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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."

8 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. Heh :) by Gilesx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  2. Re:0wnership? by TopShelf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Forget the (sic) part - the title of the document is indeed '0wnership'. This is a good case where those who don't RTFA will be totally off topic...

    --
    Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
  3. Re:Flamebait?? by shish · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We should be able to mod news stories as flamebait.

    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
  4. Re:0wned? Please... by fmachado · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

  5. Re:Astroturf by the_mad_poster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, considering this is a fairly humorous joke, you still haven't.

    --
    Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
  6. Re:Nice by TXG1112 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You seem to have missed the joke....

    FTFA:

    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.

    (Emphasis mine)

    --
    I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
  7. 3,2,1,karma-ignition by syrinje · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Such a laudable attempt at a parodic post.
    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
  8. Re:Astroturf? by ccalvert · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People forget that writing is a form of thought. In a sense, it even reflects the soul of the person who writes.

    The beauty of a satire like this is that it exposes not just the absurdity of the text being parodied, but the spiritual depravity that made such texts posssible. It shows the texture and opagueness of the shutters that have been drawn over the souls of people who actually believe that such writing can possibly have meaning.

    On a more practical note, the primary means that such people employ when constructing their deceptive texts is to make up non-sensical nouns or noun phrases and then treat them as if they had meaning. For instance, this satire contains the following sentence fragment: "These three things, Vulnerability Detection, Exploit Development, and Attack Execution, were used by Immunity to determine the costs to 0wn the different operating systems." As technical people, we read sentences like this all the time. Generally, such sentences mean absolutely nothing. We repeat phrases like "Attack Execution," too embarrassed and too confused to admit even to ourselves that we have no idea of what they mean, or even if they are capable of meaning. These are entirely exploitative sentences and phrases, and have no substance whatsoever beyond what we endow them with by virtue of our blindness and fear.

    Here, of course, the phrases are designed to have a meaning opposite to their apparent value. In other words, they are means of describing not legitimate forms of software analysis, but security exploits. Yet the fact that the parody has a level of meaning generally missing from the text being parodies is just part of the joke.

    As a form of thought, the texts being parodied here are primarily viral. They infect not just the reader, but the writer, and ultimately, an entire society.