[Gllug] p2p programs

[Simon Morris]

On 13/11/05, Henry Gilbert <henry.gilbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Let me guess.. Before you had security issues using Windows and before
> > you knew better you were the guy who said "It will never happen to
> > me?"
> >
> > New OS to play with but the same attitude?
> >
> > Linux has escaped (for a number of reasons) a lot of the security
> > nightmares that other OS's suffer with, but that won't last forever.
> >
> > With such a lax attitude to security I fancy my chances better than
> > yours of not being caught out
> >
>
> Still I don't get where the lax security would be on my part.

Because you seem to have the notion that if you are running Linux on a
desktop you don't have to care about security. Privately holding that
mistaken belief is fine by me, but you are spreading that message on a
public mailing list in response to a question by someone just starting
out with Linux.

This next concept is in answer to a number of later posts you have made...

The most insecure component of any Operating System is the 70% water
part of it sitting between  the keyboard and chair

If I chose to use Windows I am sure I could make it secure enough for
use, and it wouldn't be that much overhead. A fully patched Windows
machine with anti-virus and a firewall is secure enough.

If you take the kind of user who doesn't know or care how to apply
updates, will happily open links in emails they get from people they
don't know and will download and install software from unknown trusted
sources they are going to hit trouble regardless of which OS they use.

I'll agree with you that Linux will hold out longer than Windows in
the hands of this kind of user, but your claim that "Desktop Linux" is
100% secure is wrong.


> The Desktop Linux user, Suse say just go about browsing the net,
> playing the odd song, sending the odd email ...
> shall I tell that person the situation is exactly the same
> on Suse 10 as it was on Windows?

No. Tell them that they have made a positive choice in choosing Linux
but they should still exercise caution on the internet, as should we
all.

That above statement you have made makes me wonder if you see these
things as black and white. Linux is a more secure OS for the desktop -
your claims that it is totally secure are wrong.

This doesn't mean "the situation is exactly the same on SUSE 10 as it
was on Windows"

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