Re: Where Can I Buy a Zombie PC?

NoStop take a look at some real specs.
http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results.asp

Oh maybe you need that RED pill first.



Not really, not anymore. Windows Server 2003 is handling some pretty huge
computer operations.

I don't know how you judge "huge". What I'd call "huge" would be something
like Google. Now that's huge!!! Funny, but it runs on Linux.

So looking at "huge computer operations" take a look at the following:

*** "GNU/Linux dominates in supercomputing: it is used in 78% of the
world?s
500 fastest supercomputers use GNU/Linux, most of the world?s ten fastest
supercomputers... including the world?s most powerful supercomputer (as of
March and November 2005). By March 2005 Forbes noted that 60% of the
world?s fastest supercomputers use GNU/Linux, using data from Top500 to
determine which computers are the world?s fastest. Of those top 500, the
best available information shows that 301 run GNU/Linux, 189 on Unix, 2 on
FreeBSD (another OSS/FS Unix variant), and one on Microsoft?s Windows. A
few machines? operating systems are unknown, but even so, Forbes says
?Linux clearly is by far the top choice for high-performance computing.?"

*** "Joe Greenseid reported on LWN that this dominance is even more
obvious
is the top ten supercomputers as of March 2005; GNU/Linux systems account
for 8 out of the top 10. Six of these ten were made by IBM, including five
Blue Gene systems and one PPC Cluster. Third place is held by an SGI Altix
running GNU/Linux. Thunder, an Intel Itanium2 Tiger4 ?white box? system,
holds seventh place and runs GNU/Linux."


*** "More recent data from November 2005 shows this as an increasing
trend.
Jay Lyman?s November 15, 2005 article Linux continues supercomputer
domination notes that on the November 2005 Top500 list, 78% of the world?s
fastest machines (391/500) rely on Linux, far more than anything else.
Seven of the top 10 systems are running GNU/Linux (the other three run
AIX,
UNICOS, and Super-UX), and as with the March 2005 survey, the fastest
supercomputer in the world runs on GNU/Linux. In contrast, ?Microsoft
Windows didn?t even turn up on the list.? Erich Strohmaier, co-founder and
editor of the Top500 list, said that the OSS/FS ?Linux is the dominating
OS
in the supercomputing community and will keep this role... If anything, it
will only enlarge its prevalence.? In fact, he believes that ?no other
operating system is likely to be used as much as [GNU/]Linux in the
foreseeable Top500 future.? "

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html




Suse is now
ready for the desktop without question and has the support of a
major player. IBM has invested $1 billion into Linux. Believe it or
not, Linux is no longer what it was just a few years ago. Today it
is an ALTERNATIVE to the Windoze desktop.


But not a viable one. As per already premised in this sub-thread, Linux
just doesn't have the vendor support.


so Microsoft - not having to look over its shoulder- has been
taking its time with Vista.

Vista will try - and will probably succeed - to rectify the
security situation through an alert system [and without fanfare,
running some of software e.g. Internet Explorer with only user
privileges even if an Adminstrator is logged on]. Vista will
probably substantially reduce the impact of malware much further
than XP SP2.


Personally I have my doubts because with 50 million lines of source
code, the vaste majority coming from earlier versions of Windoze, it
doesn't look to be anything more than XP with new eye-candy. But,
the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Let's revisit this
particular discussion say 6 months after Vista is released and see
how successful MickeyMouse will be.


Well, Internet Explorer 7+ is already showing greater resistance and it's
still in beta.

Greater resistance than what? If you're comparing it to IE 6 then you
certainly aren't setting the bar very high, are you?


So there you have it. No matter what Microsoft or Linus Torvalds
does, someone is going to log on as "root", regardless, and run
/bin/dancing_bunnies and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Linux users tend to know better and some distros go out of their way
to discourage ordinary users from running as root. Eye-candy on its


But if Linux were more popular this would not be the case. Linux as a
home
/
small business / gamer platform, isn't having to deal as much with the
user who wants to see the dancing bunnies .. simply because it is not
popular. If it were, it would. Then what? The dancing bunnies would be
dancing. Social engineering emails would instruct hapless victims in how
to log in as root and run /bin/dancing_bunnies and so on. And they would.
Why? They want to see the dancing bunnies.

How silly. Do you have any idea how open source software is developed and
distributed? Do you think Linux users just come across a piece of software
somewhere and get convinced to install it, like Windoze users always do?
Linux distros have packaging systems and the packages are SIGNED. Sure a
Linux user can go to a place like sourceforge and pickup the source code
and compile an application himself and run it. But code sitting in a
repository like sourceforge is totally vetted.

It's becoming more and more obviously that you really don't understand
open
source at all. You're coming at it with a preconceived Windoze-mindset.
Things in the open source world are not like what you're obviously
familiar
with and used to, or else you wouldn't be making such silly statements. Go
out grasshopper and learn, then we can carry on an intelligent discussion.




own does not lead to more insecurity if the underlying operating
system itself is constructed to keep the operating system separate
and apart from the user space. The POSIX model does this. The
Windoze model does not.

But with firewalls and care and Vista, the rest of us have a better
chance at mitgating the impact.

Your blind faith in Vista is a bit funny to contemplate, but
expected from a MickeyMouse shill I guess. As I said above, let's
revisit this topic down the road when Vista has had a chance to
expose itself to the Net for a while. :-)


You will be disappointed. Why? Windows Vista will be harder to
compromise.

I said we'll see. I said I have my doubts. You are so certain. I'm not,
because I've seen the history of stuff from MickeyMouse.

IE7+ runs with user not admin privileges etc. etc, and so on

But can the malware picked up by IE7 be prevented from writing bits to the
Windoze registry? Have they plugged the ability of any software program
run
on Windoze to write what it wants to wherever it wants within the
registry?
Will Vista do this? Will all software have to be rewritten to run on Vista
now that it is unable to write to the registry whenever it wants to?

.. My guess
is that overall, fewer people will be less affected less often and the
impact of malware will be reduced.

Your "guess". Just what do you base this on? Because MickeyMouse says its
so? Didn't they say XP was the most secure o/s they ever produced and it
proved to be just the opposite?

Never-the-less, if a user insists on
seeing the dancing bunnies there will be some systems compromised
regardless - but this would happen with any popular OS.

Not so. See above.

<chop>

--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

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

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

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

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



.

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