Microsoft focuses on security

[Agent_Steal]

You cant really blame MS for trying. At least they are actually trying now. As for any OS that you use of course it's always gonna have flaws just take a look at how many lines of code their is some OS's.Before it used to be just about a million or so. Now its like 9 or ten times more then that. Your gonna tell me that your not gonna miss a flaw of course you are..
Well as for "catch" since he's the leading security expert in here. If you dont like MS then dont use their product. Even better start up your own company build your own OS from scratch and then we'll see how good it is..
That's my 2 cents and some more...

[disc0rd]

bballad, just for clarification, I totally agree that nobody should be playing games on servers, I only was trying to make the point that, without microsoft, we would be without alot of things

[bballad]

Originally posted here by disc0rd
bballad, just for clarification, I totally agree that nobody should be playing games on servers, I only was trying to make the point that, without microsoft, we would be without alot of things

hey my game box at home is a ms box....but to illustrate the MS point, back when I was workign for an ISP in 96 or 97 we had a customer that insisted on useing nt4 as their gateway and router box, they had a t1 line and keep complaining that their connection was too slow (they thaught we where not supplying them with a full t1). eventualy we did some trafic monitoring for tehm, turns out someon had hacked their box and was running a decent and quake server on the box. they finaly listened to us and switched to an ascend router.

[bpiedlow]

Just to chime in, cause if feel like it...

Not that I'm taking any sides either - just thought people should know what they're talking about before they make snide remarks at fellow AO'ers

Things like:

Well as for "catch" since he's the leading security expert in here. If you dont like MS then dont use their product.

You obviously haven't bothered to read what Catch says - over and over and over and over again... morning catch....

He's a large advocet of USING M$ products - not against them...

His only complaint has been something along the lines of "that lazy admins that don't know how to protect their boxes is putting the blame on M$ instead of their lack of understanding" or something to that effect...

He believes that when properly setup by a 'proper' admin, Windows is one of the most secure systems out there...

Personally I agree for the most part - so long as you take proper steps to protect the holes that it leaves open... (routers, firewalls, etc)...

RRP

[catch]

I am running around like crazy this morning working on my halloween costume. (an Evil Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force)

If you really, really need me to explain to you why OpenBSD is garbage and why you are wrong about the government switching to BSD/Linux for security/anything reasons, I will do so tomorrow.

If you do a little bit of searching you will see that I have covered this subject before, many... many times. Perhaps you could go look and save the trouble.

One thing before I go...

OpenBSD is garbage, humm perhaps we should inform Microsoft of that seeing that it runs hotmail.

I don't have the first clue what you are talking about here, Hotmail does not now, nor has it ever run on OpenBSD.

catch

[bballad]

UMM I sugest you talk to MS on that one catch, hotmail started as a BSD shope long before MS bought them, durnign the early 2000 days post MS they tried to switch from bsd to 200 and faild, now with 2k3 they are finaly switching over to MS products but with a number of BSD boxes still running. it would also be enlightining for you to run a netcraft on the MS domain it seems they at least run their gateway boxes on linux......humm if it good enough for MS corperate its good enough for me.
as for the goverment and military useing BSD, seeing that most of its funding came from DARPA grants for years, that BSD itself was origionaly created for Milnet/ARP and that their IP stact still runs milnet I would say that yes they do use BSD and Linux. Hell there is a NSA version of Linux and a NASA version.
perhaps this link may open your mind a bit http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...le.cfm?Id=1238 here is a direct quote form the aritical

“Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to Linux-based OS,”

this artical shows your misinformation
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/15295.html

or how about his netcraft survay
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...whitehouse.gov
my guess would be the unknowns are BSD ...but notice no windows
or this one
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.army.mil seeing that osx is a modified version of BSD.
or this one
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.navy.mil all solaris no windows.
or this one
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.coke.com a major fourtin 500 company
or this one
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/hosted...212.155.204.31
notice that thye are the main host for windows update...whats that windows update runs on linux.
or jow about this one
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...xpress.com..my guess is that a major credit card company takes security seriously...and no windows...wow
Whats that Charles Schwab migrated entirly to linux for its infrustructure as well

humm I guess you are very very wrong, so are you just ignorant or are you being willfuly decitefull for some reason?
my guess is ignorant I would sugest that if you ever left the world of the small busniess and dealt with a real company with actual security concerns you will relise that MS is not the best out their, you will also relise that in a complex enviroment an administrator cannot just reboot a server at the drop of a hat. You will also see that MS patches do break mission critical applications so cannot be implamented with out testing (the current RPC patch breaks my custom DCOM connectors so the patch is a no go..thank god for firewalls.) but I am guessing that youhave never worked in a larg shop with testing and stage enviromentsso you probably jsut roll those patches into production and reinstall if there is any trouble..I am guessing that your main use of windows is file sharing and perhaps exchange for a small (less then 500 users) enviroment so I cna forgive your ignorance.

[Tiger Shark]

BBallad:

whats that windows update runs on linux.

No wonder they never work - the penguin is Fuxxing with my updates........

Sorry - couldn't resist.....

[sysmin770]

Catch,
OpenBSD is one of the most secure operating systems there is. If I am not mistaken they have only had 1 remote exploit in the last 7 years. I also know for a fact that the system as a whole is gone over with a fine tooth comb and evaluated for bugs, security related or not. That way sometimes they are actually ahead of the power curver. OpenBSD makes a damn good firewall when configured properly too. I wouldn't say it is garbage by any means. All of these systems have a purpose. I would definately not have a WinXP box guarding my network.

[bpiedlow]

Hmm, you got me a little confussed bballard... (not that confussing me is all that hard to do on a Friday) You say this:

UMM I sugest you talk to MS on that one catch, hotmail started as a BSD shope long before MS bought them, durnign the early 2000 days post MS they tried to switch from bsd to 200 and faild, now with 2k3 they are finaly switching over to MS products but with a number of BSD boxes still running.

Then you go off about how using netcraft is an accurate way to see what a site is running...

So how come when using Netcraft on either www.hotmail.com or login.passport.net (which is where you're redirected to when you go to hotmail) shows that their running on IIS 5.0 on a W2K box??? Isn't that a tad conterdictory to what you said???

Again, maybe I'm just confussed by what you're saying...

RRP

[MrLinus]

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/....microsoft.com <--- Linux..

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/....microsoft.com <-- Unknown?? =o

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/....microsoft.com <-- IIS 6 on Linux?? =o

It all depends on how you look it up. Do the search based on *.hotmail.com

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...10.hotmail.com <--- FreeBSD
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...14.hotmail.com <-- FreeBSD
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...ev.hotmail.com <--- FreeBSD


http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/...gr.hotmail.com <--- Win2K

Hrmm.. I decided to go through things and it occurred to me. I think there is some miscommunication going on here. OpenBSD may be a secure OS (I can't say because I haven't used it) but the government (specifically the US government) doesn't like using things that don't meet specific standards. And I suspect that's the biggest issue with *nix. Until the ability to meet the standards in regards to grandular ACLs and such is default.. they won't move to it (I believe that's one portion but there are others I'm sure).

NT and other Windows server boxes have been used, I suspect (I'm not a government auditor/buyer etc.), because they met the standards required of them for the Orange Book (the standard at the time of NT) and because they meet the standards of today. I think that some *nix could be implemented if it met specific standards from default rather than add-on (you can add things that would beef up *nix to the specific required standards e.g., grsecurity kernel patch, MAC kernel patch, other ACL kernel patches).

Different industries have different requirements. What the government sets as a standard doesn't necessarily work elsewhere. That's not bad. It's just different.

Now, that said, even with the government requirements MS still has issues to deal with. Longhorn may or may not help. I've looked at Win2003 and it looked interesting and promising. Not perfect but certainly interesting. If I had a choice in the business world where integrity and realiability is more important than say classification of data, would I choose MS? Probably not. Why? Because I'd want something that I can rely on and that can ensure the integrity I need. It's what I feel comfortable with.

Anyways, my ramble.. =P