[CS-FSLUG] For you Journalists

[Timothy Butler]

I think the others raise good points, but you have some decent points  
as well. You almost have yourself a commentary there. Why not look it  
over once or twice more and send it to me. I'll do an edit of it and  
then publish it under your name, if you'd like.

	-Tim

On Mar 11, 2006, at 12:40 AM, Nathan T. wrote:

> I get some of my best ideas when I'm arguing with people :-)
>
> Here's a great idea for an article:
>
> Just about every time you see an article pointing out a security flaw,
> no matter what operating system, you get contests between Windows and
> Linux users. The Linux users argue that they're operating system of
> choice is more secure, and often the Windows users consider themselves
> satisfied at claiming that the roles would be reversed if Linux and
> Windows had their user base sizes switched around. After all,
> malicious crackers (or hackers if you prefer) want to go after the OS
> with the bigger user base right? Here is why that theory is wrong.
>
> By using that argument, the Windows defenders are automatically
> implying that any OS would be as insecure as Windows given the same
> user base, therefore it must be assumed that they can be broken into
> (or hacked if you prefer) just as easily. Remember this for later.
>
> I don't know the exact number of users for each operating system, but
> they cannot be any lower than 10 thousand right? How about 100
> thousand or 1 million for Linux alone? Those numbers aren't very
> small, although sure they are outnumbered by the Windows users. Things
> seem to be in favour of the Windows defenders' argument so far. *But*,
> out of the number of Windows users they cannot all be average, surely
> there must be several of them who can keep their boxes safe enough.
> That narrows down the available market a little now doesn't it, and
> when you consider that each vulnerable computer is going to be
> subjected to multiple attacks and is going to accumulate a lot of
> garbage that will reduce the performance and make it an unattractive
> target for further viruses and malware you start to see competition
> over the remaining attractive and vulnerable boxes.
>
> But what about the supposed virgin market of Linux and Mac OS X boxes?
> The ones that are secure only because of obscurity according to some
> headstrong Windows advocates, and would be just as easy to break into
> otherwise. Why wouldn't a market of hundreds of thousands or a million
> equally vulnerable yet clean systems be an attractive market. Why
> wouldn't they be as infected as the Windows machines? Why would
> someone building a botnet ignore thousands or millions of computers
> they wouldn't have to compete for in favour of going after vulnerable
> Windows machines they would have to compete over?
>
> It's my opinion that the reason Linux and Mac OS X manage to stay
> clean today is because they are tougher platforms to crack, after all
> an ample market full of systems which should be just as vulnerable as
> Windows but isn't being competed over sounds too good to ignore.
>
> There you go. I'm not a very good writer, but I think this would be
> great in the hands of some of the list journalists. If any of you like
> this as much as I do I would like to see it put into a professional
> article. I ask for no royalty or credit in return, I just want to see
> this spread beyond my little corner of the web and backed by someone
> who knows more than I do and can use it to it's full potential.
>
> Any takers or comments?
>
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---
Timothy R. Butler | "Every ant  knows the  formula of its ant-hill,
Editor, OfB.biz   | every  bee knows  the formula  of its  beehive.
tbutler at ofb.biz   | They know it  in their own way, not in our way.
timothybutler.us  | Only humankind does not know its own formula."
                                               -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky