[ale] spyware effects unix?

[Dow Hurst]

Artic_Knight,
Actually this is a good point in light of all the insecurities that are critical in MS products right now.  Spyware, software that watches what you do and reports back, has been around for a long time.  Any program that you can't examine the source for and that you can't trust the source of the code is suspect.  So, my point is that having the source available, having md5 checksums of the files you download that you can check, and having trusted sources with good security in place gives you power that no "binary only" producer of software can give you.  Microsoft has lost their reputation for secure reliable software.  You really need both reliability and security for dependability.  Sorry for the long answer, but as I've learned by listening to the "old guys" there have been sneaky programs since computing got started.  Lot's were just mild pranks to keep resources available by stealing logins and passwords.  Spyware is really a current term for untrusted binaries that provide a popular service like Kazaa but report info that you wouldn't normally allow.  Right now, there isn't much spyware floating around, in the sense your speaking of, for Linux.  Any program that acted up gets caught quickly since we can capture output packets to examine them using tcpdump or ethereal.  We can block outgoing packets with ipchains or iptables.  We have a lot of cool tools for our Linux systems that Windows based systems have to buy untrustable binaries of, from untrustable companies trying to survive in a very competitive marketplace.  I grew up used to buying programs, but open source programs have really opened my eyes to a whole new way of computing.  At the "source", low cost isn't the real draw for open source software.  It is the openeness of the code, so you can trust it by examining it or paying someone to audit it.  That is invaluable to anyone who wants to depend on their code or discover flaws and correct them before the code goes into production.  So that is why there isn't much spyware around for Unix/Linux, it gets found out quickly.  I apologize for the long post.
Dow



>>> artic_knight at yahoo.com 09/16/03 00:13 AM >>>
hey i was currious, does spyware effect unix based systems yet? and whats
its reach?

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**  computers are a lot like air conditioners, they stop working properly once you open windows **

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