Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Windows: A Lower Total Cost of 0wnership
bahamutirc writes "Dave Aitel of Immunity, Inc. has written an excellent report detailing the lower Total Cost of 0wnership Microsoft Windows has over Linux. Dave takes a unique approach in comparing the two operating systems, and the results are not surprising. The paper was submitted to Bugtraq today and is available in PDF and Open Office."
Finding a vulnerability is like finding a fish. If the pond is overfished, it's harder to find them. Hackers are rather evenly split between running Linux and running Mac OSX. As much as few professional NASCAR drivers drive Dodge Neons, a negligible amount of skilled hackers use Windows as their primary OS.
Hmm, I don't see any source listed for this particular tidbit. I have a feeling that there are plenty of "skilled hackers" out there that do run Windows as their primary OS. Perhaps he means "skilled programmers" that refer to themselves as "skilled hackers".
Notably, this protection does not prevent Linux from being 0wned when a third party program is installed.
I try to read on in his document but I keep coming to "0wned" and I realize that I am not dealing with a professional. I suppose his intended audience (Bugtraq) might be familiar with how 31337 he is but I just can't believe he would bother to spend the time writing up a "paper" with those stupid misspellings.
I thought SCO were the ones supposed to be astroturfing on Slashdot...
...talk about 0wnership of Windows yesterday?
Right is wrong when left is right.
...I foresee problems. Thus, a mirror.
The Army reading list
LOL, the O from Ownership is a zero how L337. You have been 0wned by microsoft.
Honestly though, I love the graph in the article titled "Difficulty of owning Windows vs Difficulty to make this graph". When I saw that, I thought the article would be total Microsoft bashing, but hey, they ended up recomending to use Windows. I'd have to say that this true in the business world, almost everyone that I've talked to who uses a computer at work for word processing, etc is totally afraid of linux and think it is this scary beast. Until people can work with linux and not be afraid to try things, ms will win.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
Read it. It's the best TC0 analysis I've ever seen.
Scratch that, it's the only TC0 analysis I've ever seen.
(hint hint)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I love his show on Comedy Central!
Best Buy can have you arrested
I imagine that yes, due to the cheap labor of script kiddies that Windows does indeed have a lower cost of '0wnership' (sic).
Mirrored here and here in case of Slashdotting.
And no, this isn't a joke, although it is kind of entertaining!
MD5:
19bd158b9e471db49acd91f0493b81ec *tc0.pdf
5ca7eb699b94967ee2d255c021e1686f *tc0.sxw
as one who has written more than I care to count, you can almost always make a case for the choice you want by inserting some things and leaving out others.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Lol I love it! I didn't actually realise that it was Total Cost of '0'wnership ;)
This is a very clever way of making a very valid point - I can forsee this report landing on a free IT purchaser's desks mixed in with all the "real" (or MS-funded) TCO reports, because it is so well designed.
And my favorite quote? "As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market." I love it!
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
I know I could make more money if I had more *nix chops
damn me and my stupid Windows Ninja Skills!
This
Your primary business is creating mal-ware!!
*narf!*
not only does Windows have a TCO, it has a TCP - Total Cost of pwn3rsh1p
... from someone who stays up all night, every night, getting drunk? Oh, Dave Aitel, not Dave Attell. Never mind.
I've never seen a paper written with L337 terminology before.
uh, the article is satirical...
Heh, you can't argue the fact that more people knows windows than linux. Just that alone should makes it easier to hire less administrators or cheaper admins.
A couple of definitions of "parody" for you: Google's and Wikipedia's.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Let the flame wars commence!
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Of which I have not previously been aware! Good job! And a much better apples-to-apples comparison than I've seen done by either the open or closed source side- since this form of 0wnership totally removes the initial cost of licensing the install.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The article is in fact called "Total cost of 0wnership", so RTFA yourself.
so any news that says Linux is great despite all the facts becomes Insightful and new news praising Windows is Flamebait??
Pretty interesting, though it could be argued that the article is biased/flaimbate.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
My first clue otherwise was the pie chart in the Executive Summary; "Difficulty of owning Windows vs Difficulty to make this graph".
Now, once I see the 0 in 0wning, I'm laughing my ass off...
factor this!
Excellent paper!! I h0pe the Cx0's 0ut there take a l0ng hard l00k.
In my 0rganizati0n, we've c0me t0 basically the same c0nclusi0n. In fact, the c0st 0f 0wnership f0r wind0ws f0r us has been *net negative*, due t0 the tremend0us number 0f an0nym0us v0lunteers we've f0und 0n the internet wh0 are m0re than willing t0 0wn 0ur machines f0r us!
Linux can't even t0uch that!
Ignoring the few privilege elevation exploits we've seen over the years, why in the world would anyone install an untrustworthy program as root?
Seriously, of all the ways my modest little linux server has been nailed over the years, it's never been the installation of software itself.
Some heavy-duty software insists on root installation, but this is only ever well-known stuff for which md5s are available.
I agree, what a dumbass.
The article contains a graph "Difficulty of owning Windows vs difficulty to make this graph" on page 3. I think it is safe to assume the whole thing is just a bad joke which the editors at slashdot seem to have fallen for.
Did anybody else think of Dave Attell when reading that story summary? Especially the "0wnership" part.
And we should be able to mod posters as "Didn't RTFA" / "RTFA, but didn't get that it was a joke"...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Too bad we can't mod articles up. That's the funniest thing I've read in quite awhile.
Just in time too - bad Friday juju around the office at the moment. I think I'll forward this around and lift the collective mood before a coffee pot goes flying into a random cubicle.
Your comment is based on the assumption that the editor didn't see the humour angle and thought it was serious. What makes you think the editor thought it was serious? It would get posted either way - whether it was because it was real or because it was funny.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Hmm, I've been in Information Security for 7 years and almost everyone I have worked with uses phrases like "sk1llz", "0wn3d" and "l33t d00d" on a regular basis.
:)
Not that it is proper terminology, but it is a lot more fun than being an anal, angry arse about every pleasant or immature phrase spoken in one's vacinity. Then again, I tend not to underestimate someone for the phrases they use. This can be a terrible mistake.
According to netcraft, they are: "running Apache on Linux when last queried at 8-Aug-2004 17:45:38 GMT"
m mu nitysec.com
:)
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.i
So inspite of the fact that their paper presents them as yet another security wannabe (as in a script-kiddie with a website) they at least have the sense to not run Windows on their own servers.
Windows is indeed a cheap system to 0wn!
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
This article should probably be primarily under the Humor "foot" section, not security. The foot is there, just not on the main page.
You're not too bright, are you?
I stopped reading it when it referred to OS X as a toy os. I'm not a mac zealot, but I have found OS X to be a very good platform and would never consider it a 'toy os'. Because of this, I couldn't take the report seriously, when they put such a condescending slant on something like that.
I'm only half way through the report, and it seems to have the worse logic that I have ever seen.
Most hackers run Linux or Mac, therefore Windows is safer. Where the hell does this come from?
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
This is obviously a joke. Come on man, Laugh!
That was weird. It felt like a joke as I was reading it, and when I was done I backed out to the fairly professional looking website. Even after reading some posts, it seems like some other people here can't really tell either, although it was kinda funny. Forgive and correct me if I'm wrong, because I've never heard of this company, but it looks like some 1337 h4x0rz who hired an art guy for the website and someone who faked a technical communications degree to proofread and format their reports.
I'm guilty of the first
[hangs head in shame]
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Dude, did you even read my paper? It's hardly MS propoganda. That's a zero on the front of 0wn. It's a play on words.
Perhaps the article could have avoided the confusion we seem to be seeing on the /. boards - and retained its original meaning - if it had been titled "...Total Cost of Pwnership". (Though it would lose the subtlety points it now enjoys.)
Those of you flaming this article as astroturf should RTFA and NTFD (Notice the F***ing Details) so that you can GTFJ (Get the F***ing Joke).
Skim the article... maybe you'll find a link to a crowbar to pry your foot out of your mouth. (Or, "Don't tell others to RTFA if you haven't RTFA yourself.")
- fader
I try to read on in his document but I keep coming to "0wned" and I realize that I am not dealing with a professional. I suppose his intended audience (Bugtraq) might be familiar with how 31337 he is but I just can't believe he would bother to spend the time writing up a "paper" with those stupid misspellings.
:-P
Wow... you just don't get it, do you?
Can someone tell me why the heck this was modded insightful? More like -1: Don't Get It.
T-shirt: My other computer is your Windows box.
Take care,
brad
This was never meant to be insightful. It was meant to be just as satirical as the article seemed to have been.
Please moderate accordingly.
Sorry I missed the fact that this is (incorrectly) filed under "It's funny. Laugh." so obviously the slashdot editors have not "fallen for" it.
You didn't read the article did you.
No I'm not new here.
Which came first the difficulty or the graph?
It's a joke asshole. This is exactly why you have no friends. Social skills garcia, social skills.
After he compiles his data, he discovers that Mac OSX has a lower total cost of ownership. To that he states "As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TCO on the Market." Do these guys ever listen to the reports put out buy business when a Window's virus rips Through companies infrastructure infecting everything and causing massive disruptions? The estimated damages are always HUGE. Even if you did patch your server it doesn't mean all the desktops in your company have been serviced. The colateral damage of a virus looking for unpatched windows machines is often as bad as being infected. Just for once I'd like to see a TCO report that accounts for this. -Cho
No, no. They've proved it; they even included the source code.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"In the same way that IE is faster than IE (because it's part of the OS), Windows has a lower TOC because a lot of the training costs have been absorbed by the Government - the average high school student gets hundreds of hours of Windows specific training, and no Linux training.
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
Yeah, but what about big-cocked beautiful nerds?
You're fail to address my situation here.
Normal colors: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/13/162125 3
What the Fuck are they talking about? I understand it's a parody article, but I couldn't make sense of the gibberish in the article. Someone please explain!
Total cost of 0wnership? Hmmm...
... LOL
I like the graphic on page 3 of the PDF... comparing "Difficulty of 0wning Windows vs. Difficulty to make this Graph"
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
That was funny Melissa :)
What a difference a 0 vs an O can make. So I can assume that my board has no clue what it means to 0wn a system, show them the PDF, and get a pat on the back for choosing Windows. Or, I can show them this huge satire and have them ask why I chose Windows when Linux is clearly more secure, then have them fire my rear. Ah, the perplexities of IT...
Linux (FC2) has had 3 0-day exploits, average time 6 days? wha? And they explicitly don't count rootkits, so it's only an upfront cost of 0wnership, not a /total/ cost of 0wnership...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Should be "IE is faster than Mozilla"
In the same way that IE is faster than Mozilla (because it's part of the OS), Windows has a lower TOC because a lot of the training costs have been absorbed by the Government - the average high school student gets hundreds of hours of Windows specific training, and no Linux training.
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
All your base are belong to us.
I now own your box!
Dave, I just want to say man, I love your show on Comedy Central. Great job and keep up the good work!
Come on people, are we so paranoid that we cannot understand a parody anymore? Don't get so serious, it was one of the most fun thing I've read in a long time. And we get angry when they call us "zealots". Our advantage over the rest is that we are FREE to mock up ourselves (and mock with others, for sure) and this "paper" was amazingly competent in doing that.
Good job! I do expect people realize it's unique "point of view".
I get "teh j0ke5orz" and all, but it just was hard to tell of the legitimacy and the semi-professional look and feel of the website.
man that's a funny article, but to be honest, if you stick 2 firewalls infront of your windows box, it's perfectly safe. That and use a real virus scanner/blocker. I could be paranoid, but I use the router to block all inbound port scans, zone alarm on my gateway server and install virus protection on the systems. so far, no virii for 2 years. It's kinda like wearing 3 condoms, but hey it works.
I can't find the -1 didn't get the joke mod anywhere
Mod parent up!
Totally !
The article is clearly inconsistant even with itself:
As much as few professional NASCAR drivers drive Dodge Neons, a negligible amount of skilled hackers use Windows as their primary OS.
Later in the same paragraph, it decides to insult OS X as being insecure:
As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market.
The article is at best childish propaganda. Why was this posted?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Difficulty of owning windows versus difficulty of making this graph??? What the heck is that?
"Summary
Immunity's findings clearly show that the best platform for your targets to be running is Microsoft Windows, allowing you unparalleled value for their dollar. This result reinforces the fact that its important to consider more than just licensing fees when your targets choose their OS. Indeed, a variety of factors go into their choice, and over time, Windows has demonstrated itself to be the top contender in the, in both the server and the desktop space for Total Cost of 0wnership."
Love how he refers to them as targets...
It obvious that the whole paper can be summed up with his pie graph given at the beginging of the paper. I must conceed to the Windows OS, Any OS that is easier than making a pie chart in Open Office must be far suppior. I don't know how much money MS is paying him for this, but when you start using phrases like "XP SP2 will have Heap loads more..." Yeah it'll have a heap load more of something alright...more crap If anything, it convinces me to go out and but this "Toy" OS X that he talks about, hmmmm, oh yeah the one that 50% of the hackers use, Oh, yeah they must know an OS when they see one
All the colors of the rainbow! (well, i guess maybe not all ;)
Pretty greeen
Nice and red
Pasionate purple
A nice dull grey
uhhh, brown?
All of them easier on the eyes than puke color.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
I avoided using mod points just so I could post this tidbit:
:)
If you think it means Total Cost of Ownership, as it relates to some BS middle-to-upper-management measurement, then you didn't RTFA.
That is all.
I wasn't particularly impressed. First it was the glamor shots of the employees, then the pie chart and the 0 in ownership. I guess I'm starting to get old when I expected to see something marginally professional from people have their own Incorporated entity.
Computer security enthusiasts will never achieve any measure of professional acceptance as long as script kiddies somehow manage to form business organizations. It reeks like the Joker from Batman.
What is CANVAS but a GUI over a database of known exploit code... written as a python script? Did these guys really write anything or just c/p the whole thing together?
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Start over. But, this time, turn on your missing sense of humor.
That's nice, but you're about 7 lightyears offtopic, idiot.
What incredible irony.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
new news praising Windows
uhh... it didn't praise windows... did you read the article?
TCOM = Total Cost Of Malware. Just don't install a service pack from a network, hard drive, or CD ROM and try to get to Windows Update before malware gets installed on your system. Chances are the malware will get on your system before the service pack.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Yeah, and the post was a joke (as some people have so kindly noticed). Sadly most people are too clueless to see the humor.
Apple, with the supply problems it's having with the G5, can not supply enough systems to the F500 to make a difference.
Bitch, mod me down, email bomb me all you want but that won't change the fact that apple has supply issues. Remember why Jobs announced the delay in the G5 iMac?
Okay, for those of you out there like me that don't live and breath jargon, this paper is a joke, a satire, a ha-ha (and a very good one from what I can tell).
By Lowest Total Cost of 0wnership (spelled with a zero), they mean that Windows is easier to "0wn" i.e. hack into.
0wning (with a zero instead of an O) a computer is high-falutin' jargon meaning that you have hacked into it and can do as you please.
So the point here (joke explained): that the cheapest, easiest system to hack is Windows. That's not exactly a joke (since it's true), but it's a joke since they're using the Total Cost of Ownership metric...just redefining Ownership to be 0wnership (with a zero).
Why is it spelled with a zero? That's because that's the way (cue menacing music) the hackers do it.
Clever paper, but too clever for people who don't use the terminology. Extra points for the in-jokes.
No astroturf here. Well done!
Ok, a funny joke, but still.
I notice this paper still uses terms like "vulnerability." Instead of calling these things holes or vulnerabilities, the term I prefer is "window." As in, "Somebody found a window into the IIS web server" and so on.
The plural is left as an exercise to the reader.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
I knew it all along. Windows is indeed cheaper. We all know and use it. Interface is nice and almost never crashes all locks up like linux programs.
Check the newsgroups there are hundreads of programs available for taking.
That bring TOC to almost nothing. Linux is great and
really good but just not to everybody.
You gotta know linux or have time to play with it
where is my girlfriend ?
All things being equal, you need more Windows admins per machine and Linux admins.
Because of taxes and misc employee expenses, it's cheaper to hire one $100K admin than two $45K admins, so even if you have to pay more than double for a Linux/Unix admin, you'll actually save money.
Watching these posts come in is brightening my day by the minute. The responses and the "don't get it factor" are funnier than the article!
It's funny. Laugh.
It's a clever piece of satire. Even so, the paper "defines" the use of "0wn" in the paper for those not L337 aware...
Those who complain about affect & effect on
Thanks for YAFLA (yet, another four letter anacronymn).
Apparently a large portion of the Slashdot commenters aren't aware of what '0wn' means in the hacker/cracker sense of the word. If you root a machine, you 'own' it. "I got 0wned" means "I got hacked/broken into". Now look at the title of this report, total cost of '0wnership', not 'Ownership'. Now do you understand the joke/point of the paper?
Hey I'm a Gentoo administrator, and I'll work as an intern for 7 bucks an hour at 40 to 50 hours a week during summers and 20 to 25 hours a week during semesters. The distribution is free to download, and I'm cheap as sin! Hire me please :)
The whole thing -- both Microsoft coming up with bogus TCO and Linux people coming up with bogus TCO -- is ridiculous. You can't say "X is the TCO of operating system Y". It depends overwhelmingly on your particularly circumstances. If you:
* Have a set of people that already know Windows well
* Use a set of Windows-only custom apps that would have to be run in WINE or rewritten for Linux
* Have high turnover and want to take advantage of the larger number of people that know how to use Windows and Windows-based apps.
* Have a network that is entirely seperated from the Internet, so security is less of an issue, and stuff like Microsoft's RPC/filesharing mechanism being on isn't a problem.
All these things could easily push TCO in favor of Windows. If you:
* Run open-source software already
* Have employees familiar with programming or scripting that can benefit from having an environment oriented towards easily scripting or programming
* Have existing Linux/UNIX expertise
* Run apps that run on Linux or UNIX
* Want to use thin clients
TCO may be tilted in favor of Linux.
It's so ridiculous to try to come out with bogus claims. The reason people don't *like* Microsoft is because they have lied to and burned their customers for many years. Trying to just do the same to "compete" with them is idiotic. Let them make whatever TCO claims they want, and then point out how absurd it is to make non-application-specific TCO claims, instead of just making equally ridiculous TCO claims.
May we never see th
I shouldn't have to point this out here, but I guess I do... The original definition of "hacker" was just that a skilled programmer. See this entry int the Jargon File. Personally, I'm annoyed by the usage of hacker to mean some that breaks into other's machines.
..or a perfect joke, which no one but the writer will get.
Not just in the unprofessional writing and methodology, but in its ad hominem judgements on other technologies without fact. Example from page 5: "As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market." Mind you, I am a Mac OS X system admin, so there is a little bias here, but I also use other operating systems and know of the joys and tragedies of each. This article is polarized to say anything that justifies their position. We call this behavior (in IT circles) being a zealot. Given that Mac OS X's underpinnings have a history dating back to 1988 and have many, many users at home, business, and professional circles using it, I don't see his reasoning or his proof.
There is little else to the study as well, which talks more of about obscure vunerabilities in Linux and not the many, many, many actual attacks that have occurred. I know--we ALL know how many virus attacks have happened on our BSD/Linux/Mac OS X boxen over the last year versus Windows: Not even one.
So the only question is, how much was this guy paid, and how tasty was the Kool-Aid?
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Uh, Having a lower total cost of 0wnership is not a good thing. Maybe Ownership but not 0wnership.
For God sake. You guys who are so confident of your awsome intelligence just don't get this!
0wned = hacked
Owned = purchased
High cost of 0wnership = good thing
High cost of Ownership = bad thing
Now RTFA again.
Maybe not, but you can certainly 0wn it.
Nono, didn't you hear? The moment you start using Linux, your IQ jumps up 40 points.
I thought perhaps, that some reading this may not like to have to open up acrobat or Open Office... Enjoy:
Microsoft Windows: A lower Total Cost of 0wnership
August 12, 2004
Introduction
Microsoft has long asked third party analysts for accurate assessments of the total cost of ownership of Microsoft Windows deployments, especially against the Linux deployments commonly going into all segments of the market. However, Immunity, Inc. as a third party assessment provider has, until now, not done a thorough analysis, using Immunity proprietary data to tell the true story about the costs of Open Source.
Other sources of 3rd party information can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/facts/default.asp
The point of contact for this paper is Dave Aitel, Vice President of Media Relations, Immunity, Inc. He can be reached at mailto:dave@immunitysec.com. Further information on Immunity, Inc. is available at http://www.immunitysec.com/ .
Executive Summary
Based on our analysis, Microsoft Windows has one half the Total Cost of 0wnership (TC0) of modern Fedora Core Linux based technologies.
Immunity's Methodology
Immunity has four major services: Training on exploit development and vulnerability analysis, Application Security Consulting, the CANVAS assessment product, and the Immunity Vulnerability Sharing Club. In each of these, the costs to penetrate (0wn) systems based on Microsoft Windows Technologies was compared to the costs against a modern Linux system. In general there are three aspects to 0wning a system. These three things, Vulnerability Detection, Exploit Development, and Attack Execution, were used by Immunity to determine the costs to 0wn the different operating systems in configurations encountered during Immunity engagements. As Immunity is not in the rootkit (http://www.rootkit.com/) writing business, this paper does not cover the costs of maintaining 0wnership over a given OS.
Vulnerability Detection
There are several factors that affect how difficult it is to find vulnerabilities on a target platform. Some of these are listed below. Immunity's judgments are drawn from our current collection of remote 0day in the VSC, countless 0day in custom applications for Immunity Consulting customers across many different operating systems and over 80 remote exploits in CANVAS.
Portability of common exploit development tools
IDA-Pro, the premier disassembler and reverse engineering tool (a database and a disassembler together make for a powerful combination) is able to disassemble both Linux and Windows binaries, but only runs on Windows. A Linux version is, however, rumored to be in the works.
PDB (Python Debugger), Immunity's newest tool in the armory, is available only for Windows (although the client is available on both Linux and Windows). This tool allows for many advanced scripts to be run, widely automating the exploit development process.
Ollydbg (Visual Debugger), is far superior to GDB in many ways needed for exploit development. In addition, windbg and Softice provide valuable options for debugging at the kernel and user level.
The TC0 advantage is clearly obvious for the Windows platform.
Availability of Fish
Finding a vulnerability is like finding a fish. If the pond is overfished, it's harder to find them. Hackers are rather evenly split between running Linux and running Mac OSX. As much as few professional NASCAR drivers drive Dodge Neons, a negligible amount of skilled hackers use Windows as their primary OS.
Not to mention, many Win32 fish are given out for free by Microsoft when releasing patches. (See
Help a college student
would be interesting if the article was about ownership of windows, but it's offtopic here
Dee-terminin' summone's intell-ee-gense based on theer term-man-knowledge-gee is uh beeg musttake.
Man, I got soooo excited when I saw the URL including "wet," "sexy," and "girl"- one of my favorite search combos for Google! Alas, how let down was I to find that there's no pr0n on that site. False advertisement?
RTFA- you'll only buy this TC0 argument if you want to 0wn systems (to send out spam or viruses) or if you don't mind your company's systems being hacked.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I've worked IT for over two decades, and only the young'uns use "l33t speak," and even then it is only when they are feeling playful.
I tend not to underestimate someone for the phrases they use.
I try not to underestimate anyone, but I do use the words that come out of their mouths to gauge them. If they sound like cretins, they usually are, which isn't a dangerous thing to know, but a useful one.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
I try to read on in his document but I keep coming to "0wned" and I realize that I am not dealing with a professional. I suppose his intended audience (Bugtraq) might be familiar with how 31337 he is but I just can't believe he would bother to spend the time writing up a "paper" with those stupid misspellings.
Regardless of the presentation method, the point they are getting across is the same. Security lists have many "elite" and "old school" style posters and groups that present situations, exploits, and bug reports. You can agree with or complain about the style not being as business professional as some others but they are taken just as serious as one that would be written by someone that writes presidential speeches. Ignoring all elitist style exploits or security issues that come up because you did not think it was presented in a professional enough manner is not a very good idea. Of course, in a few days someone will have converted the same information to plain english and posted it somewhere else so you can use that.
IMHO, the elitist ones are often more technically detailed in the initial posts then a blurb that has been through the PR department.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
You were spanked as a child, weren't you.
For those who, like me, were mildly confused by this showing up, it seems it's an old typesetting exercise. Google the first few words and you'll find plenty of information on it.
Yes, I agree completely.. the c0st of being 0wned is totally different...
nice, people. way to cut and paste. lol
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Hehe, funny but shame few here have a sense of humour!
Please read some comments before writing your own, guys (and gals JIC) just so you know what's going on!
doc
This could be one of the best "Trolls" EVER!!! I love it!
RTFA a bit closer- TC0 not TCO. In other words, this paper proves what you say.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I try to read on in his document but I keep coming to "0wned" and I realize that I am not dealing with a professional. I suppose his intended audience (Bugtraq) might be familiar with how 31337 he is but I just can't believe he would bother to spend the time writing up a "paper" with those stupid misspellings.
That's because it's a joke. 0wn is jargon for exploiting a system. Since linux is more secure than windows, the Total Cost of 0wning the system is greater. Unfortunately, now that I've explained it, it's not funny anymore. Sorry.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Does anybody have a copy of this "article" in a useable format? We don't use Open Office or Acrobat on any of our business machines. Shit, what ever happened to plain ol' HTML, which had the benefit of being open and was designed for presentations?
> pry your foot out of your mouth.
Be kinda' hard with their head rammed so far up their ass, now wouldn't it?
Security lists have many "elite" and "old school" style posters and groups that present situations, exploits, and bug reports.
Industry respected security lists are not plagued with this sort of juvenile rubbish. The worst it gets is moronic abbreviations (u 4 b, etc.) and people still use handles over their birth names. The only places that you see leet-speak is when people are screwing around on IRC or on fringe security sites where wannabes try to make up for their lack of proficiency. Respected security lists make professional presentations of factual material.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
I've been working in IT for like 2 months, and I'll punch anyone that uses that stuff too much around me. But then again, no one does. But if they did... WHAM!
Funny paper, but why the hell was it posted to Bugtraq?
Ignoring the few privilege elevation exploits we've seen over the years, why in the world would anyone install an untrustworthy program as root?
Well if Fedora ever gets their SELinux policy straightened out enough to have it in the default install it well remedy the problem even for those who do install untrustworthy programs as "root" (for as much as root makes sense on SELinux) unless they go and muck with the policy files too (which is rather unlikely). Roll SELinux I say. Let's actually have Linux live up to the sort of security the fan boys claim it has now.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
grrr -- grow up people. sheeeeeeeeeeesH. whatta lame article. TC"uh" "Oh" - fruk that.
This isn't funny, some managers in the corporate world will read this and be convinced that everyone needs to switch back to Microsoft Windows!
...why in the world would anyone install an untrustworthy program as root?
For the same reason people do it on Windows. Cluelessness.
Put those same people on Linux, hand them a malicious floppy, and they'll happily root themselves, and send your their password.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Run Windows and your box can be owned for less...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Ah, so your post is funny because it's a perfect impression of someone who didn't get the joke?
....hence, why it says it's cheaper to 0wn a Windows box than Linux.
It mentions nothing about Total Cost of Ownership.
It does, however, mention Total Cost of 0wnership, which is completely different....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Not up to Swift quality but a humorous effort none the less.
Where unprofessional journalism looks like crap. (OMG j00r 0wned hehehe!)
So tragic that the partial l337 mis-spell ruined it.
I can see the author mentally doing "lines"... .....
I must spell it 0wn3d I must spell it 0wn3d
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
IMHO the problem isn't with SELinux vs traditional root stuff; it's that all the damn package managers require root to run.
I'd love to see a distro where all the non-core (anything beyond the kernel and /sbin?) packages installed under /usr/local/bin/ as some user other than the root user; instead of requiring root access just to install a web broser in the default location.
Yes, the original poster knew it was a joke, now the joke is on YOU.
It's funny because the moderators are clueless.
Here is a comment I "love"
>>> Page 5: As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OSX, Windows has the lowest TCO.
This is pure BS! Just that comment makes me question his entire sincerity and unbiased attitude.
Let me explain my reasoning. He is making such a comment about another OS, which means from square one he is already biased and searching for data to make his point fit.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
One wonders - if articles like this come up more often, how long until it becomes the norm (ie >50% of people do it) for people to RTFA? Maybe we'll just end up with a new class of "Glanced At The Fantastic Article"...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
I can understand that Microsoft Windows has a lower cost of ownership than Linux. However, I feel that the REAL issue is the cost of ownership of a perssonal computer! Sure, computers (the hardware and software) are significantly cheaper to PURCHASE. But regardless of what operating system your computer runs (any flavor of Windows, UNIX/LINUX, or Mac), the cost of owning a personal computer today is extravagent, and the problem is only getting worst. It is not as simple as learning how to type, how to operate a web browser or a word-processing/office suite, but you have to be concerned with viruses, spyware, malware, security holes, software patches, and a whole plethora of other issues.
Actually, I think the ones ADTi puts out about Darl being the true author of Linux that Linus copied are even funnier. It's amusing how ADTi makes Microsoft look like a bunch of idiots with their own money.
I would have to say.. /. is actually windows users.
The reason these guys are not getting the joke is that about 85% of
They might have been able to get the joke if they had not been busy installing service packs, fending off viruses and email trojans, having their browser constantly puking popups and getting hijacked, dealing with network popup spam and the million other things that bother them on a daily basis before it bluescreens and they shut it down out of frustration at the end of the day.
So, I enjoy sitting here watching the Mac and windows guys (both of whom didn't understand the joke it seems) posting away about not understanding it, or trying to defend that macos as toy comment. (which we used to call macs "beige toasters" on usenet.. that was a popular flame war that went on for years.)
back to work I guess..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
IMHO the paper was very badly written. It should have a better Abstract, and a Conclusion. If it wanted to be a good joke, it did it wrong.
that you're a six digit UID too, albeit a low one.
...while still taking the report seriously ? Holy crap, this entire discussion has got to be the saddest thing I've ever seen.
/. comments. God damnit.
Talk about FUD ! I see people ranting about how biased TCO studies are when they haven't even read the fucking article. Jesus Christ. Microsoft may fund piece of shit studies, but at least that includes some studying. That ranks slightly better than complete knee-jerk reactionary
--LordPixie
p.s. Pseudo-Apologies for picking on the parent post. He was definitely not the only offender.
michael (the guy who posted this article) must not have gotten past the first page of this so-called "report". If he had, I doubt that he would have approved it. This was put together by none other than a looser gamer. Seriously, I have not been happy with some of the articles that have made it on slashdot lately. Please guys, let's do better than this.
Yeah, I'm flaming. Office boredom drives me to do malicious things.
--LordPixie
pwnt I say.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Difficulty of making this graph.
Classic!
Read the article. Then realize you're insanely off-topic, and making ignorant knee-jerk posts.
--LordPixie
So in other words, metamod needs an option +1 Moderation Was Funny.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
When you have a OS that contains a "feature" of allowing your box to be infected by a worm within 1 minute of being connected to the net, without a doubt, yes I must agree that Windows does have a lower TC0. A lower TC0 for the individual(s) that rooted your box yes. What would be real funny if Microsoft caught wind of that "study" and actually quoted from it for their little "Get The Facts Straight" campaign without realizing its true intention. ;)
also, couldn't he have just submitted the paper in fricken HTML like a normal person?
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Well, you seem to be pretty bad at getting jokes. The article isn't about cost of ownership, it's cost of 0wnership.
This juxtaposition makes me dizzy!
So, it is lower over, no? Over lower?
I don't see a link to a M$-Word document among the choices...
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
When was the last time you saw a Slashdotter read an article that mentioned Linux/Microsoft/Apple/SCO rather than just post their pre-determined opinion ? --LordPixie
Yeah, they ought to spell it 0wnz0rship; since this is a cute countermeme to "TCO"
if you make sure the audience gets the joke right away.
>;k
Linuxinsider or Laura dIdiot to start referencing this
Check out my PHP Url Validator
I'm beginning to think the only people that can write and get jokes like this are the stereotypical, jaded, cynical, Daily Show watching, The Onion reading, Simpsons quoting Gen X'ers like myself. And I base this conclusion on absolutely nothing. :)
I think we've raised satire into high art that only few can appreciate or even comprehend. From my point of view, I can't believe anyone that actually read the paper couldn't at least know it was intended to be joke even if they didn't actually understand it or why it was suppose to be funny.
I suppose it's like that with anything though. Like someone who is an art expert sees some piece of abstract piece as brilliant, but most people wouldn't even recognize or know it was even suppose to be art.
"Are you being sarcastic?"
"Dude, I don't even know anymore."
"With the exception of the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TCO...Mac 1 hour to 0day, Windows 3 days to oDay"
Trying hard not to be flamebait here or an ad for apple, but why is Mac OS X considered a toy OS in this report? Seems to me that this report stamped OS X as a viable alternative to windows based networks. Afterall you can have the features of windows, the stability of BSD, and a significantly lower TC'0'. Seems to be the report should be renamed... ; )
-- Bored? Check out my Portfolio
I believe the term should be spelled Total Cost of 0wnzeredship.
Kudos on a delicious bit of satire!
I upgraded my vmware image last week when my circuit was down. Instead of loading zonealarm first, I went to windowsupdate first.
BIG MISTAKE!
In the first 10 minutes it took to install the first patch, I got 2 blaster variants and the latest LASS.
There could have been more. I ended up reloading. This time, I had zonealarm and SP2 on before I brought the network interface up.
I was a fool. I should have known better.
It proves that this article is way wrong. He claims that TC0 is 3 days for windows. It's only 3 minutes.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
Sure the article is a joke, but actually there is some serious stuff in it as well. If you made it all the way to page 6 and read the section about ExecShield and PaX, you would notice, that this section is not a joke. It actually explains about some real security meassures that exists in Linux. Of course there are large parts of the article, where I'm not sure if it is a joke or just talking about some stuff I don't know about.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
This is clearly an attempt at SATIRE. It's supposed to use lame script kiddie speak. The article has its tongue planted so firmly in its cheek, half the Slashdotters missed it completely.
Go back and read the article again. Slowly. Run off the assumption that it is not serious. Apply a bit of reading comprehension and critical thinking. For the love of god...
--LordPixie
This is true. Most of the time, when a Windows machine is 0wn3d, it's grandma's pr0n collection. Or little Mary's .mp3 collection.
But when a Linux machine is 0wn3d, it's more likely to be a business server.
dDoS is the only factor that really clouds the issue a bit. What's the total ratio of Windows to Linux machines 0wn3d and used for dDoS attacks?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Its an attempt at satire. Unfortunately, it a total failure. About as funny as famine.
Mozilla Slashdot colors bookmarklet
It looks like all it took to 0wn about ½ of the replying slashdotters was 11 pages of pdf.
Maybe you should place the 0 in quotes.
http://www.techyrants.com
I agree wholeheartedly...I thought the term was "Pwn3d".
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Personally, I'm annoyed by the usage of hacker to mean some that breaks into other's machines.
Personally, I'm annoyed by fuckwits who constantly bitch about the way the word hacker is used. Quit sucking ESR's cock and get a fucking life.
I'm surprised that the Mac fans haven't reacted to the article's description of Mac OS X as "a toy OS". I've always thought that, but not possessing an asbestos suit, I'd never have dared to say it. Perhaps there just aren't that many Mac advocates left nowadays.
obviously I didn't read the fricken article....typical...
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Is it possible for a million MORE people not to understand what this article is saying? Total cost of YOU as a hacker TAKING OVER an OS such as Windows or Linux.
Windows has a LOWER total cost of taking over an OS thus making it worse... har har.
It's funny! Laugh!
Industry respected security lists are not plagued with this sort of juvenile rubbish.
Wow... You sound like a very uptight person. A very anal person.
LOL. First page I cocked my head and furrowed my brow. Second page I started snickering.
;-)
Not bad
An excellent article. Highly informative and well researched. However, the author made a blatant spelling mistake in the fourth word of the title. How anyone can mispell "0wnz0rship" so baddly is beyond me... :-)
I know the article's a joke (so no RTFA please), but I've noticed something in all these Windows TCO comparisons.
They assume that Unix/Linux admin staff are more expensive than Windows admin staff. This is quite correct and is thus a fair point.
They assume that the number of staff required to administer a bunch of Linux servers is proportionally the same as the number of staff required to administer a bunch of Windows servers.
WRONG! TOTALLY WRONG!! WHO TOLD THEM THAT?! STOP DOING IT!!!
Because it's just a joke... see 0wnership != Ownership
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Sometimes I'm called a geek by non-geeks who don't realize how little I deserve this level of respect.
Of course this is a joke--but are there greater geeks out there who think it's well done or insightful? Guess I'm just not geeky enough. A waste of my time.
If you have to pay an IT guy anyway--why not use Linux for your business? It's easy to maintain if you know how--more secure and harder to mess up (once you get it set up right--which is much tougher). If you don't have an IT guy and just need an intuitive, easy to install and use OS--stay the heck away from Linux. If you think an OS is a tool--not and end--and have an accountant or other person doubling as your IT person--for god's sake don't use linux.
Treadnot
Security
Windows
It's Funny. Laugh.
in this order.
Funny, Windows, Linux and maybe Security would better represent what the article is about.
windows boxes are sure a lot easier to 0wn!
~ ddf ~
No, he shouldn't have. Some of us prefer not to be beaten over the head with jokes -too- hard.
RTFM
How did this get modded insightful?l * *hmph*
RTFA! RTFA! RTFA!
I think I may finally stop posting as AC and
get an account just so I can mod you down for
being a karma-whoring, pompous, not article-reading
goober.......
arrgg
*insightfu
(of course this post was designed just for people
like you, so w/out you it wouldn't be nearly as funny...)
Never underestimate the ability of someone to misinterpret your writing.
;)
On the other hand, I didn't need to read the article at all - it was immediately obvious to me exactly what type of 'ownership' you were talking about
Either that or maybe it's time we forced everyone to use a font that has a slash through the zero...
I really, really enj0yed this article. A 8Ri11iN7 piece of w0rk!
Way to go, Dave!!
Classic defense. If you don't get it the joke's obviously not funny.
Maybe you're just dumb.
My other car is first.
I imagine that yes, due to the cheap labor of script kiddies that Windows does indeed have a lower cost of '0wnership' (sic).
I belive the point is that Microsoft boxes are so insecure that it's much cheaper to code and deploy a Windows exploit and end up 0wnerz-ing a bunch of machines than there is for other OSes.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Look at the first graph -- that gives you your first big hint.
I admit the parody is pretty subtle, but most people should "get it" by the end of the article.
What's the joke here? In this article it claims that on average MS can be 0wned in 3 days, Linux in 6 days and OSX in 1hr.
I have not experienced this average, I find OSX fairly difficult to exploit barring the sillyness of Safari.
This report listed nothing else regarding any tests done on OSX, what vulnerabilities were found, nor was it compared to Windows or linux in the report. I find it questionable that this person list OSX as a "toy os" then fail to provide any reason for the comment.
What was the point?
If that comment had not been made then I would have likely bought into it. But now I question it completely, I think the article is nothing more than a poke against MS with zero credibility to back it up.
RTFA, nitwit. Its not about TCO, its about TC0. 0wn3rsh1p, not ownership. Get it?
*sigh*
Geez, rtfa already.
Well, as soon as the author called Mac OS X a "toy OS", I stopped reading.
I have earned the NT4 MCSE, the Windows 2000 MCSA, the LPI certification level 2, and numerous other certs from CompTIA.
Linux and Windows are from very different worlds of administration and troubleshooting. In general, I have found Linux to be easier to troubleshoot (with exceptions). Most mature Linux applications give one actually useful error messages (much more useful than similar messages from Windows software). The time I take to troubleshoot such a product is very low.
There are exceptions (XFree86 comes to mind) where error messages such as permission or disk space errors are not transparent or easy to comprehend. Of course this has improved heavily in the last four years, but X is still one area where I really don't relish troubleshooting. Not long ago, I spent 2 hours troubleshooting an XFree86 problem where the mouse and/or keyboard stopped working when I moved the hard drives from one computer to another (everything worked elsewhere). I eventually figured it out with the help of Google, but it was not easy.
But these problems are rare. In general the problems I have had on Windows software *are* harder to troubleshoot and repair.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I think that all the obvious people who didn't RTFA before reading and posting comments should be kicked off Slashdot.
Just kidding. How else will 1/100th of them ever learn to read?
RTFA?
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
I take it he didn't bother to compare it to the Mac, since it has a cheaper TCO than Windows.
4 -m ac-tco.phtml
http://www.architosh.com/news/2004-01/2004c-012
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
9 out of 10 script kiddies endorse this TC0 analysis and it will be official.
He was a little too subtle, though, even for me: I had to re-read the first page of actual text (pg. 3 of the pdf) before I realized it was a satire; though not arguing that companies would save money using Windows instead of GNU/Linux, that one would typically find in a like-titled piece (i.e., one with a letter 'O', and not the number zero) should have clued me in the first time.
This sig space intentionally left blank.
I first thought it said Dave Attel, the comedian from Insomniac.
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
Since half of slashdotters out there didn't get the 1337 terminology, odds are 90% of M$ won't either... in which case it would be great if some buzzword fiend upper-manager got it added to the "Get the facts" section of the M$ website comparing the "Facts" about why they are better then Linux. Which is prob. also filled with more humorous satire. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts /default.mspx
Hey look no pointless curley braces or semicolons... just like Python
Actually, it is serious. Deadly serious.
Where does most the spam, viruses and trojans come from? 0wning Windows. Despite the tongue-in-cheek presentation, the article is basically accurate. It's truth is what makes it so funny. But it's only funny because I don't have to support any Windows boxes.
I wonder if this will motivate /.ers to read the article before posting.
This sig space intentionally left blank.
Holy crap, this is the best thing I've read on the internet in weeks...
With headlines like "Availability of Fish" and graph titles like "Difficulty of owning Windows vs Difficulty to make this graph" in the executive summary who wouldn't get a chuckle. They even make jabs at Mac OSX. It will be interesting to see how many PHBs and dumbarse editorial writers will try to link to this in their defense of Windows TCO.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Personally, I'd love the opportunity to buy something like a Red Hat laptop with GNU software preinstalled.
The single product in question, "The Microsoft Operating System", according to their copyright labels has been around for what? 19 YEARS! (1985-2004). All businesses work to lower their operating costs and increase their profit/growth (i.e. ROI, another buzz term :p). Luckily their 'benefit' eventually does pass on to the customer (i.e. as sold as TC0). Businesses don't create an environment that allows customers to save money unless that business save money as well (and makes more money to boot). So, making the business case to customers using the lower TCO strategy is misleading. It's a facade to customers. It sounds cool. To a consumer, TCO shouldn't be a valid measure of value IMO.
For a potential customer, in economically judging and determining the superior OS, or "the better buy", one should look at what I call "the rate of TC0"--i.e. TCO over the product's lifetime. Yes, Microsoft has "rewritten" the Windows kernel a couple of times, but it still identified as the "Microsoft Operating System"--even since the days of MS-DOS (the Ford Mustang automobile comes to mind). And we all know there's got to be some old DOS code in XP Professional somewhere. It took almost 20 years for Microsoft to get where they are with Windows. Graph it out and I bet it's a nice linear rate--a controllable rate (TCO trending downward) that MS is able to handle and survive and beat the competition. NOW, look at the rate of Linux? Much, much better for the consumer IMO in the current market conditions and Linux has only been around for what? 5 years? And every major version of Linux is leaps and bounds from the last. That rate's probably exponential and so good it can intepreted as a threat such that is can make operating system a commodity to the extent no one makes money (i.e. Get Win2012 for $9.99, via developed in Baghdad). That usually promotes new services, growth, and innovation in the industry, which is all good.
Although, I'm currently disgusted of RedHat Linux 8, it's runs great, but my apps (i.e. eclipse) crash quite a bit, the UI is not as good a XP, but for an OS that's been around for less than 5 yrs, it still beats windows 98 and NT. Linux maintenance is going through the same phase as Win98/NT did a few years back, but with the maintance costs of those times (higher), and it's expected as Microsoft does have a head start (10+ years) in fixing bugs. The next version of Linux (and UI) is sure going to be up there with Win2K/XP and likely better where as Longhorn looks like a "repackaged" (bug free?) version of XP.
That is what the business community should be aware of, but unfortunately the community is fed information (from Market Research firms) based on which vendor's has the deepest pockets and short term goals. Gotta love capitalism :)
To the non-business consumer, TC0 is still: $149 Windows XP vs. $0 (and some setup time) for Linux.
If you want to prevent confusion, the proper response is something along these lines:
"This "paper" is clearly unprofesional:
Every good writer knows that small numbers should be written out unless they are actually being used in a numeric formula. I can not believe that the author forgot such an important rule while writing a serious paper. Clearly all references to 0wned should read Zerowned."
Yeah, it's not great, but you get the point i hope.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Windows XP:
Intial cost: $200
Time spent patching & rebooting instead of working in $: way to much.
Time spent complaining about viruses in $: even more
TCO: (Mass of all AOL disks ever made ^ c) ** 3.14
Slackware Linux:
Initial cost: $0.5 (cdr)
Time spent patching & rebooting: $5 (scriped patching)
Time spent complaining: $0
TCO: $5.5
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
On page 6, while discussing W^X support, it refers to N^X support. What is N^X?
Not that it's relevant to the article, but you are confused about cost of ownership. Purchase price is only one small part of the equation. Cost of software, cost of training, cost of maintenance, cost of upgrades, compatibility, ease of use (your time is worth something, right?), and much, much more would normally go into a TCO analysis...
He shouldn't feel too badly. Just about every PHB running a Microsoft only shop must have been sucked in just as badly!
I can just hear one of them saying, "See, I made the right decision, just about everyone seems to be now agreeing that Microsoft has the best TCO!".
But, in the article he said TC0! And it was that other kind of "ownership" that he meant!
"Okay, never mind!".
And the brethren went away edified.
You missed the joke.
to 0wn j00r w1nd0wz b0x.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
If he'd put it in HTML, it would be Microsoft HTML. Then it'd be even bigger than a Word of PDF document, and only recent IE releases would render it correctly. And it would come with a CSS that made it unreadable on opera. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It should actually read:
A lower cost to 0wn3rsh1p.
When he wrote this:
"As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market."
My Mac started making funny noises sort of like a baby sobbing. I had to spend about an hour reassuring it that the article was only a joke.
We don't use Open Office or Acrobat on any of our business machines. Shit, what ever happened to plain ol' HTML
Wait for the white paper to show up on Google, and Google will translate the .pdf into HTML for you.
In almost 13 years I've probably installed 30 different releases/packagings of linux on 15 or so computers. Total out of pocket expenses: 60$ for a redhat license, and about 50$ for a supported trident card back in the early 90's.
In that same amount of time I've paid the Microsoft tax at least 4 times to the tune of about 200$ (est), upgraded windows on the kiddies and wife's machines at the cost of about 150$ and bought one copy of Awfice for some goshOfful price I don't want to remember.
Time spent supporting the machines is about the same surprisingly. Would you believe it I've never gotten a single virus,worm,trojan,gatorcrap on any linux box yet?
Data lost to operating system blowups? That's another issue I don't want to discuss.
Basically I've dual booted my family's machines and told them, "Dad supports 24 hour linux repair. Windows repair is a 'When I get to it' job"
Total cost of ownership? Right.
Come on folks... don't be stupid. It's a zero sum game.
Bill Gates = 30 Billion.
Linus Torvalds = 30 million? 3 million? 300,000? Whatever.
It's a zero sum game. I get zero. Bill gets sum.
"I hope life isn't a big joke...because if it is, I don't get it."
Ya know, it's pretty bad when you have to explain jokes to people.
It's "0wnership", not "ownership". Someone else's box...
The article was amusing, and the comments here are even funnier!
use Sig::Witty;
I thought the writer was using OpenOffice to write the article and when he saved it as a PDF it turned the O's into 0's (zero's) Then as I read more I realized this was just techno-babble and then the final part gave it away.
I like-a do-the cha-cha.
The vast supply of Windows administrators brings prices down. But I don't know if I agree with your assertion that more people "know" Windows, or that less administrators are required.
Just about all computer professionals and many lusers are familiar with Windows. But the plethora of wizards, self-installing software, and other niceties prevent users from learning much about their OS. OTOH Linux users have to be dedicated in order to plow through the initially steep learning curve. Linux users have to know more about their OS in order to keep their system working.
The vast majority of marginally gifted computer professionals are working with Windows, because demand is strong. This waters down the overall quality of Windows administrators. Linux skills are enhanced by the popularity of Unix in major universities and the cultlike status of this OS.
These facts support the hypothesis that the average Windows admin is not as skilled as the average Linux admin. A more skilled admin is more capable, which means that a Linux installation generally requires fewer admins.
If the paper was distributed in Word document format, you might have a point, but there is an OpenOffice version of the paper. He could have use OO to convert it to HTML.
I wish you guys would not let the secrets out to the general public. It just makes it soooo much harder for a humble hacker to own a windows box when everyone will want to switch to Linux/Unix/BSD. Crap now you've gone and done it... Thankz alot pe0ple
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin
I took it to the can and read it before I dove right into the my dick is bigger than your dick routine.
The first posts were so off it reaffirmed my belief that I have to stop caring what people say on slashdot.
Not a chance. And, here's why.
I have used a Linux distro for two years, and, in that time my only costs have been the week spent learning the operating system, which was quite easy with an open mind, and approximately $100.00 for CD-R's and an external modem. My uptime is currently 172 days and I have never had a virus, worm or trojan infestation.
I remember constant patching and re-installing the Windows (95, 98 and XP Home) operating system. Not to mention the frustration, stress, and paying hundreds of dollars for apps that should have come bundled with the OS as they do in GNU/Linux. I also remember first-hand how quickly and easily a virus and worm infestation can cripple a Windows OS.
Look at it this way:
You want to talk about TCO?
Answer these questions:
Linux is winning, people. Microsoft has failed to stop us with better software technology or lower prices; they're incapable of the former and their business model wouldn't survive the latter.
Microsoft's underlying problem is that it employs about 22,000 programmers; the open-source community can easily muster ten times that number. That means the capability gap that has opened up between the open-source codebase and Windows is only going to get worse from Microsoft's point of view, not better.
I have helped nearly 80 people migrate to a Linux distro and have never had any of them call me with a problem they could not handle themselves. And, every one of them are still using a Linux distro.
I don't think Microsoft will ever "go away". However, I do feel that Microsoft operating systems will see the day when they are no longer in use.
Gnu/Linux is just better.
Yeah; I had wondered why he didn't provide it in Word format. And he should have made sure that there was a lot of "deleted" text in the .doc file, so that we could expose it.
He missed a really good opportunity for true irony.
I was disappointed.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Availability of Fish (from the article)
... Windows has lower TCO because it provides higher availability of fish?
Let me get this straight
OK, fair enough. I guess one can't analyse every argument, I'll take that on trust.
I don't think it was overly subtle. There were lots of clues, even if you didn't understand some of the "technical" aspects of the article (I didn't understand them all).
/. audience (I suspect it was), which is famous for not RTA before commenting. I think that was part of the joke, but I might be reading to much into it.
But the graph was a dead give away.
Maybe the joke was specifically targeted at the
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
So if 0wnership is a measure of the number of zombie machines controlled by your exploit, than windows is the clear winner? That is hilarious!
-- Cheers!
to those not getting this joke: "j00z g07 0wnzr3d" and that's all
sigSEGV - doy!
Maybe what they mean is theres a lower cost to hackers of "owning" microsoft software.
has anyone else read A Modest Proposal by Johnathan Swift? http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html (no this is not off-topic, go enlighten yourself if you haven't already)
OK. I want to know how Windows has a lower TCO if Linux already has stackguards, and windows doesn't. The author talks about UT2003 not having protection under linux from the stackguards, but what I want to know is if thats really relevant, because he goes and says that because when u install third party software in linux, its not protected, but its the same in windows.
I also like how they said in Linux 0days take 6 days while in Windows 0days take 1 day to be fixed..
I find that funny consider there have been cases where microsoft have kept valnerabilities secret from 3 months (and thats a known fact, especially with IE exploits).
And I think he must have been interviewing the script kiddies when he mentioned that many good hackers use windows, because thats total fud too. The really hardcore hackers use openbsd as their primary OS. I've never seen any real 'hackers' who use windows as their primary operating system. By the sounds of things, it seemed he just walked into a warez channel and asked for 'hackers'.
Dont take this article too seriously, its obviously total fud. If you read it, theres parts which just dont make sense, and strongly suggest that some of their results are fabricated..
Dave, that was a beautiful piece of work. Very nicely handled. It's obviously reeled in a lot of people who weren't paying close enough attention.
Bravo, man!
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
Pardon my complaining, but just because he didn't 'get it' doesn't mean he's off topic. He's directly adressing the 'paper' this is about.
Modding someone off topic just because you dissagree is dishonest and only reflects on the modder, not the post miss-modded. Hope it gets fixed in M2.(I've got the option so I'll be looking in a moment)
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I find it funny because I get paid to fix windows boxes.
Well not funny really, but it does help me buy all the nice toys for my systems.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
This parody was great, unfortunately the person who writes Microsofts cost of ownership papers is much funnier.
Still trying to figure what the condition of Pwn3rsh1p is, and how is it pronounced... and how is 0wn3d pronounced.... everytime I see that I read it as "zer-own-threed"
The last exploit I had was not with any of my 16 Windows Server 2003 boxes or 173 Windows XP pro Desktops, it was with my SuSE Linux Enterprise Server Box.
...I needed that!
I've spent a couple of days getting ready for the damn hurricane. I've just spent a long afternoon and night watching it pound my family north of Orlando, and my friends in Daytona Beach.
The article made me laugh, and still managed to provide some food for real thought. Problem is, those who most need to get the point, won't.
But that's part of the joke, too!
Happy Hurricane,
Mal the Elder
(Safe in South Florida?)
I was reading it for a while and kept coming across conclusions like 'obviously Windows has the tc0 advantage here'. It was when I read 'other than the toy OS MAC OS X' that I realized this is indeed a joke and not just a conversion to open office error!
Great work guys!
Mat
Linux users alone. If people want to believe the one is cheaper than the other, the by all means, go ahead.
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
This is why I use a font that puts a / through the middle of the 0. ...to the Scandinavians.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Naturally. You can't hack a dead OS nobody runs. FreeBSD - the ultimate in "security through obscurity."
;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Anyone paying that little attention should be starring in their own "Cheech and Chong" movie.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
That was my favorite... TC0
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Remember, "0wned" is leetspeek for a the security compromise of a computer. Go back and re-read the article with the idea that he is talking about the cost of taking over an MS-Windows computer vs. the cost of taking over a Linux computer.
Then say, "Oh."
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
by 'mainstream' you mean unpopular right? does that mean FreeBSD is counter-counter-culture?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
He only needs to be over the top if he wants American readers to get the joke. The rest of the world got it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The title of this 'paper' appears to have been welded onto something entirely different.
Seeing how long it takes to create a pie-chart in open-office vs 'windows' is hardly a rigorous proof, and the Win32 interface is hardly cutting it in todays web-based environment.
That leaves kernel exploits - the only area where they actually mention Linux at all, and I just plain didn't understand that.
Isn't Total Cost of Ownership supposed to involve costs, money, maintenance, usage etc? I've personally saved the cost of 3 XP licenses for software that was immune to the Blaster and Sasser worms - and doesn't crash. Mine's called Knoppix/Debian, and cost me 1 hour to download and 10 minutes to install - beat that!
Downloading the patches and fixing my friend's vunerable (preloaded, week old) XP system took longer...
It shames me to admit... I was thinking, "Boy, these guys really sold out." and kept reading. I finally noticed they were talking about 0|\|3|25|-|!p costs, rather than ownership, on oh ... say page three. I haven't laughed like that in quite some time. very clever.
$EXCUSE = xpdf not called automagically in firebird.
So I was making that happen at the time.
George Orwell said it best in his Politics and the English Language essay. You can find it on Project Guttenberg and other sites, here is the Australian link : http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200151.txt
Personally, when I see such buzz-word-infested langiage, I imagine an avalanche sliding down the mountain valley, long stripped of vegetation to stop it. That is the purpose of such a language - to get you in a programmed channel of thought.
So, by this equation, it is clearly easier to 0wn Linux. Take that, Microsoft!
Some people post their opinion without reading the article. Other people, like me, read the article but don't post any opinions on it.
That's the way /. works. You can't really expect anyone to have time for doing both.
Anyone know where the '-1 Missed the Joke' mod is?
Jw
Until I came across the "Difficulty of 0wning Windows vs Difficulty to make this graph" pie chart.
Second time in two days I've nearly choked on my cigar! };->
(Geez, Ma was right, smoking CAN be hazardous to my health!)
The U.S. really needs an English to Wisdom dictionary.
And isn't it spelled "pwned"?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
its
It is? I didn't kn0w that! Are you a German, by any chance?
Hey, my stupid remarks just got moderated both "Troll" and "Funny"! I've been trying for that for several years ....
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Small world. I did my undergrad at Caltech. Good luck with your job hunt.
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
wether you want them or not. Bonus! Or not, considering that they eat your CPU cycles, available memory, and Internet bandwidth, and thus cost you more to run with them. Hence my statement that Windows has a higher TCOM.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
If you don't laugh at famine, then you've simply got no sense of humor.
Still got the karma. Neener neener neener.
I think the distribution method (pdf and open office document) are part of the joke. They certainly make it more ridiculous:-)
erik
...all excited, don't know why...
Adding new capabilities to users is a common and entirely
effective way to backdoor a Windows system.
LOL
-- Segmentation fault. Core dumped
"The article isn't about cost of ownership, it's cost of 0wnership."
My Cube dwellers are looking strangely at me. I'm chuckling over the above statement.
But if one looks at the numbers:
item, windows, linux:
os, 'windows xp pro' at $300+tax+shipping, 'kernal 2.3.8' at $0.00
office, 'windows office' at $430+tax+shipping, 'openOffice' at $0.00
email, 'windows outlook' at $90+tax+shipping, 'mozilla' at $0.00
firewall, 'zone alarm subscription' at $60+tax+shipping, 'ip-chains' at $0.00
total, 'windows solution' at $880+taxes+shippings, 'linux solution' at $0.00
these prices were taken from frys, and amazon; today.
as for 'learning curve', one can easily make any of the linux products 'act like' any of the windows products; 'learning curve' is "ZERO".
But 'Proud Ignorence' is still very expensive.
Both EWeek and InfoWorld have run similar articles over their last several issues. Dispute the knashing of teeth over this, the facts remain. What i find very encouraging out of this is that, 1) 5 years ago this wouldn't even have been worth the paper to print a comparison like this, laughable. Shows a great deal of progress has been made by Linux. 2) MS had ought to be taking serious note of this. The amount of ground that has been gained on them by the Linux world is amazing and at this speed, those numbers/differences will be negligible in the next year or so. MS is going to have to push very hard to stay ahead in this game. Competition is good in any arena.
If anyone knows of such a distro, please let us know.
I admit that I get confused by a lot of technobabble, psychobabble, and PHB-speak. But, this makes clear sense to me. Take the Morris Worm as an example. He found all kinds of vulnerabilities. He developed a worm to exploit them. His "Attack Execution" sucked because he hosed the timer.
What's there to not understand? I don't understand. Is there yet another level of sarcasm here which just went whooshing over my head, or something?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.