On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 20:44 +0800, Joe Morris wrote:
On 07/09/2008 07:19 PM, Damon Register wrote:
Jim Henderson wrote:
As the desktop market grows, the need will likely grow as well. That makes me wonder if Linux ever really catches on in the desktop market, would the virus issue become as serious as it is for Windows? I have heard plenty of arguments that Linux is much safer but I often wonder if it is safer only because it isn't mainstream enough to interest the virus writers.
Damon Register
I may be naive, but I just don't see it this way (but I a not a programmer). I used to use OS/2, which was a great system, and AFAIK NEVER had a virus, not because it was not popular, but because it was well written. Though systems are more complicated and asked to do a whole lot more now, I think Linux is well designed from the basics up, and is more secure by design, not just because of obscurity. One of the strengths of open source is the fact that more code is reviewed and by more people. It is also designed to actually work as a regular user. I know I use and promote Linux not because it is more secure by obscurity, but because it is more secure by design. It would seem to be easier to write a virus for Linux in the sense it is open source and you can see the code. It is also obvious that since there are many virus writers in it for the prestige and fame they get, and yet there hasn't been any Linux viruses, that just seeing the code doesn't make it easy. The Linux design makes it better, not just its market share, IMHO.
No matter how well designed an o.s. is, there will allways be weakpoints, and people waiting and trying to abuse them. Any os can be cracked, some are infested be design (don't have to specify that one -;) Others are harder to break, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD.. An innocent and handy rpm, provided by someone who claims to have an updated version of tcpdump, strace what ever.... For many month everything goes well and the program performs as expected. But then, one nasty day, a sloppy admin uses the tool as root user in stead of his normal account And then: Bingo! backdoors opened drives screwed up. Some minutes ago, someone asked how often people make backups. I wonder how often do people examine the source code of the stuff they install? Probably even less. The software that comes directly from SuSE i trust for 100%. But how about the stuff that comes from packman or the buildservice Or some obscure download site. Or Adobe? Closed source drives for wifi or video card? Do you trust them? Did they wrote it themselves or was it obtained by some obscure company that is persuaded to include some backdoors by the cia/mosad/your friendly heroine dealer..... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org