what MS does. Write your Congressman though, MS has already started the FUD aimed at outlawing the GPL.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
I generally install everything because I'm still learning and I never know what I'll want to play with. That said, I also immediately (after the install) go and turn off every service that I don't want to run right now. Then I setup the firewall to restrict everything and open back up just those ports I need. It is not that hard to do and anyone installing Linux needs to know how to do it. Just like anyone installing 2000 Pro needs to know about its security settings.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
I don't know which distribution you use, but I use Debian, and the only services that it enables are the ones that you install. If you don't need to run a service, then why are you installing software for the service in the first place?
Don't let the lusers get you down.
Apparently also the most common "last words" of people before they die. I read that somewhere, although I can't imagine that "they" figured this out in any reasonably scientific manner. I can quite easily imagine that it would be true though.
Here is a copy of the Deutsch version of the document that was removed from microsoft.com. I read this one first ('twas posted to kde-devel). The Babelfish translation of it (which I read, as I can't read German well..) is rather amusing.
--
If you didn't know, the GPL does stand for the GNU General Public Licence. I suppose you've never licenced a program under it. ;) It (GPL 2.0) begins thus:
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
--
I especially liked the hypocracy on talking about support. First, service folk will typically not give support to modified versions of their software. I find this not to be true. With the source available, it's easy to go through the program and find exactly where the error is. If changes have been made, support people have acceess to the changes and can help. Further, they are criticizing the fact that we don't support people who modify the program. Obviously, this is not easily done with MS products. But, lets say, I open up win.com in a hex editor and start arbitrarily changing bytes. I've modified the software, do you think Microsoft is going to walk me through the whole process of getting it to work? They'll tell me to reinstall it, and maybe bring me to court for violating the license.
They say that MS support is better. Personally, if I had a problem with MS software and needed help, I'd take my luck with the psychic friends network before calling Microsoft.
Is not the same as the further installation of software.
OpenBSD installs with a very minimal set of services and is setup to be "secure by default". Anything you add from there on out is your buisness. Yes, the OpenBSD developers take great steps to make the "3rd party" applications you allude to as secure as possible, but only so much code can be audited by such a small group.
The big difference is that *you* are aware and responsible for the software _beyond_ the default install. This makes it much easier to only install what is _needed_ on the system, not just everything under the sun like all too many Linux distros.
" "Open source" means that anyone can get a copy of the source code© Developers can find security weaknesses very easily with Linux© The same is not true with Microsoft Windows©"
So I guess thousands of people around the world looking for and fixing security problems in the source code is a bad thing for security© I had naively asumed that it was a good thing for the progress of the security of the system©
Oh well, learn something new everyday©
CanuckChuck
I remember a time, maybe 6-7 years ago, when almost all text files had the .doc extension. They were "Documents", not "Proprietary-MS-encoded-documents". Gosh, to be back in the good old days...
Its not that we are somehow dumb, or "don't get it", in fact quite the opposite. We have investigated Linux (and BSD, etc) and found it lacking. In all of the key areas of business, Linux is clearly inferior to W2K.
Obviously I will be modded down for saying something so heretical in a linux-bigot forum like slashdot, but it needs to be said.
If businesses were not making $$$$s from their Microsoft systems, do you really think they would stick with them ?
If Linux really did offer any competitive advantage do you think businesses (whose main concern is making money) would not install redhat straight away ?
Lets face facts. Linux is an obscure, hard to use, inconsistant OS, with a few cool features and thousands of drawbacks. Microsoft has nothing to fear, and indeed is giving Linux a spurious credibility by even acknowledging it.
Microsoft will still be hear years after we have forgotten who Linus Torvaldees is. I mean, you don't hear too much about OS/2 or the Amiga these days, do you ? Both these OS's were supposedly superior to windows, but Microsoft kicked both their asses real hard.
Anyway I know I am wasting my breath here, but geeks and nerds who want to succeed in the information economy had better study a few business courses, in addition to their geek courses, then they will realise that their time would be better spent getting a professional qualification such as MCSE rather than rebuilding their kernal every 2 minutes.
Phew, good to get that off my chest.
Yeeeeeah! True and to the point. Rather nice of Microsoft to recognize it. Only, for the sake of clarity, we should ask them to add ", and so fix them." at the end of the second sentence. Elsewhere, somebody could be confused.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
The funny thing was that the german page at Microsoft was just the summary. And on the bottom of that page there was a link to download the complete whitepaper. That link never worked, it always resulted in a 404 - Not found.
After a while with lots of comments on that newsticker even the summary on the microsoft site disappeared. And now its surfacing on the english part of Microsoft Europe :-)
I guess that commenting the lies in that whitepaper would only be a waste of resources. But maybe that's what Microsoft is up to: Spreading out lies and putting "comment load" on the experts. Like a little "Denial of Service" attack. Linux experts that have to comment our rubbish can't develop in the meanwhile :-)
For me the behaviour of Microsoft is really interesting: Putting an anonymous whitepaper (who really believes in the competence of an author called "Microsoft") and then removing it if the reaction to it is not what they obviously expected it to be.
Needless to say that direct feedback via the Microsoft website wasn't answered yet, despite they say "we usually answer within 72 hours" :-)
Hard to imagine you'd have IE configured wrong somehow; are you maybe running the IE6 preview?
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
Gates can't swim!!!
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
There is a flaw. Regardless of how many false passwords you give, you never get locked out. Well, that is only true for the Administrator password, all other accounts do lockout. Btw, how many wrong logins does it take to lock root?
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
Even logging on from localhost, how many failed logins does it take to lock out root? Hmm?
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
In my personal opinion (which i am just bacicly a beginner with linux) but what I have generally found is that people seem to be able to easily hack into anothers system by just doing simple things like creating a new .bashrc or some other things... perhaps through middle man attacks?
Anyways... microsoft devolops there O/S based on a simple principle that 90% of people just want there system to WORK. Most people dont want to have to tweak every file, and secure everything... blah blah blah, they just want to be able to sit down... and write emails or whatever the average end user does. Fortunally for me... i wanted to get into programming... and i also wanted to use an O/S that doesnt require you to have a GUI. I mean hell... when i WAS using windows.. half the time when i used it just to write a simple email, the piece of shit would crash.
Having to tweak, and secure is the fun of linux.
The common hacker just wants to be able to do everything themselfs. They dont want EVERYTHING to be automated like windows is.
Also due to windows non open source policy, the security of a windows machine will never be as good, because you cant changed the things you need to.
At my old school the only way they could keep things secure was by editing the registry... now that is truly lame
you don't really need to understand German to figure out what the study cited by MS was all about: an ERGONOMICS study by a reputable standards institute (TUeV), involving 3 PSYCHOLOGISTS and one PHYSICIST. Nuff said. Nuff ! Nuff !
Here is MS pretending they understand retail. Anyone remember ActiveStore? The unlamented POS [in both senses of the acronym] that required 192MB of RAM to run adequately on a register, 3 years ago? When enough retailers chewed their MS' balls off over that one, they turned around and said "Oh, we were targetting this at hospitals. Retail isn't important enough for us to bother with right now".
Damn MS to hell and all their "technology partners" too.
--
Yes, the nick is flamebait
Several companies such as Red Hat, TurboLinux, SuSE, VA Linux Systems, and Caldera have taken the free Linux kernel, added features such as automated installation programs, window managers, and graphical user interfaces (GUI?s) and sell their packages for less than $100 typically. Thus, it is only the Linux kernel itself that is actually free. If you want a version other than the kernel, you pay one of the distributors for their particular version.
Wow. Don't tell anyone, but I downloaded Redhat 7.1 the other day for free. I also downloaded Mandrake and LinuxPPC for free.
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that Microsoft would spread these lies to its beloved customers! How could they even think of taking part in a misinformation campaign!? I think I'll write an email letting them know about their mistake and I'm sure they'll correct it as soon as possible.
Sheesh
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
In the context of Windows, I've never wondered what "POS" stands for.
~Jeff
I'm NOT defending MS.NT! As to those "cracks" it IS a very real threat... thankfully the programmers of the worm were to lazy too write any search and replace procedures. The list is kinda' "bloated" though... I administer a mixed network (NT4 Win2K Debian Slackware and NetBSD)the previous sys admin DID misconfigure 3 servers, giving each server 4-15 IP's, for web hosting, and running IIS... they were not web servers! they each had the same base homepage directory (wwwroot) for every IP, thereby bloating the list (while 3 machines were infected, over 20 IP's showed, these are not unique machines, just unique IP addresses).
Unfortunately my boss doesn't understand "security" thinking that a new security patch may damage current web sites, I was only allowed to "patch" the weak systems AFTER one of our largest customers was compromised! Funny thing about it, the 100+ sites on WinNT were in danger of being defaced, but not a single of the 150+ sites on Slackware and Debian were at risk!
I have to agree though... the "security" of a base install is kinda' funny when it comes to Win2k/WinNT4
Two companies came to my mind as shining examples of the viability of Linux in Retail. Home Depot, in 1999 converted their ENTIRE infrastructure to Linux (I believe the primary distro was Red Hat). Their POS systems run a GUI that is designed to look and feel just like a Windows POS... The other is Menards... all those little price checkers... yup that's linux running a postresql database... and... I have NEVER had to reboot those and have an employee log into it again... wish I could say the same about Target's systems... (Those are *cough cough* running the more "market ready" MS!)
http://www.attrition.org/security/commentary/worm0 1.html
h s.html
Let me guess. Every one of those 8836 machines with Windows 2000 was "misconfigured", should have had better administrators or should have been behind a firewall. Riiiight. So much for more secure out of the box.
http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/os-grap
Anyone with conscious knowledge of these numbers can not say that Windows is more secure than anything out of the box, because it just plain isn't.
--
Back your zealotry up with facts, not fanaticism.
YA= yet another
so the title of the article is Yet Another Microsoft Linux Screed
MS Word points out the sentence:
:P. Maybe MS has accidentally programmed Word to spot truth errors??!
"Very few retailers run Linux today."
as being an error
"Linux is created by third parties that they have no control over."
Another error pointed out by Word! Oh no! MS has programmed Word to recognize faulty logic! MS is trying to say that the OS manufacturer should control all third-party vendors, but even Word knows better!
"Microsoft has the talent, resources, and funding to continue developing products that customers want."
Oh no!, Word points out that the word "customers" is in error! Word realizes that Microsoft actually means "idiots" when referring to "customers".
"From an administration perspective, GoInvest.com is finding that the Windows environment is easier and more user-friendly for them to administer than Linux."
Good Lord! MS points out another error. Apparently the phrase "more user-friendly" is incorrect! I guess MS programmed Word to use logic beyond the grasp of their PR droids.
all errors are pointed out in the doc when using MS Word 2000
...
string* plamenessFilter =
*plamenessFilter = "Flaming Death!!";
And the winner is ... "pretty much anything except Windows{9{5|8}}|2000|Me|...". Linux, openbsd, *nix, and others do not need to be foolproof, because their user base is not certified morons. Windows however needs to be 100% secure, to get decent security.
Clicked on any visual basic scripts lately?
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I don't understand the first six words, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but does this mean we're not allowed to click on the link to download and read it, never mind allow it to enter in to our disk cache, without first writing to MS and asking for their permission?
All this goes to prove that Microsoft knows how to sell. They are directing this "research" to businessmen that don't know jack about security or "retail-hardening" issues.
Case in point is this link on Microsoft's site:
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/embedded/sak/sakIn order to give Win2K credibility to vendors for security and performance, they compare it with one that has been proven to stand up to much adversity.
By the way, does anyone know how to pronounce that German guys name from the Research Organization? (TÜViT GmbH)
"That was so funny, I almost pissed my pants. Almost?!?"