While it is generally true that default installations are insecure, it is not absolutely true. OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.com) comes to mind as a secure default installation. Conversely to commercial and most open source alternatives, the primary focus of OpenBSD is security at the cost of all else. You have to know how to enable the features you want, and accept the insecurities that come with those features, including usability.
Some specialized Linux distributions follow similar principles to OpenBSD. Not to trigger a distro jihad, I will avoid shortlisting any distros and having my shortlist assumed to be comprehensive. It's bad enough that I named a domestic product on a list that is surely dominated by foreigners. Anyone tempted to take that the wrong way should whois rogers.com before flaming :-) On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 16:31:20 -0400, Charles Hornat wrote: > > I really hate these religious debates over who is more secure, so I did a little >study to see which is worse out of the box as well as with the latest >security/cluster patches. www.securitywriters.org "OS Scan". > > Its a no win argument because both can be hardened and both are weak out of the box. > Neither Unix vendors nor Microsoft thing security first when designing a new OS, >primarily the focus is usability. > > Charles >
