I saw this on another forum I post on *gasp* and I thought you guys might like it.

The year is 2004. microsoft's popluarity is waning. linux is on the rise. virus threats are growing. what do you do?! i don't know.

well 10 years from now, linux is the standard OS...in fact, you get flamed everywhere if you use the latest version of windows, windowsXS. but now that linux is standard, virus threats are growing on the little OS that could...

meanwhile valve delays half life 2 another year and doom 3 is nearing completion. EA decides to make Battlefield: Desert Storm...

so 10 years after that, linux has been overrun with security threats, we all use MAC now...pentium releases their new 128bit P26 which runs at 96ghz...amd counters with the AMD160FX...then some genius at Mercysoft creates a new OS...and names it DoorsXP. it slowly grows in popularity due to it's highly efficient infrastructure and resource management, not to mention it's invulnerability to security threats. MAC is slowly being picked apart.

meanwhile valve delays half life 2 another years and doom 3 is nearing completion. EA decides to make Battlefield: Afghanistan and follows it up with Battlefield: Iraq.

Pentium releases a 160bit P34 rated at 110ghz...amd counters with the 256bit AMD256FX.

ATI releases their new radeon xxx900xt with 2gb of ddr memory and a 5ghz core clock. Nvidia counters with a geforce hz 9600, which matches the radeon step for step. meanwhile 3dfx is still scratching their heads wondering what went wrong.

Final Fantasy 38 ships out.

so now, 30 years after today, DoorsXP is virus riddled and the world awaits the next great OS...what will it be? i know one thing for sure:

valve delays half life 2 another year and doom 3 is nearing completion.

Cheers,
KegZ

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Computers and video cards will not be that powerful. We would need nuclear core coolers just to keep them running. Bill Gates will make sure his Windows program stays on top of Linux. And HF2 and Doom will be given away for free on Ebay by that time.

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You forgot about Duke Nukem Forever being released- oh.. wait.. It never will be.

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[16:38] Correction: dick tracy was a real man
[16:38] happydud: Actually...
[16:38] happydud: He wasn't.
[16:38] happydud: hehe..

The thing is.. if linux becomes the standard OS, which OS of linux is standard?! Also, if linux becomes standard, viruses will be 10 times worse than they ever were on windows. If you think there are alot of holes in windows, wait til you see linux.

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"Just remember -- No matter how bad things get, Northern Minnesota will always be there"
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Ya know, I've always wondered just how far video cards can go...Will there ever be a point that video cards make games that look exactly like real life, and if so, how do video cards improve from there? Is the human mind even able to comprehend better-than-real-life graphics?

Just something for you to think about.

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But the thing about Linux is that it's open source, so yes, virus writers will be able to target things better... but other people might have fixed that hole, and it would be easier to go and fix it.

And they're linux 'distros', not OSes.

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[16:38] Correction: dick tracy was a real man
[16:38] happydud: Actually...
[16:38] happydud: He wasn't.
[16:38] happydud: hehe..

Well since linux is open source, they could create viruses that live inside of other programs, since they have the source to them already, they just get it in your system and replace the original file with one that does the same thing and is a virus. Scary.

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Except that implies there is a security hole for that kind of thing to begin with.

That's the big advantage of using the UNIX security model (Linux, itself, is just a copycat). Nothing can make a change to anything remotely important to the system unless it's run as root. I guess you could try tricking a newbie into running some app that modifies some source, and then pray that the newbie compiles said source and runs it as root, but that's rather an unlikely scenario.

Realistically speaking, however, a completely up-to-date version of Windows is every bit as secure as a completely up-to-date version of Linux. There are exactly three reasons why Windows is taking so much heat over security lately:

1.) People network their computers but don't know what they're doing. They don't realize that SMB uses TCP, making network shares visible/available/exploitable over the internet. Computers on home networks should always be behind a hardware firewall or a dedicated gateway machine, no exceptions.

2.) People own a computer but don't know what they're doing. I've met a wide variety of people who whine and moan about Windows but just didn't bother updating it ever, including some of the more retarded Linux advocates (Who, interestingly enough, took great objection to the prospect of having to apply security patches but have no problems recompiling their kernel regularly... ****ing morons)

3.) There are more Windows machines out there so it gets more publicity. I bet the per capita incidence rate for actual cracking - as in, non-administrator stupidity, non-spyware, honest-to-god cracking, is about the same for Windows, UNIX and Linux servers. I don't have numbers for this, but in all honesty I would expect the real 'professionals' to spend a lot more time on Linux/UNIX just because there's so much more sensitive data stored on those systems.
Apart from that, as I recall, the two biggest methods of breaking into a machine are using buffer overflow exploits (which won't be possible, or at least easy, to accomplish in Longhorn or XP SP2) and doing a primitive brute-force password test.

The big security benefit Linux has is, as I said before, the user and permissions model, which is being incorporated verbatim in the next version of Windows. So repent, sinners.

[This message has been edited by Jon`C (edited May 27, 2004).]

You forgot...


Flexor releases Dark Tempest 71

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WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

Oh yeah, and linux doesn't crash all the time like windows.

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Oh, and whoever saysthat we'll need nuclear core coolers to cool video cards and processors by then is friggin retarded. Over the years, components have been running COOLER.

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or not...

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[Jim7 PING reply]: 666secs

YES!!!

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... No... If they are getting cooler why do they need bigger or more efficent coolers?

Go look at a picture of a 6800 or a X800.



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[="Mothers stop cooking take off your aprons; Fathers stop looking at every sports station; Take a second, and think of every poor nation." - Nas=]

Massassian since: March 12, 2001

Exactly, without root access, a linux virus is basically harmless. It might cause annoyances, but nothing truly serious. Once triggered, malicious code may try to execute, but if root specific commands are invoked under non-root circumstances, it will be stopped by the kernel.

The only way a linux virus could effectively spread would be if there was some way to glean the root password and then activate root priviliges with it behind the scenes.


Also, linux vulnerabilities are probably being eliminated by people on an international scale. This makes the windows team at microsoft look small by comparison.


If a linux security hole becomes known, a patch resolving it will probably be available within hours or less.

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[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited May 27, 2004).]