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UNIX Security: Don't Believe the Truth?
OSNews has an interesting editorial about security on UNIX-like systems. "One of the biggest reasons for many people to switch to a UNIX desktop, away from Windows, is security. It is fairly common knowledge that UNIX-like systems are more secure than Windows. Whether this is true or not will not be up for debate in this short editorial; I will simply assume UNIX-like systems are more secure, for the sake of argument. However, how much is that increased security really worth for an average home user, when you break it down? According to me, fairly little"
This story was ripped on for being lame on osnews earlier this week. Now the slashdotters get to make fun of it too.
Why is this necessary? How many people actually run UNIX at home and where's the push to get it at home? Linux is another story, but security is only one of many reasons there.
redundant RAID arrays
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but that's pretty funny.
I get called out on this a lot and I'm going to point out some key differences between two types of RAID arrays. A RAID 0 (also known as a striped set) splits data evenly across two or more disks with no parity information for redundancy. Therefore, it is an example of a RAID array that is actually not redundant (despite the acronym). Even if a normal user was running RAID 0, a hard drive crash would be catastrophic.
Still laughing?
My work here is dung.
Still laughing?
Yes, thank you. This time at you.
My grandmother would like to know what this "cron" you speak of is... it sounds like a old science fiction movie, but she can't figure out the connection between movies and backups....
This snippet of an article really misses the point.
No kidding. I've just added ...
... to myThe advantage of UNIX is it's simplicity. The common APIs found on UNIX systems haven't changed in many many years. This sounds like a weakness but from a security prespective it is a great strength. This is because the vast majority of bugs are in relatively new code. If you recall the end of NT4's life it was pretty stable (relatively speaking). That's because all new development work was on other products. Now with the introduction of XP and Sharepoint and .NET and all the other new stuff, there's a mountain of new code to find exploits in. Windows is much more sophisticated than UNIX but whether or not that's a good thing depends on what you're using it for.
In fact, you could debate this for any OS. Here's how I see the best use of each OS:
Linux - Great development platform. You can easily install it on a laptop and get most things to work like they would even though it was "designed for XP" (e.g. power management). Linux is also a great virtual private server. A VPS is a Linux instance running in a VM like User Mode Linux. You can serve Webmail, SMTP, php apps, mysql, imap, etc for your personal use for $20/mo. As car analogies go, Linux is a Ford F150 pickup.
Windows XP - Required corporate desktop. XP provides integrated security with ACLs on a wide variety of resources with all groups managed by a central authority with UIs to manage accounts. As a car XP is a like a fully loaded Mercury Montego sedan (it has all the amenities but don't expect it to be running in 5 years).
Windows Server - Good corporate application, file and print server. It has a rich highly integrated set of libraries. Required for running server side applications for XP clients such as Exchange and AD. Windows Server is also like a Mercury Montego sedan except it costs a lot more.
Solaris - Rock solid server application platform with world class support. If you don't need the sophisticated APIs provided by Windows Server then Solaris is a very good choice. Solaris is like a large Frietliner flatbed truck with GPS tracking and 24 hour roadside assistance.
Mac OS X - Home PC desktop. OSX is ideal for the casual home user who wants to create a web page from the photos on their digital camera or play their guitar with sound loops in Garage Band. Mac OS X is like a Lexus RX 330. Every respectable yuppy has one.
FreeBSD - Good HTTP server for the Internet. It's also a good alternative to Solaris as an application server platform if you're trying to save money and don't need it to scale to 16 processors. FreeBSD is like a Toyota pickup.
Just googled "how to use cron"
...coming back in 3 months when my crontab will be working.
First page's answer : man cron (thanks a lot)
Second page : asks me to run VI to edit a file
Now googling "how to use vi"...
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
whatever it is, it sounds pretty nasty
This is a tautology.
Well, to be fair, evidently Windows had executable images. Just (Cough Cough) an undocumented feature . . .
- (Insert Evil Grin Here) Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media