Unix vs Windows security (was Re: Nokia device usage)

2009-03-11 Thread Farrell J. McGovern
ScottW wrote:
> The Mac and *nix world needs to stop gloating about their clean record so far 
> and keep an eye out for what is to come.  Dues to the learning curve of the 
> OS, the users were more "enlightened" than the common computer user, but now 
> these are  more wide spread and the common user will be using them.  The 
> conspiracy theory people say that Antivirus companies are the ones making 
> most of the viruses so that they have a product to sell, well there is a 
> market out there just waiting to be tapped.  Norton AV for Mac is on the 
> shelves even though there is only really 1 documented virus, and people buy 
> it.
>
> The good ole saying: "The devil's greatest accomplishment was to convince 
> everyone he does not exist"... well the Linux virus does not exist.
>   
You are, of course, making the classic mistake of not understanding 
security on computer operating systems. Popularity has little to do with 
how vulnerable a system is.

Fact: Windows XP is about 12 years old, Vista/Windows 7  maybe 5. Unix 
is 40+ years old.

Face: Unix was designed for a mult-user, multi-processing environment, 
Windows was designed for a single user, single application  at a time  
environment, it has  had mult-user and multi-processing added on to it.

Thus, most everything that can affect Windows today was probably seen 
and corrected on the architectural level decades ago in Unix. Even the 
simplest thing of making the user work in a non-privileged workspace is 
one of the basic things that Unix has done for decades, while it is a 
relatively new idea in Windows.  Thus, if you compromise the workspace, 
you don't compromise the system.

Next, you have the fact that to make things really fast in Windows, you 
have graphics primitives in the kernel. This means that to compromise 
the entire system, all you need to do is compromise a graphics 
routine...and as almost everything is graphical in Windows...compromise 
the Browser, you can own the system...compromise the mail reader, you 
can own the system...compromise  an editor you can own the 
system...compromise an ERROR MESSAGE, and you can own the system.

With Unix, very few things can access the kernel. If you compromise the 
Browser, you may compromise the user's workspace, but the system remains 
compromised.

Generally, in Windows  it's a single  set to compromise the entire 
system...on Unix, it takes usually two more more steps, first you must 
compromise the userspace, then you must compromise the kernel.

Ultimately, it takes a lot more work to compromise a Unix system than a 
Windows system. And that makes Unix and systems derived from Unix 
inherently more secure than Windows.

ttyl
 Farrell McGovern

-- 
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistaeks.

___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re[2]: Nokia device usage

2009-03-11 Thread ScottW
The biggest fault in any computer to make a virus successful is the part 
between the keyboard and chair.  I am quite sure that no one reading this email 
falls for that pop up window from Anti-Virus2009 that says your computer is 
infected and click here to run a virus scanner (but you probably know someone 
who did) that will then infect your windows machine.  True that specific one 
will not infect a Mac or *nix computer, but once joe/jane average goes out and 
buys a Mac or that $199 computer preloaded with linux, they will be blindly 
entering their admin password to any screen saver that has a cute puppy on the 
screen and each time you click the pic, it wags its tail or licks the screen 
while a script in the background is deleting your drive, sending your quickbook 
files to russia, or using your built in smtp server to spam 1/2 the country.  I 
have had some of my Mac users come up to me asking for the admin password 
"because the window came up" and not being able to tell me why they need it or 
what program it came from.  You think they will think twice if they had the 
admin password for their own machine and the authentication window came up?  I 
am not complaining, its people like these that keep me in a job.

Windows currently has the larger market share and that is where the hackers 
that want the fame or attention are focused.  90% market share also means a 
larger population of people who believe bill gates sent them a test email and 
will get a check from him if they just reply.  There are windows users who have 
never had the headache of being infected regardless of what bug is out there 
simply because they know better than to open that exe from BankXYZ's security 
center saying to open this file that has their new password.  I know its not 
all the user to blame and a default version of XP on the internet gets hacked 
with in 2 minutes.

The Mac and *nix world needs to stop gloating about their clean record so far 
and keep an eye out for what is to come.  Dues to the learning curve of the OS, 
the users were more "enlightened" than the common computer user, but now these 
are  more wide spread and the common user will be using them.  The conspiracy 
theory people say that Antivirus companies are the ones making most of the 
viruses so that they have a product to sell, well there is a market out there 
just waiting to be tapped.  Norton AV for Mac is on the shelves even though 
there is only really 1 documented virus, and people buy it.

The good ole saying: "The devil's greatest accomplishment was to convince 
everyone he does not exist"... well the Linux virus does not exist.

So where is Norton for Nokia 8x0? (hehe)

-- Scott
Still like my n810!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 6:31:39 AM, you wrote:

> John Holmblad wrote:
>> James,

>> as you are well aware, a user of a Microsoft Desktop or Server OS is not 
>> required to use Outlook for email. Mozilla Thunderbird works quite well  
>> on Microsoft OS's and of course there is Evolution.

>>   

> I am well aware that you can use other mail applications.  However, many
> corporate users allow nothing else and many people don't even know there
> are alternatives.  As for IE, while you can use other browsers, you
> can't really get rid of it and it will often be used by some apps etc.,
> even though it's not the default browser.  Also, the problems are not
> caused by IE, but due to the fact it's so tightly tied to the OS that a
> problem with it becomes a problem for the OS.

___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re: Nokia device usage

2009-03-11 Thread Jean-Christian de Rivaz
Jean-Christian de Rivaz a écrit :
> Nokia will more likely use this kind of integration:
> 
> http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nokia_N95#Block_Diagram
> 
> The Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE + Dual-band UMTS/HSPDA chain use 1 chip for 
> the baseband, 1 chip for the transceiver and 1 chip for the amplifier.

Small mistake: 2 chips for the amplifiers. But UMTS only, without GSM 
compatibility, will make the device useless in too many area.

The logical conclusion that a 3G HSPA tablet will certainly be able to 
make phone call, at least from a technically hardware point of view.

Best Regards,
-- 
Jean-Christian de Rivaz
___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re: Nokia device usage

2009-03-11 Thread Jean-Christian de Rivaz
John Holmblad a écrit :
> http://www.smta.org/files/CTEA_High_Density_Pkg_Trends-Carey-Portelligent.pdf 
> 
> You can see,  from viewing the iphone PCB discussed on pp 13-17 of that 
> presentation. that, in addition to having separate power amps for each 
> of 3 frequency band groupings (it is a quad band device). the device 
> also has a Multi-chip package (MCP) to handle both a GSM/EDGE chip as 
> well as a WCDMA chip needed for 3g baseband processing.  I could foresee 
> that another designer, with an application that did not require 2G 
> "backward compatibility", might :design out:   the 2G chip ( "hold the 
> 2g" if you will) in order to save space and power in the design. This, 
> however, would make the device un-useable in a network that was not 100% 
> 3G/UMTS, UNLESS the device was being used ONLY for non-voice data access 
> and not for "traditional" voice.

John,

Nokia will more likely use this kind of integration:

http://www.phonewreck.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nokia_N95#Block_Diagram

The Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE + Dual-band UMTS/HSPDA chain use 1 chip for 
the baseband, 1 chip for the transceiver and 1 chip for the amplifier.

Best Regards,
-- 
Jean-Christian de Rivaz
___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re: Iphone + tethering - No Way

2009-03-11 Thread Jonathan Greene
I thought when you remoted into a machine it used the local connection
on that device and not your connection.  You'd only need to receive
the differences in the screen but that should not be too terrible.  I
do plenty of streaming and tethering (together sometimes even) and 2Gb
is a lot of data.  I have an hour each day in either direction to burn
on my commute.

The text message is your voicemail notice coming through as visual
voicemail on a non-compatible device.  I use Spinvox to which I've
forwarded my voicemail and they send back a text version of the
message - as well as in my email.  I couldn't take the BS from ATT
anymore.



On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:21 AM, Brad Midgley  wrote:
> Hey
>
> I've also used the iPhone sim for data etc in a less locked-down
> device. Have you noticed the strange text messages you get whenever
> there's a status change on the voicemailbox? It can be annoying. The
> text message is a URL and appears to be related to iPhone's special
> handling of voicemail.
>
> It would be nice if we could figure out their special voicemail
> handler, or, barring that, just filter out these messages.
>
> Jonathan Greene  wrote:
>> I've been using the original iPhone SIM in various devices for years
>> now and I tether all kinds of mobile devices from laptops, N810,
>> netbooks ... no issues. I've cleared 2Gb a few times, but 5 would be
>> more like your only connection ...
>
>
> --
> Brad Midgley
>



-- 
Jonathan Greene
+1.914.750.8740
AIM / iChat - atmasphere
gtalk / jabber - jonathangre...@gmail.com
Skype / Gizmo - JonathanGreene
blogs - http://www.atmasphere.net/wp  / http://www.maemoapps.com


Sent from: New York New York United States.
___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re: Nokia device usage

2009-03-11 Thread James Knott
John Holmblad wrote:
> James,
>
> as you are well aware, a user of a Microsoft Desktop or Server OS is not 
> required to use Outlook for email. Mozilla Thunderbird works quite well  
> on Microsoft OS's and of course there is Evolution.
>
>   

I am well aware that you can use other mail applications.  However, many
corporate users allow nothing else and many people don't even know there
are alternatives.  As for IE, while you can use other browsers, you
can't really get rid of it and it will often be used by some apps etc.,
even though it's not the default browser.  Also, the problems are not
caused by IE, but due to the fact it's so tightly tied to the OS that a
problem with it becomes a problem for the OS.

-- 
Use OpenOffice.org 
___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re: Nokia device usage

2009-03-11 Thread James Knott
Mark wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 7:02 PM, James Knott  wrote:
>   
>> Mark wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 7:14 PM, James Knott  wrote:
>>>
>>>   
 Bottom line, there are a lot of technical and usage reasons that make it
 much harder for malware to attack Linux/Unix.


 
>>> But NOT impossible, and the fact remains that the overwhelming
>>> majority of malware writers are either Mac or Linux fanboys and aren't
>>> about to attack their own pet OS or they are simply gunning for the OS
>>> that is installed on the overwhelming majority of PCs worldwide.
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>> I never claimed it was impossible.  However, how do you know the
>> majority of malware writers run Linux or Mac
>>
>> 
>
> You're putting words in my mouth. I never said that. I said that they
> were either Linux or Mac fanboys OR were simply targeting the most
> common OS.
>
> Mark
>   
Again, how do you know Linux or Mac "fanboys" are involved?  What is
there to indicate that?  I'm not putting words in your mouth.  They are
in what I quoted.

"the overwhelming majority of malware writers are either Mac or Linux
fanboys and aren't
about to attack their own pet OS"  the "or" after this does not change
the fact that you're implying a significant number of malware writers
are Linux or Mac users.  What's your source of this?


-- 
Use OpenOffice.org 
___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users


Re: Nokia device usage

2009-03-11 Thread Matt Emson
Mark wrote:
> You're putting words in my mouth. I never said that. I said that they
> were either Linux or Mac fanboys OR were simply targeting the most
> common OS.
>   
I don't personally disagree with Mark's statement, except for the 
wording. I would have put it as:

> But NOT impossible, and the fact remains that the overwhelming
> majority of malware writers are either gunning for the OS
> that is installed on the overwhelming majority of PCs worldwide, 
> or to a lesser extent are Mac or Linux fanboys and aren't
> about to attack their own pet OS or they are simply .

I would say that was a truer statement. IMO, there are just as many Unix 
weenies and Windows hackers that write Viruses.






___
maemo-users mailing list
maemo-users@maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users