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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."
I thought SCO were the ones supposed to be astroturfing on Slashdot...
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 imagine that yes, due to the cheap labor of script kiddies that Windows does indeed have a lower cost of '0wnership' (sic).
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.
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...
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!
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.
T-shirt: My other computer is your Windows box.
Take care,
brad
You didn't read the article did you.
No I'm not new here.
Only on slashdot would someone use a domain name like that to distribute an business/satrical OS analysis white paper. :/
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
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...
Dave, I just want to say man, I love your show on Comedy Central. Great job and keep up the good work!
I can't find the -1 didn't get the joke mod anywhere
Mod parent up!
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.
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
Trying to ever take it seriously in the first place was your mistake.
I'm quite amused at the number of sub-6-digit Slashdotters being reeled in on this hook...
Kinda puts your nick in a new light, eh? ;-)
Nono, didn't you hear? The moment you start using Linux, your IQ jumps up 40 points.
You have a very low cost of 0wnership...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Um, 2^12 * 5^10?
I'm quite amused at the number of sub-6-digit Slashdotters being reeled in on this hook...
Its old age rearing its ugly head. We're gonna have to start putting sub-6-digit slashdotters in geek nursing homes soon. Poor bastards.
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
"Mind you, I am a Mac OS X system admin"
umm? what does "that" entail..
as for "virus" attacks on linux, that is kind of funny saying the average windows box is owned within 30 minutes of being online unless it is behind a nat.
You see, the '0' in '0wnership' is actually a 'headline canary'. It's a new feature that allows automatic identification of people who didn't RTFA.
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
This is why I use a font that puts a / through the middle of the 0.
Do not touch -Willie
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.
When I was your age we had to hack sendmail to get access to our accounts.. during a DDoS! Blindfolded! And also.. uh.. what was I saying again?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
Its an attempt at satire. Unfortunately, it a total failure. About as funny as famine.
Are you sure you don't mean $cr1p7-k1dd13 sense of the word? No real hacker I've ever met has felt the need to talk in this obscure language we all recognize as '1337'.
For those of you who don't know... '1337' is the hacker/cracker word for 'leet' or 'elite'.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
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.
189k?? Heck, most website's home page is bigger than that these days.
This sig is the express property of someone.
Say it right, It's:
()WnZer&|-|iP!
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.