[Ilugc] Misleading article in Ziff-Davis eWeek
- From: siva@xxxxxxxxxxx (Sivasankar Chander)
- Date: Tue Nov 2 14:05:21 2004
I think you made the point clear there - the article tries to say that even
if you use a Mac or a Linux, don't go around typing your credit card info in
sites you don't know. And don't run programs you don't trust. That advice
holds true for any OS or platform. Typing out your credit card information
in a pron site is as dangerous in Firefox as in IE.
Running an untrusted program without root privileges in Linux
has little or no consequence - at the worst, it can destroy or alter the
contents of your home directory. A nuisance, but easy to recover from if
you have a halfway decent automatic backup policy, for instance with
rsync.
*Big difference* from the mayhem that can be caused on Windows
by merely clicking a link or opening an attachment, or is some cases with
Outlook worms, no action at all by the user.
Phishing attacks (for credit cards numbers, etc.) are of course platform
independent, but they're not viruses, which is what the title of the
article claims to be talking about.
This is classic FUD from Redmond, make no mistake about it.
Most
probably, it may have been commissioned by Micros~1.
Errr..logic please?
There has been a plethora of recent articles in the press that talk about
the dangers of spyware and malware, and how legislation is needed to defend
against these threats. The FLOSS community responded by saying - "Not so, this
is only a threat if you're Windows user. If you're using Linux, there's no
way you can get infected by clicking a link or opening an attachment. Linux
is inherently more secure. There's no need for fresh legislation".
To prevent this message (which would be against the interests of Micros~1)
from getting out to the great unwashed, they're responding with FUD from
paid shills, like the author of the said article in eWeek.
Conspiracy theory? Maybe, but Micros~1 has a long history of actions
similar to this.
-Siva
Other related posts:
