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Re: [Fed-Talk] ammo: mi2g OS X is world's safest and most secure
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Re: [Fed-Talk] ammo: mi2g OS X is world's safest and most secure


  • Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] ammo: mi2g OS X is world's safest and most secure
  • From: "Pike, Michael" <email@hidden>
  • Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:16:54 -0700

I totally disagree - I often hear this response from Microsoft advocates any
time a security hole arises in Windows (whoa, there is another one!  And
another! :)

Last time I checked on the internet, *nix based servers out number Windows
based servers by quite a large margin.

But lets look at the "heart" (kernel) of the matter.

*nix kernels (OS X, FreeBSD, etc) are open source, and reviewed by millions
of developers.  Microsoft's kernel is not.

If you have a corn field that is 600 acres, and you have to find every
ladybug in that field with 3 spots (bugs), and you have 1 million people
looking at it, you will find a significantly larger number of bugs than
someone who has a team of 100 people looking for them.

I believe the low number of "hacks" related to *nix OS's is due to the fact
that problems are found and fixed BEFORE they become a problem, as opposed
to the Microsoft platform which are patched AFTER someone gets hit.

No OS is totally secure - but the trend you will see is clear - you get an
Apple Security Update fixing the problem before anyone even knew it was a
problem - as opposed to Microsoft - where you come in and find the latest
version of MyDoom has trashed your system.

Even if the number of OS X and Microsoft based installations were equal (I
believe it's possible, I'm working for that), you would still see a
significantly smaller number of "hacks" for the OS X platform for the mere
fact that problems are discovered and fixed before they were ever realized
to be a problem.

Mike



On 11/10/04 12:18 PM, "R. Carvel Baus" <email@hidden> wrote:
> When there is a larger install base of Mac OS
> X clients and servers, it is most likely that the number of successful
> hacks on the system will go up. Consider if the positions of Windows
> and Mac OS were swapped, historically. Based on this articles logic, it
> would find Windows as the most secure system (many assumptions are made
> in such a statement.)
>
> So while there may be fewer successful hacks of a Mac OS / BSD system,
> I would think it is more likely due to the lack of install base.

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