When I said "mission critical" I mean stuff that makes me money.
I'm right there with you. Mappoint and a certain business critical
all-in-one invoicing, pricing, follow-up, you name it app precluded
me from using Linux for a long time. Then I just got to
thinking about it one day and said, screw this, I'm going to make
this Linux thing happen one way or the other. Not saying it's
necessarily that easy, because it isn't but it gets me to this other thing.
I happily, after getting all hardware and logistical issues sorted out,
used Windows 2000 in a vm for a long time. And was actually happier
since when I needed to move to new hardware or my machine died, I
didn't have to reinstall anything, I just moved the vm over and kept
right on going. Then, I got to thinking, this business application
kind of sucks and I sure do wish it ran on Linux. Wine was a non-starter
as it was a.net monster that just wouldn't run on anything but just
the right Visual C runtime, etc. So, to make a long story short,
I got Learning Python and Programming Python by O'Reilly and 6 months
later, not only did I rewrite the app from scratch but now it's much
more specific to my business and it's so lean it runs on my cellphone.
And I went from knowing nothing to "you can't tell me nothing" in 6
months flat with Python. There's even an awesome RAD tool for it with templates and Glade drag and
drop GUI editing integration that makes it so you can turn out polished
apps in hours once you learn your way around a bit.
Of course, this doesn't help you today but it's a good start. And
don't necessarily be turned off by Python being a "script" language
as it has seamless C binding integration for any performance critical
parts of your application. And it's all free except for your time.
I don't have a lot of free time either but with Python, learning
programming is a snap.
Take the sail design source from SailcutCAD, the hull design source from Free!Ship, combine the two along with a custom designed two phase (compressible/incompressible) CFD system solver (one for aerodynamics, one for hydrodynamics) built on OpenFOAM, but very streamlined so as to facilitate GPGPU (or more ideally OpenCL) acceleration... then give it away. I have big ideals but limited skills. For me alone? 5 years, no less.
That sounds really cool though I don't know much about sailboats
but I'll tell you what. If you were to get enough of it written
with say Python or whatever and throw up the prototype on sourceforge
or launchpad, provided there is enough interest, you might be blown
away as the application practically "writes itself". That's the
power of this stuff. If people think it's cool and it does something
for them, if they have something to work with, they'll pretty
much do the rest.
That's a shame you're having such a hard time with your Linux VM's.
Maybe if you went here first and just downloaded Ubuntu or something that's already
ready to go, you could get started on the right foot.
I find it interesting that I mirror your problems except in
the reverse. I've had very positive experiences with Linux (primarily
Debian and Ubuntu) and not so great experiences with Win7 vm's.
I first tried 7 in vmware on a machine with an e8400 c2d and
1 GB of RAM allocated to the virtual machine but after a little while, had to
just give up. It consistently thrashed the disk, pegged the CPU, and
I just couldn't do anything with it. I then tried it in VirtualBox and
it did run much better, especially after I turned everything off. The
only problem was that while it started programs faster, they just didn't
perform nearly as well as they do in my XP vm. This is a serious problem
as I use XP primarily for Mappoint which needs a lot of CPU
since the last 3 or so iterations. I don't really care a whole lot about
the additional security in 7 since I leave the virtual network
disconnected from Windows anyway.
I'm a fan of the FOSS movement, because it just feels right. But if it comes to anything mission critical, I have to use Windows. Or at least XP32 emulated on XP64, because x64 never "just worked" either.
There are a lot of people running mission critical stuff on Linux too so,
since you at least like the idea of FLOSS, don't give up. Try one of
the vm's on the site I linked to and if you break it, just start over.
Don't let it beat you. That's how I started in a vm and now several
years later, I find Linux to be an absolute joy to use and there is no way I would use anything else on my hardware. Something else too. I
run Linux and Windows in virtual machines and on my Ubuntu host, I
always find the Linux guests run better than the XP guests. For
example, I can
move windows on XP and get lots of tearing, not so in the Linux
machines. Maybe it's just me but that's my experience.
I don't so much have a problem with the concept of "Libraries",
however, I do think it's funny how people think it's a new thing
considering the fact that Sun came up with it way
back in 1986 and several
other operating systems have been using it since the 90's.
Now her wireless card doesn't work at all. Problem solved!
I've seen plenty of hardware stop working after upgrading from one
version of Windows to another. In the recent past, I've had a
scanner and a graphics card that didn't have Windows 7 drivers and
the lady just had me put XP back on the box.
Linux may not work with everything but, when it does, it tends to
work very well and continue to work. The only real problems are
with hardware that just flat has to be reverse engineered to even
work at all. If the manufacturer won't make a driver and won't
release the specs, what are you going to do? Imagine the reverse,
what if hardware just wasn't released with a Windows driver? Is that
Windows' or Microsoft's fault?
I'll sum this up with a couple of anecdotes. I have some hardware on my desktop that work much better under Linux. The USB720 wireless data card
that I got from Verizon, for example, was a mess under Windows. 30
or more seconds to connect, shutting itself down after 2 hours or so
requiring me to pull it out and reinsert it. Hideous and clunky software that
came with it. On Ubuntu 10.04, it works flawlessly. Connects in less
than 5 seconds, integrated perfectly with the network manager, never
randomly shuts itself off. Also, my PVR350 USB TV tuner. Runs like
crap in Windows, in Linux, it works perfectly. Very little CPU usage, no
tearing, easy to record, etc. So, there really are 2 sides to the hardware
Windows/Linux coin.
than Windows.
Right click on the search box (the address bar) and click "Edit Search Engines...". I imagine you can handle it from there. Personally, I'm happy with Google so I didn't know. Took me about 10 seconds to figure it out though.
You asked for "remotely exploitable", so I gave you "remotely exploitable"
Fair enough. You successfully got me a little off-topic and I over-reached. Good job on that. You have a future in marketing. Still doesn't negate my central point that market share means jack shit when judging relative security.
I've always limited my argument to client machines. Marketshare is a valid reason for targetting client machines, but not an established reason for targetting server machines. Stop generalising.
It's not the kind of machines you're arguing about that is the source of your fallaciousness. It's the argument itself. Maybe you'll figure that out. Maybe you already have and are just trying to save face. It's cool.
I'm done with you. You maintained my interest for a while (thank you!), but you're veering off into jumping up and down with random "See and that means I've won the argument!!!!" and it makes you look silly. Quit while you're not ahead;-).
Yeah, party on, dude. Just make sure to keep that McAfee updated. Oh, my bad, too soon?
Just to check, what proportion of Google's yearly revenue comes from you? That may provide an accurate measure of how likely it is they'll help defend against private or government requests for data access. Or even hint to you that it's happened.
Also, how often are you allowed to audit their systems? See, most professional industries have independent external auditors/inspectors when third parties provide services, so it'd be almost insane if the answer were "never".
For all you know, I could be sitting right now with access to Google's intranet, having identified who you are by correlating your search behaviour with certain Slashdot postings, giggling at your porn browsing history and noting down some less-than-savoury links you clicked on. See, I might want to tip the police off if you ever happen to compete with my family's area of business (I mean, I could just look at your work directly to gain the upper hand, but then it might be too obvious what's going on - much better to get you discredited with the Sex Offender card).
Why exactly do you trust me not to do that? It's not as if I'm planting evidence - I'm just hypothetically pointing out one or two pictures you might accidentally still have in your cache because some bastard on some site posted something illegal and you didn't realise what the link pointed to. Once they've taken your computer as evidence and confirmed this, who is going to listen when you say, "The guy at Google was after me! It's a conspiracy!"
There'd be no conspiracy. It'd just be me, hypothetically destroying you, because I can, and because you thought it was wise to give so much personal and professional data (never mix...) to one organisation with 20,000 employees.
And that's before we get to how a corrupt government can do something similar if you dream of joining any protests, cooperating in any campaigns or writing in any significant political publications.
The FUD to signal ratio here is literally 1:0. I thought you would be above that.
So many eggs, so one basket!
From my earlier post.
We took a long hard look between Google Apps for Business in conjunction with our current Office 2003 install base
Actually, 2 baskets which is 1 more than most businesses. It's not an either/or proposition. The beauty of Google Apps for Businesses (for us, anyway) is it actually enhances our Office experience. We saved millions in licensing fees vs upgrading to Office 2010. Collaborative editing has been a boon for our productivity. Our employees documents can be accessed anywhere, anytime by them on whatever device they happen to have.
Perhaps you about to define a virus as, "something an OS X machine could never get".
A virus can start out as a trojan, yes. The distinguishing characteristic is that a virus self-replicates, actively seeks new hosts and attaches to them typically over a network (these days). A pure trojan doesn't replicate. It's just a hostile executable bundled with something seemingly innocuous.
This is a very important distinguishing characteristic when discussing the relative merits of operating system security. Any operating system can become the victim of a trojan. But, it's a very special operating system that is susceptible to viruses propagating over the internet to the extent that it has fallen victim to millions of variants for years and years and has people arguing over it on message boards all day long.
I'll give you one [carrel.org] to stop you whining. It's especially important because it describes what I've said about ethical hackers not being prepared to put their freedom on the line to impress kids. Contrary to what you think, many people care about the difference between showing that a gun can be guilt and building a gun for anyone to use.
From that advisory:
A series of seemingly innocuous default settings can cause an affected Mac OS X machine to trust a malicious machine on a network for user, group, and volume mounting settings.
I'll be sure to get the message to myself living in 2006 not to let anybody untrusted on the LAN. Again, how can this be exploited over the internet?
Argh. Webserver = server software. There are a few web servers most of which have administrators, many of whom will notice suspicious activity eventually. There are hundreds of millions of desktops/workstations on the net, very few of which have competent administrators. The content of an individual web server may be valuable, while the content of an individual client machine is likely not; the sum of bandwidths of web servers over time is likely not so impressive; whereas the sum of bandwidths of millions of distributed machines in a large botnet is very impressive.
Targeting a server and targeting a client are two very different goals.
You just made my point for me. You freely admit that saying software is relatively unexploited because of its market share is a fallacy. You also freely admit that you have to actually judge the software's security on its own merits. Obviously the blanket statement that Apache is more or less secure than IIS based on market share is ridiculous. Goes for any other piece of software. Including operating systems.
But it's been exploited many times in proof-of-concepts.
Doesn't mean jack until it's in the wild. A proof-of-concept set up in somebodies computer lab with controlled circumstances do not a real exploit make. Surely you realize this.
I'm going to do you a favor. Remember back in that one fateful class when you were working on your CS degree and the professor brought up a little thing called recursion? Remember how no matter how much he explained it, you just kept getting that funny feeling in the back of your brain and you just couldn't get it? I'm going to kill 2 birds with one stone here. Check it out:
Market share is irrelevant when discussing relative security of different OS's. An OS can conceivably have zero market other than on my own computer and be completely secure or not secure at all. An OS could have 100 percent market share and be in an identical situation. At the end of the day, the only way to prove an OS is insecure is to exploit it. Anything else is just talk. And from where I'm sitting, OS X looks pretty good.
I want you to read that. Then, go on ahead and read it again. And if you still don't get it, keep reading it. Eventually it'll click.
If you have no evidence that people are still writing purely mischievous viruses for recent Windows versions and releasing them into the wild such that they're picked up by antivirus researchers, then it's fairly certain you've not done enough research or are misidentifying the problem.
You misunderstand. I'm staying on topic. You seem to be making the argument that since the security realities are blah blah blah on Windows, then we can draw similar conclusions concerning OS X. Do you not see the problem with that reasoning?
He's worth reading, but I'd not read anything into what he doesn't say. The man's a previous employee of an intelligence agency, and knows where his bread is buttered.
I don't know him. I can only take him at his word. And since people love throwing the pwn2own stuff around to slander OS X, I'd say his word is very relevant at least in those people's minds. He hasn't revealed any remote exploits for OS X. When he does, we can talk.
But that's, of course, ridiculous - no test involves measuring every member of a population. OTOH, you can ask malware authors about the kind of successes they achieve with Windows botnets, and whether there's a dearth of machines to fulfil their needs. If supply of exploitable Windows boxes outpaces demand, there's absolutely no reason to even consider targeting alternative platforms for botnet zombies.
Again, please stay on topic. I'm not talking about Windows. My opinion is that OS X is hard to remotely exploit. The fact that it hasn't been done even one single time backs that up. Otherwise, there would be at least a few vanity exploits just to show it could be done. People love a challenge. Especially ego driven nerds. That's just human nature. Surely you aren't arguing against human nature which encompasses much more than just profit motive.
Except that most vulnerabilities refer to services which are disabled (and which wouldn't be enabled in the average client scenario)
So, out of the hundreds of conceivable services of which only a few are enabled by default, a typical exploit targets one that isn't enabled. Really? Who'd a thunk it. Let me clarify: statistically speaking, of course, most exploits are going to be for services that aren't enabled if only 1 in say, a hundred are running OOTB.
Apache isn't OS X or even much to do with Apple at all, and IIS isn't Windows. Evidently Apache's historical security record beats IIS into the ground - not sure about recently, as I've not touched IIS in a few years.
No, it isn't. But it sure invalidates the myth that marketshare=exploits which is what practically your entire argument hinges on.
Market share is irrelevant when discussing relative security of different OS's. An OS can conceivably have zero market other than on my own computer and be completely secure or not secure at all. An OS could have 100 percent market share and be in an identical situation. At the end of the day, the only way to prove an OS is insecure is to exploit it. Anything else is just talk. And from where I'm sitting, OS X looks pretty good.
That's my point. I'm talking about OSX, you veer off into Windows. I'm talking about viruses, somebody responds with crap about trojans. I just respond to point out that that isn't what I'm talking about and you just jump in like that's the whole conversation.
The car analogy illustrates your tendency to go on about something else not even remotely relevant to the point.
Go for it. But as part of your answer, and without desperately researching (you seem fairly confident of your reasoning, so I assume you're knowledgeable on this topic!), please name 8 in-the-wild viruses (i.e. not trojans) written in the past 5 years which targeted post-Vista SP1 workstations/desktops in their default configuration and which were not ostensibly written for profit.
Another time. Right now, I'm really just talking about OSX though I may tangentially refer to other platforms.
Now, where to start? This is going to be mostly a logical argument since there are no real viruses for OSX, there really isn't any experimental data to pull from.
Let's start with Charlie Miller, the vaunted pwn2own OSX cracker. Mr. Miller wrote a book on hacking Macs (which should have read OSX) but is himself incapable of developing a remote exploit for OSX. I don't read a lot of treeware but if his previous writings contain similar fallacies perhaps his name already has a dissuading quality.
Now onto some arguments (mostly his since he seems to be the patron saint of anti-OSX FUDmeisters). The first one is that Macs running OSX are safer because few malware programs target them. This is true. Unfortunately the theory veers off course from here by assuming that this is because of OSX' lesser market share.
Now, the most obvious problem with this argument is that is is unprovable. It assumes the intentions and motivations of malware authors. Unless someone has spoke with every malware author on the planet there is no way to know with absolute certainty why these authors target Windows OS's.
Sure, we can guess but I find it curious that when left to do so, people choose market share over simple vulnerability counts. My sensibilities tell me that the sheer number of remotely exploitable vulnerabilities found for Windows versus those for OSX might be a more likely reason for Windows to be the more common target. But I would never state that as fact because I simply can't know the truth.
Although we can set aside this argument on the basis of its unprovability alone, I'll offer another in the form of an example: Apache vs. IIS.
Apache has roughly twice the market share of IIS, last I checked (and it used to have much more) yet as far as I can recall there has never been a devastating Apache exploit. Need I mention some of the immeasurable damage done to servers across the world as a result of IIS exploits? I'm sure you've heard of them but if not just Google "code red."
Before I move on, I'll reiterate one more small point about market share: OS 8, 9 etc. had even less market share yet they had their share of malware. If Mac-based OS's are a fruitless target why would these versions have any at all? You assume that motivational factors are the differentiator. I offer an alternative explanation: it's because they had inferior architectures.
Some people assume Snow Leopard lacks security features that are built in to Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 resulting in Macs being more vulnerable to attack.
Frankly, no it doesn't, that's faulty logic. An operating system can lack all of Windows' security features and still be more secure. Are we to conclude that the ways Microsoft devised to plug up the holes in its software are the only way to secure an operating system? They aren't.
This is like making a safe out of cardboard, lining the inside with glass, then disparaging metal safes because they don't have a layer of glass.
I'm not saying that ASLR, for example, isn't a good thing to have anyway but it's hardly reason to go around planting seeds of distrust is it?
Some also say they are much farther behind the rest of the industry because they got a late start.
A late start? Apple has been writing graphical operating systems for longer than Microsoft, and Windows has always
Not a virus (really, this isn't 1998 anymore). But an honest to bog, real, live trojan running in the wild on OS X. Just like on Windows, it picks on clueless users intent on picking up something for free. TANSTAAFL.
BritneyNekkidPics.sh
#!/bin/sh
gksudo rm -rf/
Any dope can write a trojan and find somebody dumb enough to run it. Trying to conflate that with a propagating virus is a bit of a reach.
Really? You think the only similarities between Debian and Fedora are the kernel? Here's a one sentence education: they are practically the same except for the package management and the philosophy of their respective communities.
Every time I open Chrome for the first time on a new install, a huge popup takes over about a quarter of my screen imploring me, "Do you want to use Google Search or somebody else?" or something like that. I've never seen a browser that goes to such an extent to give me a choice in search providers.
Everything you've said is a great theory for why there would be few propagating viruses for OSX. Reply if you need me to explain why it is inadequate in explaining why there are no in the wild viruses for OSX.
Google Apps are certainly fine for my little sister typing up her homework assignments and writing bad poetry. It's certainly a far cry from that to Business, though (including sensitive personal business).
If you're running a business with Google Apps, you aren't just using the free service at docs.google.com. You pay just like you do with everything else and you get guarantees about the confidentiality of your documents. We took a long hard look between Google Apps for Business in conjunction with our current Office 2003 install base vs upgrading to Office 2010 with Office Web Apps and found the former to be a much more compelling alternative not only for cost savings but in functionality. Have you compared the features of Google Apps vs Office Web Apps? I dare say not.
I guarantee you that if Linux or OSX had 85% of the market share, Either OS would be identically compromised on a similar widespread basis.
That myth would make sense except for the following facts. OS8 and OS9 both had less marketshare than OSX yet they had viruses and OSX has none. I would even believe it if OSX had a few viruses but
it doesn't. If it were that easy to get something in the wild as you say it is, some hacker somewhere would have done it already just to say they did. Pwn2own is a game, not the real thing. Don't confuse the two.
Also, consider this. People running macs obviously have more disposable income. And since you seem to think OSX is so easy, they should be sheeps lined up for the slaughter right? That would amplify the effect of their marketshare and since you're pulling numbers out of your ass, I'll say that gives them the effect of having at least 20-25 percent. That's untold millions of credit card numbers, botnet nodes, etc. Why isn't it happening?
Speaking of which, at hacking competitions, which OS is usually the one to fall first?
Er, you're mixed up there, skippy. The guy you're responding to isn't defending OSX which is the first OS to fall at the competitions. And if you're speaking of pwn2own, OSX fell first, then Vista. Ubuntu didn't get hacked at all.
No. By intentionally twisting the connotation of a word to fit your ridiculous agenda.
As an aside, I just fired up my Windows 7 virtual machine. This whale is using 342 MB of RAM. Oh and that is with Aero off, no desktop wallpaper, and indexing off. Hell, it is even using the outline when I move a window. And you are trying to argue me down about 152 MB that my real Ubuntu install requires? Get some perspective. And you wonder why the market cap of Apple now exceeds Microsoft by 11 billion dollars. You people just don't get it.
WTF? Maybe you should look up the meaning of the word "hundreds." Here, I'll help you out: 4. hundreds The numbers between 100 and 999: an attendance figure estimated in the hundreds.
You make a usually misinformed but seldom boring MS 'turfbot but, really, with much of a lack of grasp of math, you missed your calling. You should instead work for these guys.
Maybe Windows 7 is running like a dog because ASUS has it running on a CPU it's not approved for.
Wow, if it is too bloated run on a over 1GHz power-efficient Atom, you guys are in worse shape than I thought.
Or maybe Windows 7 is running fine, and the tablet's touch-screen driver is a screwed-up piece of shit. Or maybe the OS and driver are fine, and the hardware is finicky. Or maybe the OS, driver, and hardware are fine and the guy demoing it isn't actually touching the screen on his first try.
Maybe you should be a little more creative when coming up with possibilities instead of immediately jumping to blame Microsoft.
Or maybe, your irrational MS zealotry has blinded you to the fact that it is simply a morbidly obese OS that is losing its ability to compete with more modern lean operating systems.
It's going to be almost sad watching you guys crack.
What kind of pile of shit OS needs hundreds of MB's of memory just to run?
What current, desktop-oriented, OS does't? Hell, OS X (you know, the one Slashdot raves about) requires significantly more RAM than Windows 7 does. Where's your criticism of it?
You are misinformed. I just rebooted my Acer Aspire One running Ubuntu 10.04 into a Gnome 2.30 environment. According to free, it's using a whopping 152 MB of RAM and the rest is in use as cache. Seeing as there is more room in cache than there would be on Windows 7 on this netbook, comparatively speaking, Win7 is bloated. Oh, and just for the record, I just fired up Chrome. Sitting at 194 MB. Still within what I said and that's with no optimizing at all as this is a bone stock install (except for Chrome).
And sure, you can run a Linux install on less than 100 MBs, but the fact is:
1) It won't do shit
2) None of the shipping desktop-oriented Linux OSes have that small a footprint
Nice strawman. If you actually read, you'd see that I said hundreds of MB's and my Ubuntu netbook requires 152.
And how are buggy ASUS touch drivers Microsoft's fault?
Excuses. Firstly, I'm inclined to believe the problem was that Win7 runs like a dog on the processor that was in the slate we're talking about which most emphatically is MS's fault. Furthermore, how many capacitive touch slates are on the market that do work well with Windows 7? That's what I thought.
You're spreading the exact kind of FUD this thread is talking about.
Note to self: Never take Linux security advice from a Wintard.
And with local user privileges, there's not much missing for to get local administrative access - there are several local root exploits on Linux every year
Compared to how many on Windows? This is Google we are talking about here. They can pay people to pour through the entire source code of Linux and make any changes necessary to meet their security requirements and keep doing it. Not to mention the fact that Google is currently shipping one entire and very successful Linux OS and they have another one on the way. With Windows, they would have to beg MS. It's obvious which tactic they will take.
And even if not: All the important data is accessible without administrative privileges - in the users home directory.
Wow. You are such a fucking noob. Ever heard of a little thing called AppArmor? One simple tweak of a configuration and the web browser has no access to the local file system at all barring its own config files. You could also very easily run the browser as another user that has extremely limited privileges.
In short, you are a clueless moron and you obviously don't have a job in IT. So, just take another handful out of the Cheetoes bag and snuggle into your couch, fuckwad and leave the real discussion to the pros.
Run Windows 7. Its a hell of a lot better. MS finally got something right.
Bullshit. Windows 7 is still the bloated creaking pile of shit that Windows always was. What kind of pile of shit OS needs hundreds of MB's of memory just to run? I've used Win7 on netbooks. It's slow and shitty just like what you'd expect. I watched the video today of Windows 7 on the new tablets Asus is about to release. You know what? It was slow and buggy as shit. The person on the video had to press icons several times to get anything to work and the multi-touch wasn't working worth a shit. There's a reason the smart companies like HP are abandoning the Wintanic.
Slashdot Mirror
When I said "mission critical" I mean stuff that makes me money.
I'm right there with you. Mappoint and a certain business critical all-in-one invoicing, pricing, follow-up, you name it app precluded me from using Linux for a long time. Then I just got to thinking about it one day and said, screw this, I'm going to make this Linux thing happen one way or the other. Not saying it's necessarily that easy, because it isn't but it gets me to this other thing.
I happily, after getting all hardware and logistical issues sorted out, used Windows 2000 in a vm for a long time. And was actually happier since when I needed to move to new hardware or my machine died, I didn't have to reinstall anything, I just moved the vm over and kept right on going. Then, I got to thinking, this business application kind of sucks and I sure do wish it ran on Linux. Wine was a non-starter as it was a .net monster that just wouldn't run on anything but just
the right Visual C runtime, etc. So, to make a long story short,
I got Learning Python and Programming Python by O'Reilly and 6 months
later, not only did I rewrite the app from scratch but now it's much
more specific to my business and it's so lean it runs on my cellphone.
And I went from knowing nothing to "you can't tell me nothing" in 6
months flat with Python. There's even an awesome RAD tool for it with templates and Glade drag and
drop GUI editing integration that makes it so you can turn out polished
apps in hours once you learn your way around a bit.
Of course, this doesn't help you today but it's a good start. And don't necessarily be turned off by Python being a "script" language as it has seamless C binding integration for any performance critical parts of your application. And it's all free except for your time. I don't have a lot of free time either but with Python, learning programming is a snap.
Take the sail design source from SailcutCAD, the hull design source from Free!Ship, combine the two along with a custom designed two phase (compressible/incompressible) CFD system solver (one for aerodynamics, one for hydrodynamics) built on OpenFOAM, but very streamlined so as to facilitate GPGPU (or more ideally OpenCL) acceleration... then give it away. I have big ideals but limited skills. For me alone? 5 years, no less.
That sounds really cool though I don't know much about sailboats but I'll tell you what. If you were to get enough of it written with say Python or whatever and throw up the prototype on sourceforge or launchpad, provided there is enough interest, you might be blown away as the application practically "writes itself". That's the power of this stuff. If people think it's cool and it does something for them, if they have something to work with, they'll pretty much do the rest.
See, I tried at least 6 different flavors.
That's a shame you're having such a hard time with your Linux VM's. Maybe if you went here first and just downloaded Ubuntu or something that's already ready to go, you could get started on the right foot.
I find it interesting that I mirror your problems except in the reverse. I've had very positive experiences with Linux (primarily Debian and Ubuntu) and not so great experiences with Win7 vm's. I first tried 7 in vmware on a machine with an e8400 c2d and 1 GB of RAM allocated to the virtual machine but after a little while, had to just give up. It consistently thrashed the disk, pegged the CPU, and I just couldn't do anything with it. I then tried it in VirtualBox and it did run much better, especially after I turned everything off. The only problem was that while it started programs faster, they just didn't perform nearly as well as they do in my XP vm. This is a serious problem as I use XP primarily for Mappoint which needs a lot of CPU since the last 3 or so iterations. I don't really care a whole lot about the additional security in 7 since I leave the virtual network disconnected from Windows anyway.
I'm a fan of the FOSS movement, because it just feels right. But if it comes to anything mission critical, I have to use Windows. Or at least XP32 emulated on XP64, because x64 never "just worked" either.
There are a lot of people running mission critical stuff on Linux too so, since you at least like the idea of FLOSS, don't give up. Try one of the vm's on the site I linked to and if you break it, just start over. Don't let it beat you. That's how I started in a vm and now several years later, I find Linux to be an absolute joy to use and there is no way I would use anything else on my hardware. Something else too. I run Linux and Windows in virtual machines and on my Ubuntu host, I always find the Linux guests run better than the XP guests. For example, I can move windows on XP and get lots of tearing, not so in the Linux machines. Maybe it's just me but that's my experience.
I don't so much have a problem with the concept of "Libraries", however, I do think it's funny how people think it's a new thing considering the fact that Sun came up with it way back in 1986 and several other operating systems have been using it since the 90's.
Now her wireless card doesn't work at all. Problem solved!
I've seen plenty of hardware stop working after upgrading from one version of Windows to another. In the recent past, I've had a scanner and a graphics card that didn't have Windows 7 drivers and the lady just had me put XP back on the box.
Linux may not work with everything but, when it does, it tends to work very well and continue to work. The only real problems are with hardware that just flat has to be reverse engineered to even work at all. If the manufacturer won't make a driver and won't release the specs, what are you going to do? Imagine the reverse, what if hardware just wasn't released with a Windows driver? Is that Windows' or Microsoft's fault?
I'll sum this up with a couple of anecdotes. I have some hardware on my desktop that work much better under Linux. The USB720 wireless data card that I got from Verizon, for example, was a mess under Windows. 30 or more seconds to connect, shutting itself down after 2 hours or so requiring me to pull it out and reinsert it. Hideous and clunky software that came with it. On Ubuntu 10.04, it works flawlessly. Connects in less than 5 seconds, integrated perfectly with the network manager, never randomly shuts itself off. Also, my PVR350 USB TV tuner. Runs like crap in Windows, in Linux, it works perfectly. Very little CPU usage, no tearing, easy to record, etc. So, there really are 2 sides to the hardware Windows/Linux coin. than Windows.
Right click on the search box (the address bar) and click "Edit Search Engines...". I imagine you can handle it from there. Personally, I'm happy with Google so I didn't know. Took me about 10 seconds to figure it out though.
You asked for "remotely exploitable", so I gave you "remotely exploitable"
Fair enough. You successfully got me a little off-topic and I over-reached. Good job on that. You have a future in marketing. Still doesn't negate my central point that market share means jack shit when judging relative security.
I've always limited my argument to client machines. Marketshare is a valid reason for targetting client machines, but not an established reason for targetting server machines. Stop generalising.
It's not the kind of machines you're arguing about that is the source of your fallaciousness. It's the argument itself. Maybe you'll figure that out. Maybe you already have and are just trying to save face. It's cool.
I'm done with you. You maintained my interest for a while (thank you!), but you're veering off into jumping up and down with random "See and that means I've won the argument!!!!" and it makes you look silly. Quit while you're not ahead ;-).
Yeah, party on, dude. Just make sure to keep that McAfee updated. Oh, my bad, too soon?
Just to check, what proportion of Google's yearly revenue comes from you? That may provide an accurate measure of how likely it is they'll help defend against private or government requests for data access. Or even hint to you that it's happened. Also, how often are you allowed to audit their systems? See, most professional industries have independent external auditors/inspectors when third parties provide services, so it'd be almost insane if the answer were "never". For all you know, I could be sitting right now with access to Google's intranet, having identified who you are by correlating your search behaviour with certain Slashdot postings, giggling at your porn browsing history and noting down some less-than-savoury links you clicked on. See, I might want to tip the police off if you ever happen to compete with my family's area of business (I mean, I could just look at your work directly to gain the upper hand, but then it might be too obvious what's going on - much better to get you discredited with the Sex Offender card). Why exactly do you trust me not to do that? It's not as if I'm planting evidence - I'm just hypothetically pointing out one or two pictures you might accidentally still have in your cache because some bastard on some site posted something illegal and you didn't realise what the link pointed to. Once they've taken your computer as evidence and confirmed this, who is going to listen when you say, "The guy at Google was after me! It's a conspiracy!" There'd be no conspiracy. It'd just be me, hypothetically destroying you, because I can, and because you thought it was wise to give so much personal and professional data (never mix...) to one organisation with 20,000 employees. And that's before we get to how a corrupt government can do something similar if you dream of joining any protests, cooperating in any campaigns or writing in any significant political publications.
The FUD to signal ratio here is literally 1:0. I thought you would be above that.
So many eggs, so one basket!
From my earlier post.
We took a long hard look between Google Apps for Business in conjunction with our current Office 2003 install base
Actually, 2 baskets which is 1 more than most businesses. It's not an either/or proposition. The beauty of Google Apps for Businesses (for us, anyway) is it actually enhances our Office experience. We saved millions in licensing fees vs upgrading to Office 2010. Collaborative editing has been a boon for our productivity. Our employees documents can be accessed anywhere, anytime by them on whatever device they happen to have.
I don't know how we got along without it.
Also, when is a virus not a trojan, precisely?
Perhaps you about to define a virus as, "something an OS X machine could never get".
A virus can start out as a trojan, yes. The distinguishing characteristic is that a virus self-replicates, actively seeks new hosts and attaches to them typically over a network (these days). A pure trojan doesn't replicate. It's just a hostile executable bundled with something seemingly innocuous.
This is a very important distinguishing characteristic when discussing the relative merits of operating system security. Any operating system can become the victim of a trojan. But, it's a very special operating system that is susceptible to viruses propagating over the internet to the extent that it has fallen victim to millions of variants for years and years and has people arguing over it on message boards all day long.
I'll give you one [carrel.org] to stop you whining. It's especially important because it describes what I've said about ethical hackers not being prepared to put their freedom on the line to impress kids. Contrary to what you think, many people care about the difference between showing that a gun can be guilt and building a gun for anyone to use.
From that advisory:
A series of seemingly innocuous default settings can cause an affected Mac OS X machine to trust a malicious machine on a network for user, group, and volume mounting settings.
I'll be sure to get the message to myself living in 2006 not to let anybody untrusted on the LAN. Again, how can this be exploited over the internet?
Argh. Webserver = server software. There are a few web servers most of which have administrators, many of whom will notice suspicious activity eventually. There are hundreds of millions of desktops/workstations on the net, very few of which have competent administrators. The content of an individual web server may be valuable, while the content of an individual client machine is likely not; the sum of bandwidths of web servers over time is likely not so impressive; whereas the sum of bandwidths of millions of distributed machines in a large botnet is very impressive.
Targeting a server and targeting a client are two very different goals.
You just made my point for me. You freely admit that saying software is relatively unexploited because of its market share is a fallacy. You also freely admit that you have to actually judge the software's security on its own merits. Obviously the blanket statement that Apache is more or less secure than IIS based on market share is ridiculous. Goes for any other piece of software. Including operating systems.
But it's been exploited many times in proof-of-concepts.
Doesn't mean jack until it's in the wild. A proof-of-concept set up in somebodies computer lab with controlled circumstances do not a real exploit make. Surely you realize this.
I'm going to do you a favor. Remember back in that one fateful class when you were working on your CS degree and the professor brought up a little thing called recursion? Remember how no matter how much he explained it, you just kept getting that funny feeling in the back of your brain and you just couldn't get it? I'm going to kill 2 birds with one stone here. Check it out:
Market share is irrelevant when discussing relative security of different OS's. An OS can conceivably have zero market other than on my own computer and be completely secure or not secure at all. An OS could have 100 percent market share and be in an identical situation. At the end of the day, the only way to prove an OS is insecure is to exploit it. Anything else is just talk. And from where I'm sitting, OS X looks pretty good.
I want you to read that. Then, go on ahead and read it again. And if you still don't get it, keep reading it. Eventually it'll click.
You can thank me later.
If you have no evidence that people are still writing purely mischievous viruses for recent Windows versions and releasing them into the wild such that they're picked up by antivirus researchers, then it's fairly certain you've not done enough research or are misidentifying the problem.
You misunderstand. I'm staying on topic. You seem to be making the argument that since the security realities are blah blah blah on Windows, then we can draw similar conclusions concerning OS X. Do you not see the problem with that reasoning?
He's worth reading, but I'd not read anything into what he doesn't say. The man's a previous employee of an intelligence agency, and knows where his bread is buttered.
I don't know him. I can only take him at his word. And since people love throwing the pwn2own stuff around to slander OS X, I'd say his word is very relevant at least in those people's minds. He hasn't revealed any remote exploits for OS X. When he does, we can talk.
But that's, of course, ridiculous - no test involves measuring every member of a population. OTOH, you can ask malware authors about the kind of successes they achieve with Windows botnets, and whether there's a dearth of machines to fulfil their needs. If supply of exploitable Windows boxes outpaces demand, there's absolutely no reason to even consider targeting alternative platforms for botnet zombies.
Again, please stay on topic. I'm not talking about Windows. My opinion is that OS X is hard to remotely exploit. The fact that it hasn't been done even one single time backs that up. Otherwise, there would be at least a few vanity exploits just to show it could be done. People love a challenge. Especially ego driven nerds. That's just human nature. Surely you aren't arguing against human nature which encompasses much more than just profit motive.
Except that most vulnerabilities refer to services which are disabled (and which wouldn't be enabled in the average client scenario)
So, out of the hundreds of conceivable services of which only a few are enabled by default, a typical exploit targets one that isn't enabled. Really? Who'd a thunk it. Let me clarify: statistically speaking, of course, most exploits are going to be for services that aren't enabled if only 1 in say, a hundred are running OOTB.
Apache isn't OS X or even much to do with Apple at all, and IIS isn't Windows. Evidently Apache's historical security record beats IIS into the ground - not sure about recently, as I've not touched IIS in a few years.
No, it isn't. But it sure invalidates the myth that marketshare=exploits which is what practically your entire argument hinges on.
Market share is irrelevant when discussing relative security of different OS's. An OS can conceivably have zero market other than on my own computer and be completely secure or not secure at all. An OS could have 100 percent market share and be in an identical situation. At the end of the day, the only way to prove an OS is insecure is to exploit it. Anything else is just talk. And from where I'm sitting, OS X looks pretty good.
That's my point. I'm talking about OSX, you veer off into Windows. I'm talking about viruses, somebody responds with crap about trojans. I just respond to point out that that isn't what I'm talking about and you just jump in like that's the whole conversation.
The car analogy illustrates your tendency to go on about something else not even remotely relevant to the point.
Sorry, your arguments get weirder and weirder.
Back at ya.
We're taking a road trip from Redmond, WA to Cupertino, CA. Suddenly, we hear a weird slapping noise coming from the front left fender.
Me: Shit! Flat tire.
You: Yeah, we better make sure we keep the oil changed or the engine might seize.
Me: ???
Go for it. But as part of your answer, and without desperately researching (you seem fairly confident of your reasoning, so I assume you're knowledgeable on this topic!), please name 8 in-the-wild viruses (i.e. not trojans) written in the past 5 years which targeted post-Vista SP1 workstations/desktops in their default configuration and which were not ostensibly written for profit.
Another time. Right now, I'm really just talking about OSX though I may tangentially refer to other platforms.
Now, where to start? This is going to be mostly a logical argument since there are no real viruses for OSX, there really isn't any experimental data to pull from.
Let's start with Charlie Miller, the vaunted pwn2own OSX cracker. Mr. Miller wrote a book on hacking Macs (which should have read OSX) but is himself incapable of developing a remote exploit for OSX. I don't read a lot of treeware but if his previous writings contain similar fallacies perhaps his name already has a dissuading quality.
Now onto some arguments (mostly his since he seems to be the patron saint of anti-OSX FUDmeisters). The first one is that Macs running OSX are safer because few malware programs target them. This is true. Unfortunately the theory veers off course from here by assuming that this is because of OSX' lesser market share.
Now, the most obvious problem with this argument is that is is unprovable. It assumes the intentions and motivations of malware authors. Unless someone has spoke with every malware author on the planet there is no way to know with absolute certainty why these authors target Windows OS's.
Sure, we can guess but I find it curious that when left to do so, people choose market share over simple vulnerability counts. My sensibilities tell me that the sheer number of remotely exploitable vulnerabilities found for Windows versus those for OSX might be a more likely reason for Windows to be the more common target. But I would never state that as fact because I simply can't know the truth.
Although we can set aside this argument on the basis of its unprovability alone, I'll offer another in the form of an example: Apache vs. IIS.
Apache has roughly twice the market share of IIS, last I checked (and it used to have much more) yet as far as I can recall there has never been a devastating Apache exploit. Need I mention some of the immeasurable damage done to servers across the world as a result of IIS exploits? I'm sure you've heard of them but if not just Google "code red."
Before I move on, I'll reiterate one more small point about market share: OS 8, 9 etc. had even less market share yet they had their share of malware. If Mac-based OS's are a fruitless target why would these versions have any at all? You assume that motivational factors are the differentiator. I offer an alternative explanation: it's because they had inferior architectures.
Some people assume Snow Leopard lacks security features that are built in to Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 resulting in Macs being more vulnerable to attack.
Frankly, no it doesn't, that's faulty logic. An operating system can lack all of Windows' security features and still be more secure. Are we to conclude that the ways Microsoft devised to plug up the holes in its software are the only way to secure an operating system? They aren't.
This is like making a safe out of cardboard, lining the inside with glass, then disparaging metal safes because they don't have a layer of glass.
I'm not saying that ASLR, for example, isn't a good thing to have anyway but it's hardly reason to go around planting seeds of distrust is it?
Some also say they are much farther behind the rest of the industry because they got a late start.
A late start? Apple has been writing graphical operating systems for longer than Microsoft, and Windows has always
Not a virus (really, this isn't 1998 anymore). But an honest to bog, real, live trojan running in the wild on OS X. Just like on Windows, it picks on clueless users intent on picking up something for free. TANSTAAFL.
BritneyNekkidPics.sh
#!/bin/sh /
gksudo rm -rf
Any dope can write a trojan and find somebody dumb enough to run it. Trying to conflate that with a propagating virus is a bit of a reach.
Really? You think the only similarities between Debian and Fedora are the kernel? Here's a one sentence education: they are practically the same except for the package management and the philosophy of their respective communities.
They kinda do force you to use Google search
Every time I open Chrome for the first time on a new install, a huge popup takes over about a quarter of my screen imploring me, "Do you want to use Google Search or somebody else?" or something like that. I've never seen a browser that goes to such an extent to give me a choice in search providers.
Everything you've said is a great theory for why there would be few propagating viruses for OSX. Reply if you need me to explain why it is inadequate in explaining why there are no in the wild viruses for OSX.
Google Apps are certainly fine for my little sister typing up her homework assignments and writing bad poetry. It's certainly a far cry from that to Business, though (including sensitive personal business).
If you're running a business with Google Apps, you aren't just using the free service at docs.google.com. You pay just like you do with everything else and you get guarantees about the confidentiality of your documents. We took a long hard look between Google Apps for Business in conjunction with our current Office 2003 install base vs upgrading to Office 2010 with Office Web Apps and found the former to be a much more compelling alternative not only for cost savings but in functionality. Have you compared the features of Google Apps vs Office Web Apps? I dare say not.
I guarantee you that if Linux or OSX had 85% of the market share, Either OS would be identically compromised on a similar widespread basis.
That myth would make sense except for the following facts. OS8 and OS9 both had less marketshare than OSX yet they had viruses and OSX has none. I would even believe it if OSX had a few viruses but it doesn't. If it were that easy to get something in the wild as you say it is, some hacker somewhere would have done it already just to say they did. Pwn2own is a game, not the real thing. Don't confuse the two.
Also, consider this. People running macs obviously have more disposable income. And since you seem to think OSX is so easy, they should be sheeps lined up for the slaughter right? That would amplify the effect of their marketshare and since you're pulling numbers out of your ass, I'll say that gives them the effect of having at least 20-25 percent. That's untold millions of credit card numbers, botnet nodes, etc. Why isn't it happening?
Speaking of which, at hacking competitions, which OS is usually the one to fall first?
Er, you're mixed up there, skippy. The guy you're responding to isn't defending OSX which is the first OS to fall at the competitions. And if you're speaking of pwn2own, OSX fell first, then Vista. Ubuntu didn't get hacked at all.
By quoting the dictionary?
No. By intentionally twisting the connotation of a word to fit your ridiculous agenda.
As an aside, I just fired up my Windows 7 virtual machine. This whale is using 342 MB of RAM. Oh and that is with Aero off, no desktop wallpaper, and indexing off. Hell, it is even using the outline when I move a window. And you are trying to argue me down about 152 MB that my real Ubuntu install requires? Get some perspective. And you wonder why the market cap of Apple now exceeds Microsoft by 11 billion dollars. You people just don't get it.
WTF? Maybe you should look up the meaning of the word "hundreds." Here, I'll help you out: 4. hundreds The numbers between 100 and 999: an attendance figure estimated in the hundreds.
You make a usually misinformed but seldom boring MS 'turfbot but, really, with much of a lack of grasp of math, you missed your calling. You should instead work for these guys.
Maybe Windows 7 is running like a dog because ASUS has it running on a CPU it's not approved for.
Wow, if it is too bloated run on a over 1GHz power-efficient Atom, you guys are in worse shape than I thought.
Or maybe Windows 7 is running fine, and the tablet's touch-screen driver is a screwed-up piece of shit. Or maybe the OS and driver are fine, and the hardware is finicky. Or maybe the OS, driver, and hardware are fine and the guy demoing it isn't actually touching the screen on his first try. Maybe you should be a little more creative when coming up with possibilities instead of immediately jumping to blame Microsoft.
Or maybe, your irrational MS zealotry has blinded you to the fact that it is simply a morbidly obese OS that is losing its ability to compete with more modern lean operating systems. It's going to be almost sad watching you guys crack.
What kind of pile of shit OS needs hundreds of MB's of memory just to run?
What current, desktop-oriented, OS does't? Hell, OS X (you know, the one Slashdot raves about) requires significantly more RAM than Windows 7 does. Where's your criticism of it?
You are misinformed. I just rebooted my Acer Aspire One running Ubuntu 10.04 into a Gnome 2.30 environment. According to free, it's using a whopping 152 MB of RAM and the rest is in use as cache. Seeing as there is more room in cache than there would be on Windows 7 on this netbook, comparatively speaking, Win7 is bloated. Oh, and just for the record, I just fired up Chrome. Sitting at 194 MB. Still within what I said and that's with no optimizing at all as this is a bone stock install (except for Chrome).
And sure, you can run a Linux install on less than 100 MBs, but the fact is:
1) It won't do shit
2) None of the shipping desktop-oriented Linux OSes have that small a footprint
Nice strawman. If you actually read, you'd see that I said hundreds of MB's and my Ubuntu netbook requires 152.
And how are buggy ASUS touch drivers Microsoft's fault?
Excuses. Firstly, I'm inclined to believe the problem was that Win7 runs like a dog on the processor that was in the slate we're talking about which most emphatically is MS's fault. Furthermore, how many capacitive touch slates are on the market that do work well with Windows 7? That's what I thought.
You're spreading the exact kind of FUD this thread is talking about.
Nope.
Note to self: Never take Linux security advice from a Wintard.
And with local user privileges, there's not much missing for to get local administrative access - there are several local root exploits on Linux every year
Compared to how many on Windows? This is Google we are talking about here. They can pay people to pour through the entire source code of Linux and make any changes necessary to meet their security requirements and keep doing it. Not to mention the fact that Google is currently shipping one entire and very successful Linux OS and they have another one on the way. With Windows, they would have to beg MS. It's obvious which tactic they will take.
And even if not: All the important data is accessible without administrative privileges - in the users home directory.
Wow. You are such a fucking noob. Ever heard of a little thing called AppArmor? One simple tweak of a configuration and the web browser has no access to the local file system at all barring its own config files. You could also very easily run the browser as another user that has extremely limited privileges.
In short, you are a clueless moron and you obviously don't have a job in IT. So, just take another handful out of the Cheetoes bag and snuggle into your couch, fuckwad and leave the real discussion to the pros.
Er, the iPad has a Youtube app so, yes, you can watch Youtube videos while you're flying.
Run Windows 7. Its a hell of a lot better. MS finally got something right.
Bullshit. Windows 7 is still the bloated creaking pile of shit that Windows always was. What kind of pile of shit OS needs hundreds of MB's of memory just to run? I've used Win7 on netbooks. It's slow and shitty just like what you'd expect. I watched the video today of Windows 7 on the new tablets Asus is about to release. You know what? It was slow and buggy as shit. The person on the video had to press icons several times to get anything to work and the multi-touch wasn't working worth a shit. There's a reason the smart companies like HP are abandoning the Wintanic.