Guys,
Interesting as it may be, maybe this thread should be moved to a more
appropriate forum ?
There are lots of excellent and well followed security mailing lists out
there where the mostly '*Nix-against-M$-as-Good-against-Evil' stance of this
discussion would surely get a more vigorous and knowledgeable challenge (or
support !), thus being even more interesting, don't you think ?
_____________________________________________
Bruno Bellenger
Sr. Network/Systems Administrator
-----Original Message-----
From: Lee Goddard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 1:34 PM
To: Flowers, Jay; 'Aaron Trevena '; ''ActiveState's Perl
Win32 Users list' '
Subject: RE: Secure platforms DO matter!
At 06:59 07/05/2002 -0400, Flowers, Jay wrote:
> Are we talking about Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or IIS
*.*.
>
>Have you all heard anything about win64? Do have any faith
that MS is
>changing to become a more security aware company? MS is
staking its life on
>.NET and Win64. They are working hard to change. *nix has
been around for
>a long time, it is rediculous to think that it would not be
secure. MS
>would never release any software if it had to be bug free
before release.
>No other software get used by more people, so it is no
wonder that more bugs
>are found in it than anyother software. Point being that
there are bugs and
>security flaws in *nix also that have not been found for
lack of use. MS
>plans to use Win64 and .NET to compete with the *nix Java
solutions. Do you
>think that they are going to ignore security as a selling
point, for
>themselves or for *nix against them? MS knows that it HAS
TO solve its
>security problems to compete in the enterprise solutions
arena. The have
>the money, the man power, the motivation, and the skill to
get it done. The
>only question is will you all buy it.
>
>Jay Flowers
Certainly MS has to solve its security issues if it wishes
to compete with
platforms that have been established as secure, Unix and
OS/400. In my
limited experience, I've worked on projects for banks and
medical
organisations that have tried all three platforms, and it is
the MS
platform that gets damaged. Mr Gates knows that I'm not
alone in this: he
has recently publicly stated that MS will focus on security
at the
exclusion of all else.
The question is, can MS be as secure as they need to be, and
as they are
now making every effort to become?
Two years ago, most of us would have said it is impossible
unless they
reworked their OS from the bottom up; the bugs in the
Windows OS are not
simply found more often than in Unix because Win OS is more
widely used:
they are there because MS products have a short RAD-to-shop
cycle.
This does now appear to be changing: so perhaps there is
hope. Who (apart
from Sun, maybe...) would not like to have a secure platform
for
development, deployment, that can also run everyday
applications?
We've much to be grateful to MS for -- most PC users in the
world would not
be PC users were it not for MS picking up on and making a
commercial
success of Apple's interpretation of the StarOffice GUI.
Were it not for
MS "plug-n-play", most of us would be charged inflated
prices for
hardware. But frankly, even MS have admitted that security
is not
something they have done well.
Lee Goddard
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