Ubuntu blues

[Martin Alderson]

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:06:26 -0500, Eric Dunbar <eric.dunbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Also, as for this 'Linux is more difficult to exploit' stuff, I don't
> > really believe it to be honest. It doesn't really matter anyway since
> > the main problem is USER CONSNETED SPYWARE INSTALLS. Please tell me
> > how Linux is going to stop this? How can you stop someone installing
> > spyware.deb or whatever when they type their password and press OK -
> > answer? You can't.
> 
> There is one advantage to OSS -- once such spyware starts appearing,
> there will be a whole army of programmers ready to tackle the problem
> _as soon_ as it appears. With Micro"SoftOnVirusesAndSpamware", its
> users are at the mercy of the good graces of anti-spyware writers, or
> of the ransomware writers who sell the uninstallers for their own
> apps, because it doesn't seem like Microsoft is quick to do something
> about the complete gridlock that characterises the Windows internet
> computing experience.

Not really, it's just that spyware is a very challenging issue to fix.
How would you plan on stopping spyware on Linux if someone double
clicks a .deb file which adds it to the services on startup? How does
Microsoft fix this? I don't think they can without sacrificing huge
amonuts of ease of use.

> (as I noted recently... at www.download.com the top Mac downloads were
> for P2P software and in the top 5 there were _non_ piracy-related apps
> (i.e. not media players, compression apps (yes, I know they have
> important non-infringing uses)), for Windows, the top spots were
> (overwhelmingly... an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE greater than P2P) for
> anti-ad/spy/spamware software followed by P2P-related apps. No room
> for non-P2P-related apps in the top five! Not that Mac users are more
> upright computing citizens, they _certainly_ aren't... piracy has
> always been a serious problem on Mac because applications were (and
> still are) _much_ easier to copy from computer to computer without
> having to do installs... no DLLs, no registry entries, no libraries
> hidden deep in the *nix hierarchy, etc.)).

Well.. it's because all Mac apps are pre or statically linked. Linux
apps are traditionally dynamically linked and Windows apps are usually
both. When you install a Mac app that requires some new libaries, it
usually uses the Installer app and it can spend anywhere up to 15
minutes 'optimizing the HDD', aka prelinking all the files.

I don't see why we should really hold Mac users in any holy grail
position. OSX is nice, but Apple is very, very slow at patching stuff
and they usually botch it - it's taken them over a week for two major
exploits (one still not fixed right). I'd say Linux is the best with
patches, then Microsoft very closely behind and then Apple right at
the back. Apple just doesn't have the resources to do patches well.
Remember, it's really a small computer company - the iPod in terms of
sales is about 2-3x more important.

> Eric.
>