----- Original Message -----
From: "Alvin Oga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Tom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Debian-User" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2003 04:53
Subject: freebsd - Re: recommended Virus Scanner?
> On Thu, 27 Nov 2003, Tom wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> a question you can ask him: and anybody else that likes to poke holes
> at all the exploits and heavy scrutiny by the thousands(?) it has
> withstood and stil being used
> ( always a fun subject )
>
> a) what version of sendmail does freebsd use compared to "linux"
> b) what version of bind does freebsd use compared to what amateursuse
> c) what version of bash does freebsd use compared to what amateurs use
> ... on and on ..
>
> if freebsd code is patched and fixed, than after the "same patches/fixes"
> applied to "linux" would make it a fair comparason ??
>
> and others might prefer openbsd over freebsd too :-)
>
> otherwise, its comparing a "virgin" code compared to "well-armored" code
>
> and yes, maybe freebsd is better than linux in some aspects and vice versa
>
>
> >
> > I'm not advocating his belief, it's just that (1) the history of Unix as
> > a cracker proof platform is not true;
>
> nobody said that ... and nobody that knows anything useful will say that
>
> > (2) most of the professional Unix
> > community views Linux as a largely amateurish attempt relative to their
> > "heavy duty code",
>
> thats okay ... everybody is entitled to their opionion ...
>
> and taking it one step further, "C" was created at around the same time
> or just a year/two before the rest of the "exploitable" code
>
> and who/where/what is the "professional unix community" ???
> - ibm's aix ??{Footnote 1}
> - HP hpux ?
> - sun's solaris ?
> - sco's "caldera" ?{Footnote (see 1)}
> - novell's suse ?
> - redhat's "linux"{Footnote(see 1)}
> - apple's freebsd/darwin ?
> - on and on ..
>
> - various other flavors of linux distro that uses the same
> version of gpl'd code ?
>
> i bet all those "professional people" have some flavor of these "amateur
> code" running their mail and web servers and other side business ??
>
> > and (3) we're all human.
>
> yupp ... and some like to be play monkey-c-monkey-do too :-)
> or see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, say-n-evil,
>
> > 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."
>
> thats all one can do ... do the best one can do ..
>
> c ya
> alvin
>
Footnote 1: These companys have a credibility gap(Websters def a. & b.).
The rest I havent used.
Hoyt
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