[Ilugc] [OT] A Linux fan reviews Windows
- From: siva@xxxxxxxxxxx (Sivasankar Chander)
- Date: Sat Aug 7 10:00:43 2004
"I have seen and heard reports of Linux being hacked,
Hell we run HP-UX at work which is one of the most
unbreakable systems in existance and last week our
main server was compromised"
HP-UX is not Linux, it is UNIX. This itself shows how
much knowledge this guy has and how credible he is.
He means to say that HPUX(distro) is more secure than Linux
(distro), and HPUX itself was compromised; ergo,
Linux(distro), with its implied weaker security must also
be penetratable.
IMHO, the obvious blunder in all these assumptions is
that it confuses the kernel with kernel+userland, as usual.
It does not take into account the way the OS (kernel
+userland) is built and configured. In particular, it's
easy to build a custom kernel with carefully chosen
Netfilter options and to configure IPTables to make practically
*any* Linux installation very secure, which is not an
option on the proprietary Unices. In HPUX or Solaris, you're
stuck with what came on the CD.
The mistake is to assume that the default install
of the common distros is the most secure.
IMHO, Linux(kernel+userland) overtook the commercial Unices
in security in about 1998/99 timeframe. The market is only
figuring it out slowly, hence the time lag when you still have
opinions expressed like the claim that HPUX is more secure
than Linux.
-Siva
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