New subject: [suse-security] suggestion for ssh packaging

5 Jan 2001

      [Mainly offtopic]

Jeremy Buchmann said:
...
I don't understand this weird uber-advocacy stance that says we have to
convert every single Windows user to Linux and make Linux the one and only
operating system on earth.  It's completely irrational and goes against the
very idea of having a choice of computer operating systems.
While I agree with you that blind advocacy is a stupid thing, I must say that
more people using Linux and seeing it as a viable alternative to Windows could
well make a difference for many of us: my work is maintaining a network of about
100 client PC, and as of today linux could be used to do a good 95% of all we
need to do with these computer. But we have to use Windows, mainly for Office
and for easy interoperability with "external" software and software houses
(accounting, payrolls, etc are windows only, or at best unix-but-not-linux).

If Linux will become (still) easier to use - and it's becoming more and more so
- there'll be many more people and software house that will be accepting it,
using it and developing for it. And I could use linux instead of Windows on a
good 95% of my PCs.
Doing this is not only better for me (easier administration) but also for the
company I work for, that will be able to save millions in stupid licenses and
associated management/"ownership" costs (did you ever try the new Windows 2000
Terminal Server License? ;)

Moreover, if you're not a US citizen, maybe you could like (as I do) not having
your country dumping lotsa money on the US paying for insecure, disfunctional
and often plain stupid software (PLEASE flame me on private mail and not on the
list, thanks! ;-)

This goes without speaking of security risks (wow! back on topic! ;): we may put
up very aggressive firewalls using Linux (see active probing of incoming attacks
and maybe active defenses ;) but we have to accept mails and documents from the
internet, and if you're using ANY mail program that uses IE HTML rendering
object, or Office, you're exposing yourself to *A LOT* of threats. I follow
NTBUGTRAQ to stay ahead of these problems, and I often found myself thanking the
gods we don't use dangerous mail programs. But MANY times there were series of
so many horrible bugs in only a few days that I was *praying* noone will want to
use the combination of those to write a nasty stealth virus, or else we'll all
close shop in a few months.
And we cannot set up a mailfilter to check for buffer overflows and/or the use
of badly signed/catalogued objects that already are on our computers. And I
wouldn't put my faith in Antivirus firms either: if the exploit writer is smart
and stealthy enough, they'll never see the virus before activation. Remember the
CIH virus? It was very stealthy, and was caught only because a version of it was
programmed to wipe your disks (and BIOSes) every month instead of every year.
What if the monthly version of the virus didn't exist? Even with that and the
antiviruses ready in August 1998, more than 300.000 were wiped out.

This is not to say that Linux is absolutely secure and doesn't have these kinds
of problems, but it *can* be more secure if we care. With windows we don't have
the opition (try using tripwire on %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32 ;-). Moreover, I firmly
believe that diversity is strenght, and having different people, companies,
governments etc. of the world using different but faily interoperable OSes and
programs will avoid having a single virus wiping out us all.

Ciao,
  Roberto
(and sorry for the rant! :-)

Re: Re: [suse-security] suggestion for ssh packaging

r.maurizzi＠gvs.it

Jeremy Buchmann

Kurt Seifried

Jeremiah Johnson

Michael Long

Gerhard Sittig

Michael Long

Roman Drahtmueller

Roman Drahtmueller

Peter Wiersig

Bob Vickers

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