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Windows vs. Linux Security, Once More
TAGmclaren writes "The Register is running a very interesting article about Microsoft and Linux security. From the article: 'until now there has been no systematic and detailed effort to address Microsoft's major security bullet points in report form. In a new analysis published here, however, Nicholas Petreley sets out to correct this deficit, considering the claims one at a time in detail, and providing assessments backed by hard data. Petreley concludes that Microsoft's efforts to dispel Linux "myths" are based largely on faulty reasoning and overly narrow statistical analysis.' The full report is available here in HTML form, and here in PDF. Although the article does make mention of OS X, it would have been nice if the 'other' OS had been included in the detailed analysis for comparison."
... especially nowadays.
:)
:)
The administrator determines how secure an OS is, not the OS itself. OpenBSD is the definitive "secure OS", but one of it's biggest warnings during the install is that it's secure until you play with it, what you do after that can compromise the security.
As an administrator and a software developer, this just seems like a bunch of bullshit made-up stastistics by a bunch of people who don't know the slightest about security or programming in general. After all, they address Apache like it's a part of Linux, but gloss over the fact that Apache runs on Windows, too... People just don't use it (en masse) because it's not the best choice on windows for many reasons.
Bugs happen. A security hole is a grave bug indeed, but it's just another bug. If the hole were intentional, it would be a different thing.
Quality Assurance and robust design practices prevent bugs, not marketing or architecture or anything else. While design practices do include architecture. It's easy to write a shell script which is bug free:
-- cut --
#!/bin/sh
-- end cut --
One could say this is a "robust design practice". It doesn't need to do anything, so it doesn't. Get it?
MS has gone far in improving themselves, as it seems they're at a point where relying on their marketing over their integrity as software developers (one could say that marketing in the context of integrity is an oxymoron) is not working for them anymore.
To aid understanding of the conclusion, Linus's "World Domination" has already been achieved, just making sure we're still in power is the important thing.
After all, are you interested in better software or the complex equivalent of "mine's better than yours"? For those of you who want to keep singing the praises of Amazon and Google, keep in mind that eBay and Hotmail both make liberal use of IIS for it's features, but they don't put it on the front line, either.