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When Does Usability Become a Liability?
nasteric asks: "I caught myself in the middle of a very interesting discussion last Friday over Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee. The discussion had to do with usability and security. Many of the Microsoft Administrators I work with argued the more user friendly Linux becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes. They claimed making Linux a friend of Joe User will require it to 'open itself up' and become more susceptible to attack. Needless to say, this became an endless debate between our Microsoft Administrators and our Linux/Unix Administrators that will undoubtedly continue into the morning. Therefore I pose this question to the Slashdot community. Will making Linux more user friendly result in it becoming less secure? Hopefully your expertise will help shed some light on (and bring to and end) our discussion." Does decent usability necessarily imply the presence of vulnerabilities? Macs seem to have this area down pretty well, with little in the way of vulnerabilities. Can Linux software follow the same route?
Question: Is this an "Ask Slashdot" or an advertisement for Krispy Cream and Apple?
Also, since the editorial already starts us off with an "OS X vs Linux" flamewar, let me add to the discussion... Windows and Linux admins in the same organization? What organization is this?!
Why do people think that the command line is *not* "user friendly"? Do we write books by pointing and clicking at icons, avatars, and pictures? Except under amazing cirumcstances (Steven Hawking, the blind, etc) would you hire an author that did? Then why a system administrator?
Is hide the more advanced/"dangerous" features from users that normally don't need them. They're there if you, but if you don't know about them, you shouldn't accidentally trigger them. That's part of good useability, too.
OK, here we go:
Yes, because users are stupid. Most "viruses" at the moment need a stupid user. Also, more users=more damage=more chance of someone wanting to attack it.
One of the biggest design flaws in Windows from a security perspective is that nearly every service that comes with the system is turned on by default.
One of the biggest design flaws in Linux from a usablity perspective is that nearly every service that comes with the system is turned on by default.
Please, no comments about how Mac OS X was "attacked" by a trojan.
It doesn't "expose" some fatal flaw in the OS, nor is it some newly discovered exploit. All it is was an application that displayed a dialog box. Mac OS applications (with the exception of Cocoa applications) have always been able to have:
a.) any icon, and
b.) any name
The only remotely slightly interesting feature of this proof-of-concept was that it stored the executable code within an MP3 ID3 tag, and even contained valid MP3 data. But that's mostly irrelevant, since the executable code could be anywhere, and the code can't even be moved in raw binary form without destroying the resource fork. Though the major media outlets haven't picked up on the subtleties of this thanks to Intego's FUD-mongering and self-serving press release, this "trojan" is nothing more than a Carbon application. (Though, the discussion that comes of this will be fruitful: maybe Apple will revisit yet again the filesystem metadata vs. file extension dichotomy, and discuss novel ways of visually identifying executables, perhaps in the same fashion as aliases.)
So, to get on-topic, no, an OS doesn't necessarily have to become less secure to become user-friendly. Some (most?) of the security of an operating system, both from a user perspective and network perspective, comes from underlying philosophical design principles and fundamentals - not to mention the intensive peer examination that open source software encourages. Sure, some user-friendly "features", such as auto-opening attachments in the preview pane of Outlook, exist to make things "easier" for the user. But this is a wrongheaded approach: a sensible focus on security can solve the majority of problems without necessarily making it harder on the user. Ease of use and security aren't entirely, or even mostly, mutually exclusive.
The key is making security easy to use.
But the age-old technique of "tricking the user" will ALWAYS be possible via various means, on any OS on any platform.
I fail to see any such correlation between usability and security. As many others have said (and will say), OS X really does have it down in regards to their security model, which I hope is embraced on OSS *nix soon.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
...then you should have asked for their explanation of why OS X is more secure than Windows.
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
(Finally got a dang account in 2004)
The answer is "No, because of peer review."
Lets move on..
no
It's the same thing that has happened to other fields that eventually grew to the point where people could do some of the work on their own. For comparison think of publications, once restricted to highly specialized professionals and now available to anybody with a printer and a copy of printshop. Those home-brew print jobs make the pros squeem in pain. Amateur work will always be amateur, and the results will reflect this.
Once Linux gets to the point that it can be administered by people who aren't dedicated specialists, it's inevitable they will try it out and that most of these people will be less careful administrators. After all they aren't dedicated *nix admins and will often wear many hats in their organization. This doesn't mean that Linux is insecure, it's just a growing pain that it has to go through.
Don't forget how many people fall into the "it's working, it's now forgotten" category. These are the people that only perform oil changes on their cars and wonder why it eventually breaks down on them - and there are a lot of them. They won't patch it, back it up or anything else until the day it inevitably comes crashing down around them.
...they actually mean something like to run everything as root so as to not bother the user with that all that pesky permissions-thingy nonsense, then yes Linux will of course become much more vulnerable.
On Windows they call it Administrator, on Linux they call it Root. It's the same thing, the user account that has no restrictions on it. Every user wants to run that way, because seeing a "permission denied" message on their own box just isn't going to make them consider the system user-friendly.
It's really more of a user eductation issue than a technical one. The best security practices are usually in counter to an element of ease of use.
Of course if you have elitist programmer types who use their case-modded Amiga's to talk to talk to each in Klingon don't expect your user experience to be one 'Joe User' can use or enjoy. If you are one of those people who are disdainful of people not as smart as you and want to keep Linux/OSS in the hands of your CRT tanned brethren then by all means continue to disparage and FUD usability all day long - just don't complain about Linux's adoption - EVER.
A few things for folks to remember:
-_-
Have a look at Lindows. They make Linux easy enough for Windows users and supposedly, your grand mother to use. The first major step towards ease4 of use was the use of root as the primary logon. Security on these systems obviously just took a major step backwards.
Now let's face it, the ease of use your friends are talking about is things like not having to use a user ID and password when you turn on the PC and, most especially, not having to "su" to install spyware ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H pop-up blockers.
[As | If] Linux becomes more 'userfriendly,' security will suffer. This is not because it becomes inherently more vulnerable, but because it becomes accessible to ever less competent people.
A *NIX system does have inherent security advantages over Windows, but it still requires a very competent Admin to do a thorough job. Right now, I'd lay money (based on experience) that the average Linux Admin has a far better understanding than the average Windows admin simply because he needs to. This is going to change.
Consider that in my day, a programmer was still a computer scientist. Nowadays, I have to work with people who took a few months at a college course using a Visual design package and couldn't even program a Bubble Sort routine. It'll be similar with Linux security.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The argument is usually phrased as "Convenience vs Security." They can be seen as being opposed. That's not quite the same as "Usability vs Vulnerability" but that's the direction your friends' arguments were pointing.
I'm not sure that it always holds true that you have a single gradient between Convenience and Security. You can have elements of both, and it's not just a fractional position between two extremes.
For example, the 'root' problem is that root or Administrator can do anything on the system, so cracker types will focus their attention on the major prize. The alternative would be to spread rights and responsibilities into fine-grained accounts like "backup" and "network" and "installer" and other capabilities. An attacker has to work harder, but the machine's owner does too.
However, that doesn't mean that you're going to have to allow web browsers and email clients to execute unknown privileged code. Many of Microsoft's engineers in the 90s had no concept of trust and privilege, and it showed. Those few who understood the implications couldn't drive the rest of the overwhelmingly "convenience-driven" corporate culture to really care about the down-sides to an all-root-all-the-time lack of security. Now that Microsoft knows the implications, their inertia has them at a strict disadvantage: they must change, and in so changing, they break their #1 asset: long-term backwards compatibility.
[
All the "secure code" in the world wont shield the system from a clueless user.
/ /dev/rand > /dev/dsp
As secure as you think OSX is, anyone who wanted to write an application to fuck stuff up, call it "Super Happy Funtime Sexy Game", and email it to morons, could do so just as easily as they could with a VBScript file.
I could write:
#!\bin\sh
rm -rf
cat
echo Linux is teh gay!
Email it to some stupid people, tell them they have to run it as root or else they wont see the video of Condoleeza Rice's tits.
Stupid people will run what came with the box they bought at Best Buy. When those boxes start shipping with linux, they'll be on linux. The REALLY stupid people shop at K-Mart, who I understand are in the business of ubercheap linux boxes these days.
Be afraid, be very afraid, of the rootkits that get put on this new army of lindows boxes.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...people kill security.
As you've noted, Mac OSX has managed it (although in all honesty it probably isn't the focus of as many attacks as Windows). I think that the main problem is that if users are running their browsers, email clients etc under their own uid, and they contract a virus then it's going to cause damage to all their files. I don't know about anyone else here, but I value the files in my /home more than the rest of the OS, which can easily be reinstalled (yes, I do back up, BTW).
;-)
I think that maybe all vulnerable processes, like web browsers, irc clients etc should run under a separate uid from the user (maybe each user should have 2 uid's - one normal, and one restricted so that it can only access a subdirectory of the users home). So rather than Mozilla launching as user fredbloggs:fredbloggs, it launches as "fredbloggs_restricted:fredbloggs_restricted" by default. The user could then chown some directory to be writable to fredbloggs_restricted" for downloads, cache etc.
Maybe this is already implemented? The real problem though is that a user could still build and run something they downloaded, potentially wiping all their files, unless a mechanism automatically made anything they installed themselves, run as the restricted user and not their own uid:gid.
Does any of that make sense?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
...it's popularity. The more popular an OS gets, more script kiddies will target that OS as that is where they can do maximum damage.
The trick to usability is to have a power interface which allows you to change everything and anything in the system and have a newbie interface which allows you to customize to your hearts content but not change the underlying core components. Because what most "joe users" want is modifying the look and feel of their desktop and not going into changing network settings or CPU settings. If they want that and can do that I think they are already ready for the power interface.
GUIs let you explore until you find what you want by pointing and clicking on things. With command lines, you need to know the commands, and the options, before starting. That means that you need some sort of training before you start using the command line. So in your analogy, you'd have to "learn" the language of the OS before you can start 'writing' anything at all. Learning English actually took you a very, very long time, even if you don't remember it.
Once you have that training, the command line is a very useful tool. But if you can't get the training, and aren't self-sufficient or technically apt enough to go to the bookstore and buy a book on how to use the command line, you're screwed.
That's why people like having icons for things. The message icon is your mail program. Don't have to remember what it's name is, or where it's at. Just click.
I'm in the process of rewritting some small freely available application because the original caused my computer to segfault under two circumstances which I consider normal use. In rewritting it, i've eliminated those errors and maintained the same performance. As well, I decided to start using a memory profiler, Valgrind. The end result is a more user friendly tool because it doesn't crash in normal operation giving bad error messages that only a programmer would understand. It is also more secure... no more buffer overflows.
My point is, moving towards usability shouldn't mean that we should loosen our belts, allowing the user to run amock in the system, we should tighten them.
Usability, however, does have to do with coherent UI design: picking icons that communicate what the button does on a toolbar, grouping menus is a logical way, making sure that there are keystrokes available for commonly used features, etc.
It sounds like the Microsofties have confused usability with Feature Creep.
Now.. the more people running Linux may in fact lead to more vulnerabilities being found, since testing only proves the existence of bugs, not the absence. However, history shows that bugs are fixed much quicker in open source then in closed source, so that's a race Linux wins easily. But as far as usability, comparing the latest KDE and GNOME desktop to Windows XP just shows that as far as usability, Linux may have already surpassed Windows.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft sacrifices security because, in their model, it is often the easiest way (tm) to make something more user friendly. So from a Microsoft point of view, it seems obvious that security and user friendliness are mortal enemies. That doesn't mean the two naturally correlate.
On the other hand, anyone can make a linux box insecure. The question then becomes as simple as whether you trust users to administer their own boxes. This is where you need user friendliness. This is where the OS has a choice to remain secure by staying obfuscated (and thus scaring users away at the expense of functionality) or become more friendly (at the risk of letting users hurt themselves).
Windows, by default, can be (is?) insecure. But that's not where the "(Microsft vs. Linux) vs. (User Friendly vs. Insecure)" debate should begin.
i used to be tech coordinator at my school. oh the headaches. anyways, i'd get all kinds of lame ass questions about how to do simple things. people learned how to use windows. just like riding a bike, it takes time. windows UI's break lots of guidelines. ever look at all the dialog boxes, like the font box, or the print dialog. they are 1st class abortions. and how 'bout office. what, a toolbar button that is a pop up menu, which can then double (or triple?) as a pull off floating toolbar? (it's a desert topping, it's a floor polish!) windows has had the luxury of being how things are done, and people learn to use it. so, anything that doesn't do it that way is "wrong" and "difficult". it's no different that driving on the right side of the road, with the pedals on the left side of the car. (here in the US) linux desktop by default has to emulate/mirror windows (mis)feature for feature. now, there are lots of bonuses like in konq, but 100 cool things doesn't make up for the 1 thing it doesn't do like windows. the best hope for linux desktop is new users without the pre-conditioned actions. i had several linux desktops in my old 7th grade class. you'd be amazed that kids with little computer training can pick up kde or gnome. it's just that they're not stuck, as it were, doing things the redmond way.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Only a "Built for Windows TV" would ever need such a capability !
The Linux security model splits user (fancy stuff) and root (low level stuff) very well. Retail Windows has only recently had this separation; ever tried to log into Administrator in Windows XP Home ?????
As GNU/Linux (a distribution) becomes more user friendly (presuming is isn't already) then nothing the GNOME or KDE can do would break the intrinsic security of the Linux kernel. Nothing.
So as long as a user plays in user space , Linux is happy to keep the hardware rocking. Log in to root and all bets are off but even so, when Linux has the NSA stuff then root won't always mean root.
Nah - this is stupid. a GNU/Linux distro like Mandrake is user friendly and as long as you are not using root - it can be secure and quite usable. Sounds like FUD to me.
If it's ease of learning, then yeah, a picture is probably worth a thousand words. If it's actual ease of use (which is NOT to be confused with the latter- even though everyone and his dog keeps doing it...), then a CLI may well be the thing.
There's a lot of things that are purely cumbersome because of the GUI under XP or MacOS.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd actually argue that having all services turned off by default doesn't impact the "average dumb user's" useability experience at all, because the average dumb user utilizes their system pretty much exclusively as a client.
This is part of why home-NAT devices were able to spread so quickly among regular home users... because they don't care if their system can be accessed via ssh, http, or whatever... as long as they can access other systems in the expected fashion.
Still, a nice observation (once corrected).
A GUI you have to learn to click, double click, right click, directory structure, etc. You still have to learn. You are just learning something different. instead of cd [enter] you are double clicking on something. wether you type it or click it you are still learning something.
Evolution or ID?
Things that need to be expressed before my opinion:
:)
-Microsoft does not hire retards. Their programmers are skilled.
-IBM,Sun,Novell,etc, do not hire retards. Their programmers are probably equally skilled with Microsoft's.
-Linux was inspired by Unix
-Unix is a multi-user operating system originally designed during the dawn of computing for big iron mainframes accessible by client terminals via command line.
-Computer "users" at the time of the creation and dominance of Unix knew, more often than not, how to program, do shell scripts, etc. They were very computer-literate. To use a computer in that age meant you knew how a computer worked.
-Windows began as a (more or less) single user operating system intended to run on PCs, not mainframes, and is used more often than not by people who know nothing of programming, or how a computer works abstractly.
Before you jump to say that Microsoft produces crap code, think logically. The Windows O/S may be considered to be a history lesson for all the O/S programmers out there. Learn from it. Sure, they didn't invent the GUI. Sure they weren't the first windowing O/S. But consider that Windows is the first operating system to reach the level of adoption that it has. They have to support every common architecture, network protocol, hardware design, etc, in the world.
If Windows serves any purpose to you guys at all, it is to illustrate what works, and what doesn't. From their example, user stupidity has been illustrated. Never more than now have programmers been aware of the need to balance ease of use with covering for the ignorance of a user. From their example, we've learned that the user really shouldn't be trusted to be a good admin, that firewalls are a good feature to build into an O/S, etc etc. Microsoft has proven useful in studying the effectiveness of GUI systems and their pitfalls.
Don't sit and criticize Microsoft. Take the lessons they had to learn the hard way, and use them to make better code. That's essentially what Apple did with OSX, even though for them it was a lot easier - they don't have to standardize for all hardware and software configs. They offered very limited backwards compatibility, as ugly compatibility hacks aren't good to keep in code
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Does decent usability necessarily imply the presence of vulnerabilities?
Just because that's the broad experience of users with the current environment of "usable" administrative tools doesn't necessarily mean that it must be so. It's empirical evidence based on a sample size of ... well ... approximately one company.
However.
It is a caution. It shows that it is quite possible to (unintentionally) make system administration more unsafe when pursuing a single-minded goal and when the ideas for EZ system administration aren't subject to the kind of open scrutiny and community improvement that FOSS developers can provide. When a single company owns a market, it's tempting for them to "speed up" the standards process, to "innovate", and make something Really Great that later, turns out not to be perfect.
Practically, I've been encouraged that the free mail clients and free web browsers I use under Linux haven't been afflicted with "Automatically Run This" features of convenience to the degree that my Outlook and IE running friends have to contend with.
I will say though, that I've been nervous about various things that "wget something; cd something; make" redcarpet like packages and their potential for abuse.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Many of the Microsoft Administrators I work with argued the more user friendly Linux becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes. They claimed making Linux a friend of Joe User will require it to 'open itself up' and become more susceptible to attack.
Spoken like a true MSCE. No, making Linux more usable will not open it up any more than necessary. One just needs to make sure that there isn't 1. a scripting host with direct access to the OS configuration, 2. all ports open by default, 3. lots of services open by default, 4. all user accounts with root access by default, 5. applications that can call the scripting host unecessarily (can we say Outlook running VBS attachments on open in the scripting engine with Admin privileges on a default installation?). None of these things really effects users. The two main ones that would affect users are 1. installation programs - just make installers call for an admin password when installed on default-configured accounts - which is what RPM for instance already does - and 2. make passwords mandatory (is that such a usability hardship?)
The problem with Windows is that it's *too* secure. Yeah, you heard me. Try using a Windows box without admin rights. I did, once, never again. It was some time ago so I can't remember what the problem was. And you can't just supply the Admin password, you have to logout, kill all your apps, login as admin, do what you were trying to do in the first place, if you haven't forgotten because of some other app whinging about losing data or something, logout again, restart everything....it just isn't worth it.
So with Windows you have to run as admin all the time, which is why trojans can get in so easily. Win9x effectively runs as admin all the time anyway unless you have a fancy administrator who configures it for you, which most home users don't.
If "user friendly" = "run as root by default" then yes, Linux would end up having the same problems as Windows. But it doesn't have to. Prompting for root password when attempting a privileged operation is one possible solution; if a trojan attempts to run and the root pw prompt appears, hopefully the user will be prompted to think "er, why did clicking on that MP3 cause a root prompt?" and give the game away. I'm sure there must be other solutions.
For your post to be persuasive, you're going to have to reexpress it as an image or series of images which conveys the same argument. Good luck.
Linux, on the other hand, has always been a multi-user system (well, it has since it became an OS, and not Linus's hyper-fast text editor). Because of this, and the unix philosophy in general, you'd have to go out of your way to find software that does not fit into the multi-user system model. Because of this, linux can remain more secure, even when giving it to 'joe user'.
Of course, the problem comes from the same third party vendors who don't get it in windows also not getting it in linux. Hopefully, they will know something about a multi-user system BEFORE bringing their wares to the linux world. Then again, the idiots creating cruft like 'bonzai buddy' will never get it, nor do they care.
back in the (command line) BBS days, our BBS shell had a toggled user var called (appropriately enough) I'm Smart | I'm Stupid--the 'stupid' user got less options, and more verbose help onscreen--i've always thought this was a great solution to the dilemma of how to have a workable system for both experts and newbs--why not create a modern version of this setup that will show/hide information and options, based on the user's S/S preference?
It seems kindof odd that a computer super expert would be able to discuss usability issues with any sort of authority. The simple fact thay they know computer systems so well makes them prejudicial to being human interaction specialists.
- A lot of viruses exploit flaws in OS/application code, usually C/C++. These flaws are completely unrelated to usability issues, so increasing usability does not require these flaws to become more common.
- All other viruses are actually *caused* by usability *flaws*. This includes those viruses that come as
.pif or .zip files, and spyware that installs itself by instructing users to click "yes" on IE warning dialogs. The problem is not that users are stupid, the problem is that usability is bad. Truly usable software would always inform the user of the consequences of their actions in a way the user can understand, and not allow various ways of "tricking" the user into running something dangerous. Fixing these flaws increases usability and security.
- Bad usability can cause security breaches in other ways: users can be unaware that they just shared their entire hard drive to the Internet with write access, or that there is hidden information inside Word documents, or things like that. Usable software always informs the user of the consequences of their actions. Increasing usability increases user awareness of security issues.
- Increasing usability can increase code complexity, which means that there will be more bugs. However, the security problems fixed by the increased usability outweigh this, especially when safe languages are used so that code execution bugs aren't a possibility.
Usability is not the problem. Bloated, complex code in unsafe languages is the problem. The two are not necessarily associated. Increased usability increases security due to increased user awareness of security issues.main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
The point isn't to ignore problems; the point was that there was no "attack".
The scare was all over an application that literally did nothing but display a dialog box, but was *presented* in such a way as to make it out to be a terrible, new, easily adaptable exploit that ostensibly took advantage of some fatal flaw of Mac OS X, when in fact it's just demonstrating that an application can have any icon and any name, which has been known, and possible, on the Mac platform for over twenty years.
Usability in its purest form means that the user has to jump through the fewest number of hoops possible in order to achieve their goals. Your programs can have streamlined menus, clear text, obvious buttons and intuitive guides and shortcuts without compromising security. Only in the case of default system settings do you see a conflict.
I would argue that certain things shouldn't work out of the box. Items such as your internet connection, terminal services (remote desktop), drive formatting (outside of the initial installation), and basically any other stuff that could kill your machine in a hurry should require a single additional step each in order to activate them.
Instead of enabling security holes the size of Texas by default, these items should have prominent, easy to follow displays which show you how to enable/disable and configure them (and perhaps a sentence on why it is disabled by default). When you click on them for the first time you should get a "set this up" wizard. You should also have the option of skipping the "wizard" style settings tool and go right a well designed advanced tool for those who know exactly what to change.
By making the act of enabling devices/services intuitive you are contributing to ease of use without sacrificing security. You are also promoting a sense of caution. If I need to take an extra step to turn something on, there is probably a reason for it. It also gets me used to how the system works and when there is a problem in the future, I'll have had the initial experience to help me resolve it.
That's my 2 cents worth at least.
--KS
... usability is never a liability.
All else being equal, the product that is easier to use is better. I think you're confusing usability with something else.
So what did we learn from this?
That a person on Slashdot can construct a hypothetical situation to support any point of view.
Hmm - looks like the first word I type does something. I should try help
/lib/help: Permission denied
#linux> help
Funny, I type "help" on my linux box and I get:
(There is more, but the lameness filter blocked it...)
So a help system that is incorrectly configured is apparently an example of the horrible usabiity of a command-line UI?
At this point, dad tries to read the manual, but it's all so much techno-gibberish that he is lost by the third page.
Nice bit of hand-waving there. "Darn, I forgot, the manuals might actually have useful information. Well, I'll just pretend that it's too geeky for poor old Dad to read through..."
Jay (=
Windows is not less secure because it is "more user friendly" and linux is not more secure because it can be obtuse and seem l33t-friendly. Windows is still locked into a one-box, one-app, one-user approach to things. And until they change that - and demand some basic network savvy from their average user - windows will never be more secure.
The unices were designed for a networked environment with lots of users with varying degrees of access. Security wasn't as afterthought - it was a prerequisite. As long as they are developed properly, adding some pretty icons, some control panels, even some (shudder) wizards will not make Linux less secure.
And since your pro-MS buddies are horrified by the thought of an open-source system,"open(ing) itself up" to "Joe User", I wonder why you're even taking the argument seriously. Burn them some liveCDs (I'd start with Knoppix, SuSE live-eval and FreeSBIE) and ask them to give those systems a good, hard look.
"In a hierarchy every employee will rise to his level of incompetence". The Peter Principle
As a daily user of all three of the mentioned OS's (OS X, Unix/Linux, 2000/XP) I've encountered the various problems and pitfalls that each have.
Just because on OS is very usable (easy to understand, navigate, etc) does NOT make it more liable to be hacked/trojaned/virused. What makes an OS a target of the "crackers"/script kiddies is how easy it is to bypass or defeat an OS's security system. The real blackhats enjoy a good challenge while the "crackers" and script kiddies want to do as little work as possible; all they are interested in is causing chaos and havoc.
Unfortunately, there are many more "crackers" and script kiddies than there are blackhats. As a result, the OS that's easiest to penetrate will ALWAYS be the one that gets attacked the most.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
That a bunch of Windows admins would so profoundly believe that insecurity is a necessary side effect of usability is simply an indicator of just how ingrained Microsoft's fatalistic view of security is in the windows community.
The problem isn't usability, the problem is Microsoft.
There are already Linux distributions with the usability of Windows that are far more secure. The barrier to Linux acceptance on the desktop is not usability. It's more in areas like organizational inertia, ignorance of the options and the success of Microsoft's FUD campaigns.
______
My friends and roommates who I've moved to Linux haven't had any problems with Linux's usability. It's the ones who haven't been willing to try it that have had problems with being afraid of it's usability. The roomate I have now is quite happy with Linux... I tossed him into it because his windows installation self destructed, and I really wasn't willing to provide support for Windows. He tried Linux 'as a test', and hasn't looked back since.
My first roomate that I tossed into the Linux lion's den ended up with Red Hat 6.1 and Windows 95 dual-boot. He started using Linux mostly beause that's where I always left it, and it generally just wasn't worth it to boot into Windows for most things. By the time he moved out, he'd not only given up on Windows... He'd turned into one of the most avid Linux boosters I've ever known.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
> With SELinux, it can be setup so that even root
> can't do anything it wants.
I've considered for some time that a defect in Unix is to allow root to be more powerful than the kernel itself. What happens when someone other than root escalates privileges to root level?
The kernel should be able to protect iself from security violations even by root.
This causes most Unix geeks to react in horror. They love being all-powerful.
OTOH, there probably are situations where having the kernel override root would lead to system problems as well.
This remainds me of what the sysops used to tell me when learning computer operations on the Xerox Sigma 6 thirty years ago - "When there's a problem and the OS is popping up messages, satisfy the OS first before trying anything else."
The bottom line - we need smarter kernels - and smarter roots.
To paraphrase what someone once said, "We can probably figure out how to make software smarter, but there doesn't seem to be any way to make humans smarter."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!