First I admit keeping this copy in my backpack becouse of the really ummm cool artwork on the front with the lady clad in diamonds. (Drool)
Ok... anyway Wired: Sept 2003 page 80 bottom half artical title "Will This Man Kill Linux"
Darl McBride says (while anwering a question) "It's really interesting to see what happends when people see the code, when they see how blatant the copying is."
What is intresting is that so far only McBrides experts appear to be able to find this code. Well that and people who can't actually read source code seam able to find them. I find it intresting that the experts can't be located. I find it intresting that much of the code in question can be found elsewhere. I find it intresting that the features in question are property of other companys.
To date: The features in question make Linux an enterprise class system, Came from IBM, are primaraly for SGI hardware & Have something to do with 20 to 30 year old public domain code.
To me it appears blairingly obveous SCO is just suing anyone they have balls enough to sue.
Hay good thing they aren't suing the little guys becouse I really like Lunix.
There are a number of companys who donate (no strings attached) computer hardware to any school that asks. Sun Microsystems comes to mind. Apples has been doing this for decades.
Here we have not only all Microsoft technology (not a bad thing) but Microsoft experts. IBM did this with IBM mainframes at universitys. The experts would tell everyone how great IBMs hardware was and how they should use IBMs equipment for everything.
So we have Computers the schools could have gotten other ways with experts who will make sure the schools never take advantage of the other programs.
We know the big problems we are facing today are due to Windows worms.
Don't ever plug a critical system into the Internet please. Even if we remove every last Windows system that wouldn't make it safe.
Maybe this is a good thing that we have so many poorly designed Windows systems on the net today. People will learn not to trust the network and be prepaired for worms, viruses and all sorts of madness.
But let's say 20 to 50 years from now there is no Microsoft and the populare operating systems are BSD, Linux, MacOsX and Solarus. Save the day? Nope.
While there is no excusing a sloppy a major product operating system like Windows you will always find systems just as bad or worse.
OS/65, Lunix and a whole batch of operating systems exist that could present a horrific nightmare of problems. They are not powerful they run on low end computers and are made entirly for project systems. You will always find one such system running someplace at some time for some reason. Not just poorly designed commertal systems or obsolet versions.
You'll have improperly configured Gnu/Linux boxes, Obsolete Solarus boxes, Linux code poorly patched to run on BSD (not the BSD porting team), Any system with the security disabled for admin or user convence, neat hacks and cool projects that aren't ready for prime time, "my sons wifes great aunts dentist says...", "I saw it on Slashdot" (Or the slate or 10 o clock news), "Your firing me? Fools!! They'll rull the day they desided to mess with the BAFH" and Collage student with very populare website desides to post a link on his very populare web forum to your cool website and all you have as a screen saying "/. Error"
Nothing new here... It's good that Microsoft is STARTING to take this sereously. Let's hope it stays that way.
Patching Windows is probably one of the better features of the system. Microsoft can patch over the entire operating system if they wanted.
But Microsoft has not taken the problem sereously in so long a time it's going to take a while before Microsoft can find all the decade old bugs.
Microsoft didn't take industry complaints about Dos sereously when they made Windows. Microsoft didn't take security sereously when they made the "Bug free" Windows 95 leaving the system with a sereous back door left open.
Microsoft didn't take security sereously when they produced Windows NT not fully implementing the password encription technology found in Unix systems.
Now that they take Linux sereously they take security sereously.
None and however long it takes for someone to think a Gnu/Linux made of nothing but patches would be cool.
And, hopefully get it right this time! And not get sued by SCO
Ahem... SCO sued IBM not Linux (There is no entity called Linux that SCO can sue). If IBM can't avoid being sued by SCO nobody can. (And in one interview Darl McBride said he believed SCO code could be found in ALL major operating systems and planned to sue everybody).
However so far the SCO clames are basicly "Linux has.. CODE and so dose SCO Unix... They stold that from us"
I prefer to buy an external for a number of reasons and a few extra when dealing with Linux.
I like being able to turn the modem off when I'm not using it. Some modems are preconfigured to answer the phone some aren't. It's just easier to turn it off when it's not being used.
More portable. Being that modems won't be upgrading any time soon the option of installing my modem on future PCs is very appealing. But more than that a good RS232 port modem is pritty much universal.
Everything from the old Commodore 64 (with RS232 cable) to an iMac (with USB to sereal addapter) and everything in between.
I have a dial up modem had one for years and I don't even use it.
The modems offered by OEMs are always Win modems not worth it.
I did once consider buying a modem card but that was becouse the sereal card wasn't much cheaper. But I stayed my course.
Anyway for $20 a month I get cable internet a 64k baud. Not quite broudband of course but it's cheap and effective. No screwed up phone lines to deal with.
Look carefully at that home of the future and you'll see some old stuff that they thought would never go away.
The fassion of the future had us wearing shiny space age fabrics. Today we wear denum, leather, cotten.
Our robot dog would fetch the paper bring in the mail and fetch our slippers. We have no time for slippers. Paper? Mail? Download the news and e-mail to the PDA. And about that robot dog. Well we have a robot dog alright but the trend seams to be to program them for security not fetching things.
Cars that drive themselfs.... Computers aren't powerful enough and so many people are looking for the easy lawsute will exployte any defect they discover. (If you wear neon green the sensors crash and the car won't stop. Instant accadent with a pedestrian)
Flying cars... Apparently you need cars that drive themselfs before you'll see flying cars.
On that note... Re. Cast of friends crashing into home... Huge amount of money Nursing Febe back to health... priceless.
The home of the future "just add water" freeze dried food. Today we eat out at fast food places.
The home of the future the famaly sits around the big screen TV. Today everyone has a computer in there own rooms.
Home of the future. 2 way TV wrist watch. Today camra cell phones and theaters who ban them.
Hotf: Push button jobs Today got em but it's not one button.... "What do you mean you openned the "Thank you" file attachment. Are you nuts?" "But it said it was so big" "I don't care how much he loves you DON'T OPEN FILE ATTACHMENTS"
Forget "Don't send" lists. To enforce industry responsability do a national "must include" list.
Liccens spammers AND every spammer must be on the must include list AND spam to everyone on the must include list.
Here is where the fun begins. Also on the must include list are spam scounts that track the latest spam to update spam filters. But it get's better. Also added to the list is fedral observers who check up to be sure all spam is being sent to the must spam list.
As a member of the must spam list you can opt out IF the spammer honnors the opt out system. Of course opt out to be required.
Fedral agents will randomly test opt outs, randomly test the list.
and the e-mail address given for the "must spam" list must be actively read by the spammer. A fedral agent will occasionally contact the spammer at the address to be sure the spammer is still reading his e-mail if not he must pay a hefty fine and repeated offenses msy cost him his liccesn.
This should inspire spammers to police themselfs quite well and do something about the worst spam tactics.
ameras on phones are totally worthless for the general public. I agree.. My camra is... Hold on... *Takes picture of cargo container for boss saves it on disk boss e-mails it to port master* My digital camra has no practical applacation... Oh I forgot something... *Takes some digital pictures for items selling on ebay* No practical value at all *Exchanges pictures with lady friend* None... *takes cute pictures of kid drawing posts on website* None... *Takes picture of city flower arrangement....* at *picture of a Slashdot cruser* all *Picture of slashdot cruser comes out blurry* Piriod. *Camra dosn't work in dark... sets up night vision camra to a video sample card running motion tracking image software*
Usually open source projets don't have release dates. Microsoft prommises release dates so people alter plans accordingly open source projects say things like "any day now" or "soon we hope" nothing quite as hard set as "11/31/2020". Yes open source projects are "late" ("any day now" at least implys inside the same week)
Linux 2.4 is probably a great example. It was late according to the media. There was never an offical release date not even a "any day now" date it just took longer than people were expecting and there isn't much Linus can say about that.
Microsoft sets thies unrealistic deadlines and moves heaven and hell to meet them. This is part of why Windows has so many problems.
But Microsoft releasing an unrealistic date is a far cry from the expectations of people outside the develupment process.
At one point Linus said 2.4 wasn't late and he is right.
A great example... Your going on a date...
You could tell your date "I'll show up when I show up" knowing you don't know when you'll show.. And knowing your date could just say "Feh" and cancle the date
Or you could tell your date "I'll be there 6:30 sharp" knowing there is no way in hell you'll make it.
Then when you show up at 10pm your date is mad at you for being late eather way becouse when you said "I'll be there when I get there" she desided you meant 4:30.
PDAs and Cell phones are going more and more to java for applications so phone and PDA makers are now looking more at what makes the best operating system to drive java.
Linux is free and you get to dictate the hardware specs. You don't get this with Palm or Windows CE. This makes Linux an idea operating system to run java applications.
But this won't take us any closer to a Linux on the desktop than we were before and with the applications in java there will be a big os battle with the applications remaining portable between them.
It sells phones and it costs less. But that won't alwasy mean a cheaper phone.
Anyone who has ever had the mis-fortune of using one of them will know
I've used Motorola phones and I don't know this.
I've found the interface to be difficult to learn but not impossable. Also I've never used a Nokia. I'm not in the habbit of buying new hardware. Sounds like Nokia vs Motorola is like Linux vs Windows only on a level playing field.
No doupt in order to prevent hacking features are hardwired into phone chipsets. This is not just for future Linux phones but for current Windows phones and past palm phones. All three being hackable and phreaker cell phones being a major issue.
To demonstrate this fact the orginal palm phone.. the handspring visor phone.. can be used indupendent of the handspring visior by plugging in a Kensington visor phone keypad instead.
The basic functions of the cell phone are handled by the chipsets and the computer (Palm,Windows or Linux) is there to control the interface store phone numbers or connect to the wireless internet service for e-mail and web browsing.
The basic secure features will always be hardwired so that even determined hackers will not be able to steal phone service the way it was done when phone prices dropped just enough for the avrage person to buy one and disect it and not suffer much of a loss if it's inreversably damaged.
You don't walk to work every day. The car was an inelegant solution where there was no problem as far as anyone who owned a horse was conserned. But to people who can not afford to own/train/feed a large animal for transportation the car was the ONLY option.
And you can't drive a car up and down the office hallway.
Thats ok... He'll have huge wadds of cash for selling to you while you go down the toilet becouse you fired the one guy who knows how the business works.
Then he can buy up the assets at fire sale prices and set up a new business.
Years ago when viruses were brand new Unix experts were critical of Microsoft for making Dos an unsecure operating system. Being fair even in the light of that day and even more so years later I can see why Microsoft Dos was made the way it was made. (a CP/M like operating sysem for a new generation of computers not actually by Micorsoft dring a day and age when security was maintained through ignorence.) After the movie "War Games" security became an important topic. Microsoft published the book "Outside the inner circle" this book would forever destory the notion of security by obscurity. Amoung the topics "The Cracker" points out that many operating systems didn't take security sereously when they were designed offering features that made hacking in increadably easy. It also pointed out that "Security by obscurity" is stupid. Many good consepts were printed in that book and I suspect that had Bill Gates not had a "Microsoft press" to publish it himself it probably would have never been published.
On the other hand talk is cheap.
When it came time for Microsoft to make it's revised Dos (called Windows) they did not take any of the critisums into account. Microsoft didn't lift a finger with reguards to security.
There are a few small issues I can think of with reguards to how Microsoft could improve the over all process in keeping Windows secure.
In saying "Windows is insecure by design" is not being critial of Microsofts efforst TODAY to repair Windows. It's critical of Microsofts efforts over 10 years ago when Microsoft designed Windows. And much later when Microsoft designed NT. And again for Win 2k, Win XP and Win '03.
(I omitted Win ME and 9x as they were not resigned so much as improved on preveous version. The over all os structures didn't change so redesignning the security was not possable)
Fundamentally Microsoft needs to make changes in Windows to work securely. Realisticly it won't happen.
What they are doing is using the brute force method of securing Windows. Sending teams to fix bugs as they become known.
But brute force won't fix a flawed design process, Badly designed patches or an os that isn't designed to be secure to start with.
One of the constant annoyences is dealing with the question of "IF". Microsoft can easly throw at us simplistic assumption filled situations and it becomes a whack a mole game as soon as we refute one assumption annother pops up.
The basic problem is the situation changes dramaticly when you use Linux and most people are only familure with Windows and the related costs.
The cost of securing a Windows server vs the cost of trainning Linux users. Productivity from uptime vs lost productivity due to reorentation.
Diffrent configurations result in diffrent costs. If every user is expected to maintain his/her own system you'll have a lagistic nightmare when it comes time to install a software patch on Linux. But if you expect techs to handle this task then it becomes many times easier with Linux.
And some configurations that DO make certan tasks easier on Windows are also illegal or in violation of the DMCA or Microsofts EULA.
It depends on what your trying to accomplish and how you plan to accomplish it. This will determine your totall operating cost.
I believe all of Microsofts FUD is like this. It's true only a small fraction of the time.
Admittedly everyone here is just going ahead and installing Linux but here is an thought. Call Dell as directed by the instructions to tell them "I got a laptop from you it asked me to call if I didn't agree with the included software liccens agreements. I don't. I'm installing Linux. What do you want me to do with the software I won't be using?"
If they get enough of this they'll eather consider shipping Linux preinstalled or get a call from Microsoft asking them to remove the screen.
how un-American yeah just like we are communists for wanting to make our own operating system instead of using the offical operating system.
After all downloading an operating system for free that permits you to change anything you please with zero restrictions what so ever... Thats oppression...
Where as having no other choice but to buy Windows prepacaged with your PC in the configuration determined by Microsoft... Thats freedom.
Now the question is... Are we in Alice in wonderland or 1984?
Slashdot Mirror
There is a lawsute going on right now where a collection agency has sent letters to people who don't owe money.
In such cases a company clames to be owned money by people that had no contact with them.
First I admit keeping this copy in my backpack becouse of the really ummm cool artwork on the front with the lady clad in diamonds.
(Drool)
Ok... anyway
Wired: Sept 2003 page 80 bottom half artical title "Will This Man Kill Linux"
Darl McBride says (while anwering a question)
"It's really interesting to see what happends when people see the code, when they see how blatant the copying is."
What is intresting is that so far only McBrides experts appear to be able to find this code. Well that and people who can't actually read source code seam able to find them.
I find it intresting that the experts can't be located. I find it intresting that much of the code in question can be found elsewhere. I find it intresting that the features in question are property of other companys.
To date:
The features in question make Linux an enterprise class system, Came from IBM, are primaraly for SGI hardware & Have something to do with 20 to 30 year old public domain code.
To me it appears blairingly obveous SCO is just suing anyone they have balls enough to sue.
Hay good thing they aren't suing the little guys becouse I really like Lunix.
There are a number of companys who donate (no strings attached) computer hardware to any school that asks.
Sun Microsystems comes to mind. Apples has been doing this for decades.
Here we have not only all Microsoft technology (not a bad thing) but Microsoft experts.
IBM did this with IBM mainframes at universitys. The experts would tell everyone how great IBMs hardware was and how they should use IBMs equipment for everything.
So we have Computers the schools could have gotten other ways with experts who will make sure the schools never take advantage of the other programs.
We know the big problems we are facing today are due to Windows worms.
Don't ever plug a critical system into the Internet please. Even if we remove every last Windows system that wouldn't make it safe.
Maybe this is a good thing that we have so many poorly designed Windows systems on the net today. People will learn not to trust the network and be prepaired for worms, viruses and all sorts of madness.
But let's say 20 to 50 years from now there is no Microsoft and the populare operating systems are BSD, Linux, MacOsX and Solarus. Save the day? Nope.
While there is no excusing a sloppy a major product operating system like Windows you will always find systems just as bad or worse.
OS/65, Lunix and a whole batch of operating systems exist that could present a horrific nightmare of problems. They are not powerful they run on low end computers and are made entirly for project systems.
You will always find one such system running someplace at some time for some reason. Not just poorly designed commertal systems or obsolet versions.
You'll have improperly configured Gnu/Linux boxes, Obsolete Solarus boxes, Linux code poorly patched to run on BSD (not the BSD porting team), Any system with the security disabled for admin or user convence, neat hacks and cool projects that aren't ready for prime time, "my sons wifes great aunts dentist says...", "I saw it on Slashdot" (Or the slate or 10 o clock news), "Your firing me? Fools!! They'll rull the day they desided to mess with the BAFH" and Collage student with very populare website desides to post a link on his very populare web forum to your cool website and all you have as a screen saying "/. Error"
Nothing new here...
It's good that Microsoft is STARTING to take this sereously.
Let's hope it stays that way.
Patching Windows is probably one of the better features of the system. Microsoft can patch over the entire operating system if they wanted.
But Microsoft has not taken the problem sereously in so long a time it's going to take a while before Microsoft can find all the decade old bugs.
Microsoft didn't take industry complaints about Dos sereously when they made Windows.
Microsoft didn't take security sereously when they made the "Bug free" Windows 95 leaving the system with a sereous back door left open.
Microsoft didn't take security sereously when they produced Windows NT not fully implementing the password encription technology found in Unix systems.
Now that they take Linux sereously they take security sereously.
Ahem... About freaking time guys.
None and however long it takes for someone to think a Gnu/Linux made of nothing but patches would be cool.
And, hopefully get it right this time! And not get sued by SCO
Ahem... SCO sued IBM not Linux (There is no entity called Linux that SCO can sue).
If IBM can't avoid being sued by SCO nobody can. (And in one interview Darl McBride said he believed SCO code could be found in ALL major operating systems and planned to sue everybody).
However so far the SCO clames are basicly "Linux has.. CODE and so dose SCO Unix... They stold that from us"
I prefer to buy an external for a number of reasons and a few extra when dealing with Linux.
I like being able to turn the modem off when I'm not using it. Some modems are preconfigured to answer the phone some aren't. It's just easier to turn it off when it's not being used.
More portable. Being that modems won't be upgrading any time soon the option of installing my modem on future PCs is very appealing.
But more than that a good RS232 port modem is pritty much universal.
Everything from the old Commodore 64 (with RS232 cable) to an iMac (with USB to sereal addapter) and everything in between.
I have a dial up modem had one for years and I don't even use it.
The modems offered by OEMs are always Win modems not worth it.
I did once consider buying a modem card but that was becouse the sereal card wasn't much cheaper. But I stayed my course.
Anyway for $20 a month I get cable internet a 64k baud. Not quite broudband of course but it's cheap and effective. No screwed up phone lines to deal with.
Look carefully at that home of the future and you'll see some old stuff that they thought would never go away.
The fassion of the future had us wearing shiny space age fabrics.
Today we wear denum, leather, cotten.
Our robot dog would fetch the paper bring in the mail and fetch our slippers.
We have no time for slippers. Paper? Mail? Download the news and e-mail to the PDA.
And about that robot dog. Well we have a robot dog alright but the trend seams to be to program them for security not fetching things.
Cars that drive themselfs....
Computers aren't powerful enough and so many people are looking for the easy lawsute will exployte any defect they discover.
(If you wear neon green the sensors crash and the car won't stop. Instant accadent with a pedestrian)
Flying cars... Apparently you need cars that drive themselfs before you'll see flying cars.
On that note...
Re. Cast of friends crashing into home... Huge amount of money
Nursing Febe back to health... priceless.
The home of the future "just add water" freeze dried food.
Today we eat out at fast food places.
The home of the future the famaly sits around the big screen TV.
Today everyone has a computer in there own rooms.
Home of the future. 2 way TV wrist watch.
Today camra cell phones and theaters who ban them.
Hotf: Push button jobs
Today got em but it's not one button....
"What do you mean you openned the "Thank you" file attachment. Are you nuts?"
"But it said it was so big"
"I don't care how much he loves you DON'T OPEN FILE ATTACHMENTS"
Forget "Don't send" lists.
To enforce industry responsability do a national "must include" list.
Liccens spammers AND every spammer must be on the must include list AND spam to everyone on the must include list.
Here is where the fun begins.
Also on the must include list are spam scounts that track the latest spam to update spam filters.
But it get's better.
Also added to the list is fedral observers who check up to be sure all spam is being sent to the must spam list.
As a member of the must spam list you can opt out IF the spammer honnors the opt out system. Of course opt out to be required.
Fedral agents will randomly test opt outs, randomly test the list.
and the e-mail address given for the "must spam" list must be actively read by the spammer. A fedral agent will occasionally contact the spammer at the address to be sure the spammer is still reading his e-mail if not he must pay a hefty fine and repeated offenses msy cost him his liccesn.
This should inspire spammers to police themselfs quite well and do something about the worst spam tactics.
ameras on phones are totally worthless for the general public.
I agree.. My camra is...
Hold on... *Takes picture of cargo container for boss saves it on disk boss e-mails it to port master*
My digital camra has no practical applacation...
Oh I forgot something...
*Takes some digital pictures for items selling on ebay*
No practical value at all
*Exchanges pictures with lady friend*
None...
*takes cute pictures of kid drawing posts on website*
None...
*Takes picture of city flower arrangement....*
at
*picture of a Slashdot cruser*
all
*Picture of slashdot cruser comes out blurry*
Piriod.
*Camra dosn't work in dark... sets up night vision camra to a video sample card running motion tracking image software*
When it comes to security survalence that is.
Usually open source projets don't have release dates.
Microsoft prommises release dates so people alter plans accordingly open source projects say things like "any day now" or "soon we hope" nothing quite as hard set as "11/31/2020".
Yes open source projects are "late" ("any day now" at least implys inside the same week)
Linux 2.4 is probably a great example.
It was late according to the media. There was never an offical release date not even a "any day now" date it just took longer than people were expecting and there isn't much Linus can say about that.
Microsoft sets thies unrealistic deadlines and moves heaven and hell to meet them. This is part of why Windows has so many problems.
But Microsoft releasing an unrealistic date is a far cry from the expectations of people outside the develupment process.
At one point Linus said 2.4 wasn't late and he is right.
A great example...
Your going on a date...
You could tell your date "I'll show up when I show up" knowing you don't know when you'll show..
And knowing your date could just say "Feh" and cancle the date
Or you could tell your date "I'll be there 6:30 sharp" knowing there is no way in hell you'll make it.
Then when you show up at 10pm your date is mad at you for being late eather way becouse when you said "I'll be there when I get there" she desided you meant 4:30.
Next move is to never again announce a release date untill the product is in the "final polish" stage.
So all you need is a bunch of unique IP addresses doing the attack...
Like a worm...
PDAs and Cell phones are going more and more to java for applications so phone and PDA makers are now looking more at what makes the best operating system to drive java.
Linux is free and you get to dictate the hardware specs. You don't get this with Palm or Windows CE.
This makes Linux an idea operating system to run java applications.
But this won't take us any closer to a Linux on the desktop than we were before and with the applications in java there will be a big os battle with the applications remaining portable between them.
It sells phones and it costs less. But that won't alwasy mean a cheaper phone.
Anyone who has ever had the mis-fortune of using one of them will know
I've used Motorola phones and I don't know this.
I've found the interface to be difficult to learn but not impossable.
Also I've never used a Nokia. I'm not in the habbit of buying new hardware.
Sounds like Nokia vs Motorola is like Linux vs Windows only on a level playing field.
No doupt in order to prevent hacking features are hardwired into phone chipsets.
This is not just for future Linux phones but for current Windows phones and past palm phones. All three being hackable and phreaker cell phones being a major issue.
To demonstrate this fact the orginal palm phone.. the handspring visor phone.. can be used indupendent of the handspring visior by plugging in a Kensington visor phone keypad instead.
The basic functions of the cell phone are handled by the chipsets and the computer (Palm,Windows or Linux) is there to control the interface store phone numbers or connect to the wireless internet service for e-mail and web browsing.
The basic secure features will always be hardwired so that even determined hackers will not be able to steal phone service the way it was done when phone prices dropped just enough for the avrage person to buy one and disect it and not suffer much of a loss if it's inreversably damaged.
You don't walk to work every day.
The car was an inelegant solution where there was no problem as far as anyone who owned a horse was conserned.
But to people who can not afford to own/train/feed a large animal for transportation the car was the ONLY option.
And you can't drive a car up and down the office hallway.
I have two bosses.
I work for myself and someone else.
When I work for someone else I make sure that boss is a good boss or I'm soo gone.
When I work for myself I get an idiot every time.
(If I were such a great boss I wouldn't need a second job to pay the bills)
Thats ok...
He'll have huge wadds of cash for selling to you while you go down the toilet becouse you fired the one guy who knows how the business works.
Then he can buy up the assets at fire sale prices and set up a new business.
Links aren't recognised as free speach.
Code isn't recognised as speach.
But advertismnent is still protected as free speach according to the suppream cort.
Years ago when viruses were brand new Unix experts were critical of Microsoft for making Dos an unsecure operating system.
Being fair even in the light of that day and even more so years later I can see why Microsoft Dos was made the way it was made.
(a CP/M like operating sysem for a new generation of computers not actually by Micorsoft dring a day and age when security was maintained through ignorence.)
After the movie "War Games" security became an important topic. Microsoft published the book "Outside the inner circle" this book would forever destory the notion of security by obscurity. Amoung the topics "The Cracker" points out that many operating systems didn't take security sereously when they were designed offering features that made hacking in increadably easy.
It also pointed out that "Security by obscurity" is stupid.
Many good consepts were printed in that book and I suspect that had Bill Gates not had a "Microsoft press" to publish it himself it probably would have never been published.
On the other hand talk is cheap.
When it came time for Microsoft to make it's revised Dos (called Windows) they did not take any of the critisums into account. Microsoft didn't lift a finger with reguards to security.
There are a few small issues I can think of with reguards to how Microsoft could improve the over all process in keeping Windows secure.
In saying "Windows is insecure by design" is not being critial of Microsofts efforst TODAY to repair Windows.
It's critical of Microsofts efforts over 10 years ago when Microsoft designed Windows.
And much later when Microsoft designed NT.
And again for Win 2k, Win XP and Win '03.
(I omitted Win ME and 9x as they were not resigned so much as improved on preveous version.
The over all os structures didn't change so redesignning the security was not possable)
Fundamentally Microsoft needs to make changes in Windows to work securely.
Realisticly it won't happen.
What they are doing is using the brute force method of securing Windows. Sending teams to fix bugs as they become known.
But brute force won't fix a flawed design process, Badly designed patches or an os that isn't designed to be secure to start with.
One of the constant annoyences is dealing with the question of "IF".
Microsoft can easly throw at us simplistic assumption filled situations and it becomes a whack a mole game as soon as we refute one assumption annother pops up.
The basic problem is the situation changes dramaticly when you use Linux and most people are only familure with Windows and the related costs.
The cost of securing a Windows server vs the cost of trainning Linux users.
Productivity from uptime vs lost productivity due to reorentation.
Diffrent configurations result in diffrent costs.
If every user is expected to maintain his/her own system you'll have a lagistic nightmare when it comes time to install a software patch on Linux.
But if you expect techs to handle this task then it becomes many times easier with Linux.
And some configurations that DO make certan tasks easier on Windows are also illegal or in violation of the DMCA or Microsofts EULA.
It depends on what your trying to accomplish and how you plan to accomplish it. This will determine your totall operating cost.
I believe all of Microsofts FUD is like this. It's true only a small fraction of the time.
Naaa I think a virus writer is stupid enough to say it his friend "Hay look at this?" and launch a virus.
However the avrage virus writer is also stupid enough that he could be lauching a virus he didn't write.
Admittedly everyone here is just going ahead and installing Linux but here is an thought.
Call Dell as directed by the instructions to tell them "I got a laptop from you it asked me to call if I didn't agree with the included software liccens agreements. I don't. I'm installing Linux. What do you want me to do with the software I won't be using?"
If they get enough of this they'll eather consider shipping Linux preinstalled or get a call from Microsoft asking them to remove the screen.
how un-American
yeah just like we are communists for wanting to make our own operating system instead of using the offical operating system.
After all downloading an operating system for free that permits you to change anything you please with zero restrictions what so ever...
Thats oppression...
Where as having no other choice but to buy Windows prepacaged with your PC in the configuration determined by Microsoft...
Thats freedom.
Now the question is...
Are we in Alice in wonderland or 1984?