Code Red Worm
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Take a look at the history of security holes in BIND, for example. The list is pretty long indeed. RedHat is more secure out of the box, right? How about you forgot your admin password. Under Win2K you are screwed - there is no way you are getting into the box - there is no way to recover your password unless you have some other account to login. In RedHat - you just walk to the box and type the "magic word" (sorry I cannot remember the actual word) and you are in!!! Yes, of course, you can disable the "magic word" feature, but whatever happened to the whole "secure out of the box" idea? I've installed many servers in my life (mostly Windows based), but only once in my life the server was taken over by hackers in the first few hours since I've loaded OS. Guess what OS was it? RedHat "out-of-the-box secure" installation. So you just keep telling yourself that RedHat is secure, more secure or whatever other myth you want to believe... BTW, I have nothing against Linux, it has its purpose and strong sides just like any other OS, but I am just very tired of the myths like this one about security that are fueled by ignorance.
Yep there is a way to recover... And with what !?!?!?! A LINUX boot disk ;P http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
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So i switched from Windows 2000 to RedHat Linux and boy am I happy. Yeah, and we should all visit CodeUniverse.com ;P Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com
Oh no please, where else can we find people like "Sarah" using the Lounge to ask questions like: "How do you spell VB?". :) Regards, Alvaro
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Yet another worm that has something to do with Microsoft. Microsoft always have security holes. This is a big security hole with yet another downloadable patch. My Message to Microsoft : You suck in the server market Why ? Too many Security holes. Not Stable, etc. The list goes on and on. Microsoft doesn't have the ability to create stable products. So i switched from Windows 2000 to RedHat Linux and boy am I happy. There are hardly and security holes with linux. Linux is also very stable. ;P By the way i only like linux for the server market. I am a Window fan when it comes to personal use simply because it's easy to use. Sarah
Warning: This is my personal opinion. This message was not intended to hurt anyone. If you are disturbed, please contact your local physiatrist. :((
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Yep there is a way to recover... And with what !?!?!?! A LINUX boot disk ;P http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
Great! Thank you for the link. My point though was that with RedHat the box is accessible by any employee who is passing by your server and happened to remember the "magic word". That is he/she does not need a utility, a boot disk - nothing. They are instant admin. That is in default installation of RedHat. Now tell me, is it secure or what? But, of course, there are always tools and smart people that write the tools to get around everything in the world. And perhaps it is a good thing that people like that exist. ;) Cheers.
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People always seem to forget the fact that there are far more people out their looking for and exploiting security holes in any Microsoft product, than Linux, etc. Don't you think that might be the main reason why there are more holes being found with Windows? I'm sure if the Windows devlopers had too much free time they too could write all kinds of interesting and destructive viruses for Linux, etc. So why don't they? Maybe it's their attitude (and people say all the FUD comes from Microsoft. lol - I haven't heard anything that funny in a long time). And yes, I would like you to reply to this. I'd very much like to hear your opinion. Cheers, James
because *nix doesn't have a pretty, friendly interface, no matter what the Gnome and KDE people say, less-sophisticated users tend to stay away, or are kept away, from the *nixes. and, since only maniacs like myself run their *nix boxes as root, even a malicious program is usually kept within the bounds of a non-privileged user account. it can only mess with so much. on the other hand, Winders has a nice, pretty, friendly user interface and lots of dumbed-down, soft-cornered applications that make it easy for almost anyone, experienced or not, to double-click a file to "open" it. and, of course Winders encourages people to run in a fully-privileged account, thus increasing the possibilities for malicious code. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
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Oh no please, where else can we find people like "Sarah" using the Lounge to ask questions like: "How do you spell VB?". :) Regards, Alvaro
where else can we find people like "Sarah" using the Lounge to ask questions like: "How do you spell VB?". Good point. And who's a "physiatrist" mentioned in "her" signature? Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com
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because *nix doesn't have a pretty, friendly interface, no matter what the Gnome and KDE people say, less-sophisticated users tend to stay away, or are kept away, from the *nixes. and, since only maniacs like myself run their *nix boxes as root, even a malicious program is usually kept within the bounds of a non-privileged user account. it can only mess with so much. on the other hand, Winders has a nice, pretty, friendly user interface and lots of dumbed-down, soft-cornered applications that make it easy for almost anyone, experienced or not, to double-click a file to "open" it. and, of course Winders encourages people to run in a fully-privileged account, thus increasing the possibilities for malicious code. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
I have to agree, *nix is more sophisticated: Sophisticate: 1) To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2) To make impure; adulterate. 3) To make more complex or inclusive; refine. Adulterate: 1) To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients. Hold it, we talking about *nix or Windows? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
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I have to agree, *nix is more sophisticated: Sophisticate: 1) To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2) To make impure; adulterate. 3) To make more complex or inclusive; refine. Adulterate: 1) To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients. Hold it, we talking about *nix or Windows? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
*nix - Tools for the impure. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
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because *nix doesn't have a pretty, friendly interface, no matter what the Gnome and KDE people say, less-sophisticated users tend to stay away, or are kept away, from the *nixes. and, since only maniacs like myself run their *nix boxes as root, even a malicious program is usually kept within the bounds of a non-privileged user account. it can only mess with so much. on the other hand, Winders has a nice, pretty, friendly user interface and lots of dumbed-down, soft-cornered applications that make it easy for almost anyone, experienced or not, to double-click a file to "open" it. and, of course Winders encourages people to run in a fully-privileged account, thus increasing the possibilities for malicious code. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
on the other hand, Winders has a nice, pretty, friendly user interface and lots of dumbed-down, soft-cornered applications that make it easy for almost anyone, experienced or not, to double-click a file to "open" it. Er... Your point is? That would have to relate to *nix to before it could ever challenge Windows in the consumer and corporate PC market. Employers don't want to spend their entire IT budget training employees to use their machines. And can you imagine teaching your five year old to use it? (Although I will admit that in today’s world, most five year olds know more about computers than we adults do). Winders encourages people to run in a fully-privileged account, thus increasing the possibilities for malicious code. I would strongly argue against that. All official documentation I’ve ever read from Microsoft on the subject of user privileges explains that you should never use a full administrator account unless performing some administrator only action, and then you should immediately log off. All too often I will walk past our SysAdmin’s workstation to find him playing FreeCell whilst logged on as an administrator. It's hardly Microsoft's fault if a SysAdmin ignores this advice - and it's not as if Microsoft doesn't warn them of the dangers. And anybody, *nix, Windows, or otherwise, can run an attachment called "FreeXXXMovie.exe" - with or without a degree in idiocy. Christ, if all the SlashDot members virus writers (*) out there agreed to name all the new viruses with a “.virus” or “.don’t_run_this_virus” extension, AOL users people would still execute them. * I apologise - that was flagrant, uncalled for, discrimination ;). Cheers, James
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on the other hand, Winders has a nice, pretty, friendly user interface and lots of dumbed-down, soft-cornered applications that make it easy for almost anyone, experienced or not, to double-click a file to "open" it. Er... Your point is? That would have to relate to *nix to before it could ever challenge Windows in the consumer and corporate PC market. Employers don't want to spend their entire IT budget training employees to use their machines. And can you imagine teaching your five year old to use it? (Although I will admit that in today’s world, most five year olds know more about computers than we adults do). Winders encourages people to run in a fully-privileged account, thus increasing the possibilities for malicious code. I would strongly argue against that. All official documentation I’ve ever read from Microsoft on the subject of user privileges explains that you should never use a full administrator account unless performing some administrator only action, and then you should immediately log off. All too often I will walk past our SysAdmin’s workstation to find him playing FreeCell whilst logged on as an administrator. It's hardly Microsoft's fault if a SysAdmin ignores this advice - and it's not as if Microsoft doesn't warn them of the dangers. And anybody, *nix, Windows, or otherwise, can run an attachment called "FreeXXXMovie.exe" - with or without a degree in idiocy. Christ, if all the SlashDot members virus writers (*) out there agreed to name all the new viruses with a “.virus” or “.don’t_run_this_virus” extension, AOL users people would still execute them. * I apologise - that was flagrant, uncalled for, discrimination ;). Cheers, James
Er... Your point is? i think you got my point perfectly. windows is simple when compared to unix and almost everyone who needs to be is familiar enough with it to do what they need to do - but not enough to know what they shouldn't do. maybe they'll learn. All official documentation I’ve ever read from Microsoft... and on my win95, 98 and NT4 boxes, i've never seen a warning or message that tells me not to run as Admin. contrast that to Gnome, where starting X as root results in a big warning box that says "you that are running as root, you could really screw up your system". but, of course you knew that already, because it took you three days to get X working in the first place, and it wasn't a matter of popping in CDs; you really had to understand what you were trying to do. i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin. though i've never tried, it's probably no challenge at all to write a windows virus (ignoring the secondary goal of fooling anti-virus software). windows is wide open, by default. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
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Er... Your point is? i think you got my point perfectly. windows is simple when compared to unix and almost everyone who needs to be is familiar enough with it to do what they need to do - but not enough to know what they shouldn't do. maybe they'll learn. All official documentation I’ve ever read from Microsoft... and on my win95, 98 and NT4 boxes, i've never seen a warning or message that tells me not to run as Admin. contrast that to Gnome, where starting X as root results in a big warning box that says "you that are running as root, you could really screw up your system". but, of course you knew that already, because it took you three days to get X working in the first place, and it wasn't a matter of popping in CDs; you really had to understand what you were trying to do. i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin. though i've never tried, it's probably no challenge at all to write a windows virus (ignoring the secondary goal of fooling anti-virus software). windows is wide open, by default. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin. I run Windows2000 and I sure don't run as Admin. Now you know someone. Nice to meet you. :mad: And fyi, I am a linux user of a few years and I still find Windows to be my OS of choice. Your "almost everyone" and "most" generalizations are not very accurate in my experiences, so yes, it is a matter of opinion. Realize that. ---- Xian
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Is that a lemming's attitude too? :) (btw, I only knows lemmings thanks to that old wonderful game) Paolo ------ "airplane is cool, but space shuttle is even better" (J. Kaczorowski)
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i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin. I run Windows2000 and I sure don't run as Admin. Now you know someone. Nice to meet you. :mad: And fyi, I am a linux user of a few years and I still find Windows to be my OS of choice. Your "almost everyone" and "most" generalizations are not very accurate in my experiences, so yes, it is a matter of opinion. Realize that. ---- Xian
Your "almost everyone" and "most" generalizations are not very accurate in my experiences, so yes, it is a matter of opinion. I didn't use the word "most" in my post. If you're going to ignore the point and nitpick the delivery, at least get your nits right. English isn't C - there's a lot of room for interpretation, exaggeration, missspeling, redundancy and hyperbole. And, this isn't a code review. Realize that. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
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Er... Your point is? i think you got my point perfectly. windows is simple when compared to unix and almost everyone who needs to be is familiar enough with it to do what they need to do - but not enough to know what they shouldn't do. maybe they'll learn. All official documentation I’ve ever read from Microsoft... and on my win95, 98 and NT4 boxes, i've never seen a warning or message that tells me not to run as Admin. contrast that to Gnome, where starting X as root results in a big warning box that says "you that are running as root, you could really screw up your system". but, of course you knew that already, because it took you three days to get X working in the first place, and it wasn't a matter of popping in CDs; you really had to understand what you were trying to do. i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin. though i've never tried, it's probably no challenge at all to write a windows virus (ignoring the secondary goal of fooling anti-virus software). windows is wide open, by default. -c ------------------------------ Smaller Animals Software, Inc. http://www.smalleranimals.com
i've never seen a warning or message that tells me not to run as Admin Sure, Windows comes on a CD, but you still have to read the instruction manual before using it. But then I suppose if you bought an Airfix model you'd build it without reading the instructions wouldn't you? Or maybe a Kit Car, or a PC... Do you take medicines without reading the labels? I hope not. So why are you so confident that you know how to use Windows (not meaning you specifically, but all the people that claim they know how to use Widnows, just because they have installed it)? If you don't read the documentation (especially with anything that will be setup as a server, or connect to the Internet) then you might as well tie that naked women to your bed with the sign saying "FREE SEX" (link). Windows is a complex beast under the user friendly skin. If you just stick in the CD and start clicking without understanding what you're doing, then of course you are going to run into trouble down the line. i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin Then you have some seriously deranged friends. Well, maybe not deranged, but they sure like taking risks. windows is wide open, by default Not true! (providing you read the documentation before installing) The 'default' installation (I'm referring to Windows 2000 Server here) has a lot of stuff disabled by default. You ahve to manually go into custom installation options and check the stuff like Indexing Server, et al. Cheers, James
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Great! Thank you for the link. My point though was that with RedHat the box is accessible by any employee who is passing by your server and happened to remember the "magic word". That is he/she does not need a utility, a boot disk - nothing. They are instant admin. That is in default installation of RedHat. Now tell me, is it secure or what? But, of course, there are always tools and smart people that write the tools to get around everything in the world. And perhaps it is a good thing that people like that exist. ;) Cheers.
My point though was that with RedHat the box is accessible by any employee who is passing by your server and happened to remember the "magic word". Is it "singleuser" you are thinking about. If you can get locally access, you can log on to any linux machine, with root rights, as singleuser... - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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My point though was that with RedHat the box is accessible by any employee who is passing by your server and happened to remember the "magic word". Is it "singleuser" you are thinking about. If you can get locally access, you can log on to any linux machine, with root rights, as singleuser... - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
Yes, I think that this is what I meant. I just could not remember the specifics.
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i don't know anyone who runs windows of any flavor as anything but admin. I run Windows2000 and I sure don't run as Admin. Now you know someone. Nice to meet you. :mad: And fyi, I am a linux user of a few years and I still find Windows to be my OS of choice. Your "almost everyone" and "most" generalizations are not very accurate in my experiences, so yes, it is a matter of opinion. Realize that. ---- Xian
I also run Windows 2000, and try my best not to run as Admin. However, it's darned difficult! :mad: Half of Microsoft's own programs don't work correctly (Microsoft Money, anyone?) and things like the "Install on first use" from Office simply falls over in a heap. Plus from time to time permissions on files seem to get reset so only the logged-in user can read the file, killing things I share between users. I tried Linux many moons ago, and after a while of struggling, felt hugely proud of myself when I got it running, and spent a fair time writing little C programs to interact with the window manager. Then I got bored, and had to do some work, and I didn't have anything other than a window manager and a few card games on Linux, so... back to Windows.
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Yet another worm that has something to do with Microsoft. Microsoft always have security holes. This is a big security hole with yet another downloadable patch. My Message to Microsoft : You suck in the server market Why ? Too many Security holes. Not Stable, etc. The list goes on and on. Microsoft doesn't have the ability to create stable products. So i switched from Windows 2000 to RedHat Linux and boy am I happy. There are hardly and security holes with linux. Linux is also very stable. ;P By the way i only like linux for the server market. I am a Window fan when it comes to personal use simply because it's easy to use. Sarah
Warning: This is my personal opinion. This message was not intended to hurt anyone. If you are disturbed, please contact your local physiatrist. :((
Ok I do concede that Windows Servers generally are a bit less secure than their Linux equivalents. IMHO that is to do with the simple fact that Microsoft offer so many features along with their products. I am pretty sure that as .NET takes off (which I hope and feel it will) more holes in security will be found and plugged. Linux is stable because it is perhaps not quite as diverse and feature rich as Microsoft Servers. However my main thought on why Linux has far fewer holes is the simple fact that because it is as not main stream as Windows fewer virus writers and hackers have focused their attention on it. Simple really. The same was true for mobile phones until someone wrote the first virus for them, now there are plenty viruses floating about for mobile phones. The holes in Linux simply have not been fully explored yet. I will take a bet that as Linux grows in popularity with main stream business more holes will be found. IMHO :-D regards, Paul Watson Cape Town, South Africa e: paulmwatson@email.com w: vergen.org
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Yes, I think that this is what I meant. I just could not remember the specifics.
IMHO NT suffers far more from security flaws than any thing else, the whole MS attitude is wrong towards security - it simply isn't a priority. Read the MS security bulletins - half the fixes simply state "disable this feature" - thats not a fix! Both systems can be fairly secure, but you require a good knowledge of each system to ensure it. I'm simply not a believer in out of the box security. As for NT, there are far worse problems than the "magic word". There are patches out there which allow you to boot from floppy and create your own administrator account without ever having logged into the NT server. Your telling me thats secure?! -- The Obliterator