| ??? 11/16/07 18:05 Modified: 11/16/07 18:09 Read: times |
#147083 - Huh? Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Jeff Post said:
Example: I say that I never receive any spam. Technically that's not quite true. There is a narrow window of a few milliseconds between my software examining the headers and then downloading emails not identified as spam. Because of that, I've received two (count 'em--two) spams this year. Two. In a year. Whoopie. Windows users I know get up to a hundred per day. The amount of spam you receive has zero to do with the operating system. Email is an application level issue. Secondly, any damage done by a virus in Linux will be small compared to what Windows viruses do. Unless the user is a clueless newbie who runs as root. A virus that is executed by a non-root user can do quite a bit of damage anyway. Not to the operating system, but that's seldom necessary (other than trying to hide itself among all the OS files). If the goal of the virus is to build a botnet, they can do that just as easily on Linux from a non-root account since non-root accounts can access the Internet, too. Or if the virus is just designed to collect user information, the virus can just as easily go through the user's personal directory and collect personal information. The difference is that you won't have to reinstall the OS. But you may very well have to clean the entire user directory and rebuild it--and if you've been installing applications as a user rather than root, rebuilding your user directory is going to be only slightly better than reinstalling an OS. Any decent OS can be installed in 30-45 minutes and I haven't noticed any significant difference in install times between Linux and Windows when running on hardware it recognizes. The biggest consumer of time in a rebuild is reloading all your applications, configuring them to your liking, etc. And once again, Erik: I'm not trying to convert anyone. If you like using a broken OS, then by all means do so. In my experience on the desktop, Linux is far more broken than Windows. Just do the rest of the world a favor and don't connect it to the internet. Now you're getting into extremist evangelizing. The biggest weakness in any OS--Linux or Windows--is the user. Do your work with Windows, but surf the net and do email with a system that won't become a spambot, or worse. Funny. My compromised Linux machine became precisely a spambot. That's never happened to one of my Windows machines. Linux is not immune, Jeff. Now I have an outbound firewall prohibition on SMTP to prevent any of my machines from doing that. Email is sent on a different port that my password-protected SMTP relay honors. But no spammer is going to use my Linux box for spamming again. And please don't give me the tired old argument that you have a firewall and anti-virus software. If you use Windows on the internet, you will be owned eventually. It's just a matter of time. If I had a dollar for every Windows user who is sure that his/her system is not infected.. And if I had a dollar for every Linux user that thought that he couldn't be. I'll say it again: The only machine I've ever had that was "owned" was a Linux box. Regards, Craig Steiner |
| Topic | Author | Date |
| Says it better than I can | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| re 'evangelism' | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| So limited | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| I believe it's obvious | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| If YOU would read what I posted | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Wine and VirtualBox | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| and you suggest that for DEVELOPMENT??? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Don't know about Linux but love your D52.EXE | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Why ? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| What makes Linux less vunerable? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Design | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| that's great, but ... | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Yes, it is | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Huh? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Re: Huh? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Linux vs Windows | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| What sort of Linux do you have, Craig? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Oh yea ? | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| True | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Looks like... | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Security | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| AMEN! | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Everybody should use linux! | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Linux attacks | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Not Targets | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Caveat Emptor | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| email vulnerability | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Kleinstein | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Linux is the "solution" ... for now ... | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Concur | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Layers | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Perhaps | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
Separation | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| If Linux was an airline | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Keep reading | 01/01/70 00:00 | |
| Bad logic | 01/01/70 00:00 |