
Permalink for comment 431198
RE[4]: From the article ...
by nt_jerkface on Wed 23rd Jun 2010 09:10 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: From the article ..."
Member since:


If Linux became popular then users would want the same binary software they are downloading in p2p sites. They wouldn't accept The Gimp and Tux Racer. Hackers would also focus on penetrating trusted channels, which wouldn't be difficult if you know how lax some open source projects are when it comes to allowing outside contributions. The "many eyes make it secure" is a myth. There are plenty of projects where only the authors understand how their respective parts work. It also wouldn't be hard to become a trusted package maintainer and insert it that way.


Oh ok explain how either will stop a trojan injected into a game that the user gave permission to access the internet.


Oh so Linux not being a single platform is a virtue now. I guess I'll give you the de facto response which is that you can target most users by just focusing on the top two distros.

- Linux users are much more skilled

This again says nothing about how secure Linux actually is.


If everyone running Windows had 7 or Vista installed with updates turned on along with an alternative pdf reader installed then security problems would also be a fraction of what they are today.

Windows users are an easy target thanks to so many of them running outdated software. There are GUI hacking kits for websites that scan the user agent id and then attempt to exploit known vulnerabilities. That's how bad the situation is and if around 10% of the world population was running an unpatched version of Linux from 2001 then you would see the same type of tool kit. Unless you want to tell me all those Linux kernel patches weren't actually needed thanks to some automagical security protection that many of its users seem to think exists.

Reply Parent Score: 7