Re: recommended Virus Scanner?
On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 05:39:05AM -0800, Karsten M. Self wrote:
Thanks for the excellent answers.
> ...you don't need to worry about viruses for GNU/Linux.
> GNU/Linux has a security profile. It's generally markedly different
> from legacy MS Windows.
> I don't think viruses and worms, as
> commonly defined, will characterize the problem.
> There are few attacks on GNU/Linux, *BSD, or proprietary unices which
> are of the "world comes to an end" variety.
> They will likely be
> largely localized (affecting a subset of users and systems)
I have a friend who is 1000 times smarter about Unix than me, and he has
told me the whole history of Sendmail exploits, Bind exploits, and
horriblly crufty design decisions and gaffs and el crapo code all
throughout the history of Unix. His personal opinion is that Linux is a
mere distraction written by amateurs; FreeBSD is closer to the ideal.
I'm not advocating his belief, it's just that (1) the history of Unix as
a cracker proof platform is not true; (2) most of the professional Unix
community views Linux as a largely amateurish attempt relative to their
"heavy duty code", and (3) we're all human.
I believe all of your statements I snipped are destined to be crow one
day we will all eat.
However, I think your professionalism and exhaustiveness in answering my
questions is absolutely admirable, absolutely the correct way to be, and
absolutely the best philsophy we can have to "do the best we can."
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