Does anybody really think that MS's half-hearted efforts to stamp out piracy are genuine? They are going after the people selling large quantities of counterfeit software, not the average (and far more numerous) home pirate with a cheap CD burner.
The fact is: Piracy helps Microsoft propagate it's monopoly. I have no statistics to back this up, but I've seen so many home-burnt copies of NT4 and Win95/98 floating around, I can't even count them all. Lot's of folks build their own computers, and probably very few of them cough up the cash for their OS (since they are cheap bastards in the first place). Do we really think that MS couldn't come up with some kind of registration scheme that disables the software after a registration period is up (to prevent duplicate registration numbers)? They did something like that with the Office2000 beta, as I recall.
No, they won't be doing that anytime soon. They know that allowing piracy helps make their OS's ubiquitous, which makes MS the easy and obvious choice for OEM's and businesses. They will keep up appearances with little publicity stunts like these pirated software turn-ins, but they know that really cracking down on OS piracy would be a boost to Linux of historic proportions. ///MrF
Carmack has a rather interesting relationship with Free software - this is quoted from his.plan after he'd won a big pile of money playing blackjack in Vegas (Feb. 98):
I won $20,000 at the tables, which I am donating to the Free Software Foundation. I have been meaning to do something for the FSF for a long time. Quake was deployed on a dos port of FSF software, and both DOOM and Quake were developed on NEXTSTEP, which uses many FSF based tools. I don't subscribe to all the FSF dogma, but I have clearly benefited from their efforts.
So, while he perhaps isn't RMS's biggest fan (philosophically), you've got to admire a guy who gives back to the community like this.
The question is "Right Out of the Box"... The NT4 I've been installing (and reinstalling) dozens of times comes "out of the box" at SP1. The comparison stands.
It's an entirely different question to ask what a *sane* admin would do. Of course, then, you will install the SP's up to (and past) SP4... Given equal amounts of effort, you could come up with a pretty seriously locked down RH5.2 box.
RH 5.2 will be better, assuming that NT4 is still at SP1. NT with the current service packs applied isn't too bad. The main thing with RH is to turn off everything you aren't using. There's a pretty decent intoductory article at Linux Gazette: http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue34/vertes.html
No matter what platform you choose, you absolutely must keep tabs on security news. You can not expect to remain secure while neglecting your servers... the crackers certainly are doing their homework... you should, too. If a root/admin exploit is discovered for your OS you must find out in a timely manner if you intend to do anything about it. The Bugtraq (for Unix) and NTBugtraq mailing lists should be required reading if you are maintaining internet servers.
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Does anybody really think that MS's half-hearted efforts to stamp out piracy are genuine? They are going after the people selling large quantities of counterfeit software, not the average (and far more numerous) home pirate with a cheap CD burner.
The fact is: Piracy helps Microsoft propagate it's monopoly. I have no statistics to back this up, but I've seen so many home-burnt copies of NT4 and Win95/98 floating around, I can't even count them all. Lot's of folks build their own computers, and probably very few of them cough up the cash for their OS (since they are cheap bastards in the first place). Do we really think that MS couldn't come up with some kind of registration scheme that disables the software after a registration period is up (to prevent duplicate registration numbers)? They did something like that with the Office2000 beta, as I recall.
No, they won't be doing that anytime soon. They know that allowing piracy helps make their OS's ubiquitous, which makes MS the easy and obvious choice for OEM's and businesses. They will keep up appearances with little publicity stunts like these pirated software turn-ins, but they know that really cracking down on OS piracy would be a boost to Linux of historic proportions.
///MrF
Carmack has a rather interesting relationship with Free software - this is quoted from his .plan after he'd won a big pile of money playing blackjack in Vegas (Feb. 98):
I won $20,000 at the tables, which I am donating to the Free Software Foundation. I have been meaning to do something for the FSF for a long time. Quake was deployed on a dos port of FSF software, and both DOOM and Quake were developed on NEXTSTEP, which uses many FSF based tools. I don't subscribe to all the FSF dogma, but I have clearly benefited from their efforts.
So, while he perhaps isn't RMS's biggest fan (philosophically), you've got to admire a guy who gives back to the community like this.
The question is "Right Out of the Box"... The NT4 I've been installing (and reinstalling) dozens of times comes "out of the box" at SP1. The comparison stands.
It's an entirely different question to ask what a *sane* admin would do. Of course, then, you will install the SP's up to (and past) SP4... Given equal amounts of effort, you could come up with a pretty seriously locked down RH5.2 box.
RH 5.2 will be better, assuming that NT4 is still at SP1. NT with the current service packs applied isn't too bad. The main thing with RH is to turn off everything you aren't using. There's a pretty decent intoductory article at Linux Gazette:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue34/vertes.html
No matter what platform you choose, you absolutely must keep tabs on security news. You can not expect to remain secure while neglecting your servers... the crackers certainly are doing their homework... you should, too. If a root/admin exploit is discovered for your OS you must find out in a timely manner if you intend to do anything about it. The Bugtraq (for Unix) and NTBugtraq mailing lists should be required reading if you are maintaining internet servers.