Re: So leaky that a $4 billion industry was built to protect it

On Sunday 02 July 2006 01:17 pm, cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) had this
to say in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:38:48 -0700, NoStop <nostop@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"It's much more profitable to slam Windows out with more leaky features
than ever, then charge your new victims for protection. Heck, since
Protection's your secondary racket, you can even afford to undercut your
old partners by 50% or more."

http://www.emailbattles.com/archive/battles/security_aaeajhghdi_jg/

What a moronic article! (yes, I'll explain why I say that...)

<snip> for brevity.


The very use of the mean-nothing word "open" is an indication that MS
has dumbed down the UI to the point that it is no longer possible for
newbies to practice "safe hex". Imagine if you were prevented from
seeing who knocked at your door before you opened it, or if airport
security no longer had metal detectors? Same problem.

OTOH, is *NIX any better there? AFAIK, *NIX disregards file name
extensions altogether, and routinely names raw code files without any
extension at all. How does a Linux user predict what "opening" an
unknown file will do, if no type info is displayed?

The file has to be marked as executable by the user. Opening any file,
including a so-called executable file will only "run" that program if the
file was first marked through its permissions as executable and who has
permission to execute it.

On top of this, unlike Windoze, *NIX is designed so that the kernel space
and the user space are totally separate. Some misbehaving application
running in the user space cannot impact or harm the kernel space in any
way. This is one of the main reasons that virus writers haven't been able
to create malware that can bring down a *NIX system, like they can with a
Windoze system where there is no separation between the kernel space and
the user space. Should a *NIX user decide to make a malware application
(virus, trojan, etc) executable and run same, it cannot impact the system
beyond the user's space. To do any real damage to the operating system as a
whole, the root user would need to run the application. This is highly
unlikely as *NIX users only run as root to do very specific tasks and only
those tasks so a virus or trojan stands little chance of running on its own
and bringing down a *NIX box.





<snip>


Specifically (apropos the article cited above) I'd say the impact of
malware on Microsoft is mainly negative. It significantly boosts the
cost of post-release development and support (remember, patches and
support calls related to malware are free) and provides the biggest
percieved reason to move away from Microsoft products to something
else - revitalizing Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox and stimulating interest
in alternative platforms such as Linux and MacOS.

Precisely! As more and more computer users become fed up with having to
spend so much time trying to protect their systems from malware or fix
problems with malware that has slipped past their latest AV "protection",
the growing trend is to look towards more secure platforms, such as
GNU/Linux or Mac OSX. It is SO nice to be able to just work on ones
computer and not worry about the 100,000 plus viruses out there in the wild
ready to bring down ones system.




---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Don't pay malware vendors - boycott Sony
---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

--
The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUSn-jBA3CE

View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Generic Host Process for Win32 Services
    ... Enquire, plan and execute ... "Tonyo UK" wrote: ... CNCL4100.DLL is revealed as a Canon file related to my All-In-One ... I don't see this as a malware problem, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: So leaky that a $4 billion industry was built to protect it
    ... and the user space are totally separate. ... this is similar to the "limited user rights" concept. ... *NIX is ahead there, because the *NIX software community has been ... malware on Microsoft is mainly negative. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Need substitutes for AVG and AdAware
    ... ...or by exploiting the "human nature" vulnerability of users. ... that trojans are probably the way that *most* malware gets executed. ... to execute those from people they *do* know. ...
    (alt.comp.anti-virus)
  • Re: Linux security
    ... harder to deploy the malware in the first place and it's much ... I know the execute bit part. ... All the points raised so far on this thread are basically deployment ... Linux, Windows and every other OS I've seen will all let you destroy ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: Whats the best antivirus for XP?
    ... foisted redirect to a website hosting an exploit which, caused the vulnerable browser to download and execute the malware. ... The malware then infected executable files and script files. ... The script files usually contained the redirect to download the malware, and the executables contained the virus itself. ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
Loading