A different kind of bad week [LWN.net]

A different kind of bad week

Posted Sep 25, 2003 12:31 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341)
Parent article: A different kind of bad week

Given the vulnerabilities that occured in OpenSSH, sendmail and ProFTPd, I don't think it's a week where we have reason to be even a little smug. Granted, Linux (and most other unices) are much more secure by default than anything that comes from redmond, but it's not like we don't have our own share of problems.

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A different kind of bad week

Posted Sep 25, 2003 19:48 UTC (Thu) by dlapine (subscriber, #7358) [Link]

That's the point of the comments. These are vulnerabilities, and they get patched before they become exploited, for the most part. The scale of our problems is also smaller, as no one bug will effect all linux users.

A different kind of bad week

Posted Sep 25, 2003 21:43 UTC (Thu) by freethinker (guest, #4397) [Link]

True, we had several vulnerabilities. Fixes were quickly issued and no doubt widely applied. What we did not have was a widespread exploit of those vulnerabilities.

Contrast with the M$ world, where the vulnerability has been out there for two years, and the fix apparently has not been widely applied. They had (yet another) widespread exploit. The net was (once again) clogged as a result.

What does this tell us about the future? Linux systems will continue to be diverse; they will continue to have user/system separation; they will continue to eschew email clients that automatically run attachments. These things will be true even if the typical user becomes one who is clueless about applying patches and clicking on attachments.

More important, Linux will continue to be an open system, not controlled by any one entity. Those who care about quality and can deliver it will continue to create Linux. Those who don't or can't will not.