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EU And Microsoft Clash Over Vista Security
An anonymous reader wrote to mention coverage of further clashes between Microsoft and the EU, this time over security in Windows Vista. Microsoft is 'urging' the EU to allow all of the security elements of Vista to remain intact. The EU seems to be under the impression it's not asking for security to be lax; it just wants the software company to ensure a fair playing field for all businesses. From the Newsday article: "European Union officials warned Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday not to shut out rivals in the security software market as the company plans to launch its Windows Vista operating system with built-in protection from hackers and malicious programs. EU spokesman Jonathan Todd told reporters that the European Commission is "ready to give guidance to Microsoft" concerning Vista but added that it was up to the U.S. software maker 'to accept and implement its responsibilities as a near monopolist to ensure full compliance' with EU competition rules."
It'd help if you actually understood the issue.
MS is stopping *any* 3rd party security code from running, signed or un-signed, within the kernel.
The anti-virus vendors are essentially having to hack Vista to get their code to work.
Antivirus does not make OS secure. It only tries to patch insecure OS. If Microsoft makes OS secure, EU commission and antivirus companies can't argue about it. If own antivirus solution is bundled instead of securing OS, it looks like monopoly abuse. It is possible that Microsoft is trying to help users, but company is known to use its market position against competitors. Any bundling will look suspicious.
Symantec is still selling NAV for Mac. I think Apple does not bundle antivirus.
Linux security is very customizable.
First of all, sudo is just a normal application, that can be replaced. Second, there's PAM, which allows you to plug pretty much anything into the security system. You can replace the mechanism for password entry, authenticate with a fingerprint or an USB flash drive, etc, and have it all automatically integrate with existent software -- you don't even need to patch tools like su and sudo to accept different authentication methods, as it's handled through PAM.
Same goes for firewalling, nothing stops you from building whatever UI you want to talk to netfilter. You can ignore iptables completely, which is just an userspace tool.
Then the kernel has a whole system of security hooks which is used by things like SELinux. New security models can be integrated.