[Amps] Power Transformer

[Ed Briggs]

Lots of factual errors here folks. It's important to distinguish between
personal opinion and fact on matters like this, because some readers are
likely to take the opinions as factual.


First, there are lots and lots of vulnerabilities in Sparc and Solaris,
lots. Have a look at

http://search.cert.org/query.html?rq=0&ht=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=1&la=&qm=0&st=1&nh=25&lk=1&rf=2&oq=&rq=0&si=1&qt=sparc&col=certadv

so switching to Sparc to avoid exploits is simply not true, and even Sun
wouldn't make that claim.

The assertion that switching to Linux, Unix, or MAC will bring better
security is also not true. Again, have a look that Cern or any of the other
academic / government agencies that track these vulnerabilities.

See

http://search.cert.org/query.html?rq=0&ht=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=1&la=&qm=0&st=1&nh=25&lk=1&rf=2&oq=&rq=0&si=1&qt=Linux&col=certadv&x=15&y=1

for page after page after page of serious Linux security holes. I freqently
hear that Linux is more secure than WIndows, and it simply isn't true.
I ofter hear people say 'I've never had to apply a security patch to Linux
or Solaris'. In reality this means that there systems are wide open to
attack because there are many many known vulerabilities that are well
documented. In fact, it often means they've already been exploited.

Also, the notion that 64 bit processors are immune to buffer overrun attacks
is not true - it is much more difficult - but not impossible and no, I'm not
going to tell you how to do it.

Think that x86 Windows has more vulnerabilites than Linux?  You might be
surprized if you look and the actual numbers, and even more surprized if you
look at the treads (increasing/decreasing) and the time it takes to get a
patch to a vulnerability.

Think Netscape is secure? Think again

http://search.cert.org/query.html?col=certadv&qt=Netscape&charset=iso-8859-1


Is Mozilla bullet proof?

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html


Java secure?  You get the idea.


I know this will be controversial since many people have alot of 'emotional
energy' invested in product X or Y superiority. At the end of the day, when
you actually spend some time examing this sort of thing systematically , you
find that most of these sorts of assertions of Product X being more secure
that Y just don't hold water.

Now, about that power transformer..



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Kirkby" <david.kirkby at onetel.net>
To: "Tomm Aldridge" <KD7QAE at ARRL.NET>
Cc: <amps at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 4:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Amps] Power Transformer


> Tomm Aldridge wrote:
>
> > ... and what does Intel have to do with MS being targeted by hackers
> > and spammers???  It is interesting to note that most high performance
> > WS and servers are IA powered and that they are completely OS agnostic.
>
> With one very uncommon exception (Windows NT on on the Alpha processor)
> Windoze only runs on Intel x86 (or Intel x86 compatible CPUs).
>
> The vast majority of Linux users use Intel x86 CPUs too, so bugs in code
> that is used on UNIX and Linux systems will tend to have exploits
> designed to exploit x86 compatible CPUs. A bug for example in the Apache
> web server (which runs on Windoze, Linux, Suns's Solaris, IBM's AIX,
> HP's HP-UX etc etc) could leave all systems open no matter what CPU they
> use - x86, SPARC, Itanium and so on. However, any that try to run
> arbitrary code will most likely be written to run x86 instructions.
>
> I'm well aware Intel Itanium CPUs are very high performance, and I would
> swap my Sun UltraSPARC for Itanium CPUs any day, but Itanimum systems
> are expensive.  So I'm not saying Intel are to blame, but by not using
> an x86 compatible CPU, I do reduce dramatically the chances of being
> compromised.
>
> There are many steps you can take to improve security, which in a rough
> order of effectiveness might be
>
> 1) Stop using IE and Outlook, and switch to Mozilla.
> 2) Stop using Windoze and switch to a UNIX, Linux or Mac system.
> 3) Stop using Linux on x86, and switch to CPUs that are not x86
compatible.
> 4) Keep the computer switched off
> 5) Destroy the computer completely.
>
> (I'm talking here of only the sort of system you run, not patches,
> firewalls etc).
>
> > I run XP on both my (PII and PIII) machines here at the QTH but I do
> > not have either Outlook or ie on either.  I use Mozilla exclusively
> > for both browsing and mail and have so far avoided any MS viruses.
>
> You have done (1) above, but there are still many exploits of Windoze
> that don't use either of those methods of attack.
>
> I don't run Outlook on my PC, but my wife's grandchildren use the
> machine and managed to get me a virus I think via an exploit of MSM
> messenger.
>
> Despite the fact one of my SPARCs is open to the world as a web server,
> with http://www.g8wrb.org/ and many other sites on it, the thing has
> never been hacked. I see plenty of attempts, but most will never succeed
> on a SPARC processor.
>
> Some have critisised Intel for not making the Itanium x86 compatible,
> whereas AMD's high spec rival, the Opteron is backwards compatilbe with
> the x86 instruction set.
>
> Dr. David Kirkby, G8WRB.
>
>
> > INTEL INSIDE!
> >
> > Tomm Aldridge
> >
> > David Kirkby wrote:
> >
> >> Will Matney wrote:
> >>
> >>> From the above, if all the members of this list or everyone with
> >>> contesting.com e-mails would or need to check their computers for
> >>> this "sober worm". Most anti-virus makers should have updates to
> >>> clean an infected computer if it is found. Hopefully it will be
> >>> found and my e-mails will drop back down to a normal rate =)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> All members that are running Windoze you mean!!
> >> Sorry, I had to add that.
> >>
> >> Dr. David Kirkby
> >> (Sun Ultra 80,  4 x 450 MHz UltraSPARC II CPUs, 4GB RAM.
> >> Totally incompatible with Windoze and totally immune from its many
> >> problems.)
> >>
> >> INTEL OUTSIDE !!!
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Amps mailing list
> >> Amps at contesting.com
> >> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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