No one has stated any such thing. What has been pointed out is that servers will a tempting target. Why?
What is the most effective way to infect the largest number of computers? Target each computer downloading files or infect the servers and websites the files are downloaded from?

This is simply another case of a couple people making incomplete, inaccurate, misunderstood or false statements (in this case #2 and 3), someone else adding more information or clarification (in this case the latter), and the original participants refusing to acknowledge even the possibility of error.
But we all know that the quickest way to destroy a good discussion is to confuse the issue with facts, and the easiest way to make oneself look stupid is to admit when one is wrong. (In case it is not obvious, the foregoing is sarcasm.)

which has happened through vulnerabilities in things like PHP. Which OS would the served malware be targeted for? Linux that has ~1% desktop market share or Windows that has ~90%?
Oh, of course, it's Windows because it's more vulnerable. Except, of course, it is not as a piece of user-space malware using a browser exploit is about as hard under any OS since most Linux installs have absolutely no protection against it at all -- putting them on a par with Windows.
I really cannot believe that in pointing out the logical flaws of a couple of posts we descend into attempts to try to explain how malware targeting has nothing to do with market share.
I suppose you also missed the malware for that rubbish OS Linux Android or that rubbish OS Linux embedded in routers. Both, of course, targeted due to a rubbish OS with poor security models and nothing to do with the fact there are a lot of devices running them.

Why do you claim others state the opposite of what they actually state, then argue those other people are wrong? Do I need to post a face-palm photograph? No one has claimed market share is not a factor. Or as you put it, has nothing to do with it.

We state; Market share is only one factor.
You reply; You are wrong to claim market share is irrelevant.

We state; Servers are also a target, because they can easily spread malware.
You reply; You are wrong to claim only servers are targeted.


Read what is posted, twice or thrice if necessary, before responding. Twisting, distorting and ignoring what other participants in a discussion say or post, then vehemently arguing against something that was not said or written does not win a debate.

I think we come back to this.I'm still waiting for the further explanations I mentioned here.

The malware for said routers was shown to have a vulnerability. And the fix was to make that vulnerability only exposed to the intranet, not to remove the flaw. For the firmware supplied by the manufacturer of the device. Which was most of my reasoning for going with ddwrt. And now that I've used ddwrt, it's nice to have more wireless encryption options than what came with the device and they actually work.

I don't know if you've done much programming. But when I was coding for an m$ shop, the manuals spent more time explaining why you shouldn't use this or that function because it's wrong or unreliable, or whatever. In linux those flaws get fixed, in said m$ platform, it is what it is, till the ends of time. Linux may very well be crap, but at the end of the day it's the most useful and polished turd you could ever hope to be burning inside a paper bag on your front porch. When the microsoft one burns the mice and rats relocate for a period and you actually have to buy food to feed your cat. Plus a new couch because the cat had to stay active.

No one made any such claim...

Give it a rest.
Bollocks - and yet another straw man argument.
If those vendors don't support and patch their Linux based devices, then what is to be done...? Yet again another irrelevant aside.
Android uses the Linux kernel, but a completely different userland (much the same kind of thing as any other smartphone). "google around"

Wow, I make a comment in passing about market share and still the Linux Fan posts come.

opcorn:

Yet you still reply... and resort to sticking labels, making incorrect generalisations.

This thread reminds me of your idiotic "iceweasel IS NOT firefox" multi page embarrassment of a few years ago. In that thread also you refused to see the point of view of anyone else in the thread, nor accept that you had overwhelmingly been proven wrong and resorted to ad hominem attacks.

In this thread you got your knickers in a twist over my initial reply and since then have been trying to save face - trying to portray this as otherwise is futile as anyone can read the thread.

Done.

I am replying because I am waiting for a response to my earlier post:

Perhaps users having the availability to analyse the system makes it potentially much safer than a system (Windows) that hides the internal workings from users? Not to mention the UNIX file system is inherently safer than that used by Windows. (Notice I used the words potentially much safer, not much safer; and inherently safer, not definitely, certainly or infinitely safer.)

Thanks, you made me think there and I realised that putting together the two ideas of analysing what the system is doing and being able to see the source code means that if, for example, you find a process listening on a port you can then check the code for that process and perhaps gain an understanding of why. Similarly if you see data being transmitted -- you can dig into the code of that process and perhaps see what is being transmitted. Sure, if you don't know C at all then it could be a little bit of a challenge but it may still be possible.
Also, to answer my own question, if you compile everything yourself form source then you know that you have the exact source code used for that application so if at a later date you do want to analyse as above you know you're analysing the full source.

Hi,

The two major reason for my use of Slackware are that I trust Patrick & Team for their maintenance record for Slackware. Along with team members that participate with 'Slackbuilds.org';AlienBob maintains his packages at his site;Eric's involvement with Slackware is much appreciated by the Slackware community. I have used Slackware since the first release and find the resources very broad and when a problem arises the issues are immediately addressed by the team or Slackware community. Look at the official Slackware forum to get a feel for the interactivity of LQ Members. Look at [Slackware security] vulnerabilities outstanding 20140101 by mancha who is providing a great service back to the community and very much appreciated by all.

As you can see I am a avid supporter of Slackware by my personal involvement in helping my fellow Slackware LQ members and within my community when possible.

Another important thing to remember is History of this Gnu/Linux. Look at Slackware as the oldest active Gnu/Linux and still being a great usable distribution by a strong supporting community.

Hope this helps.
Have fun!

this is true, however this is really not really relevant in some ways as 'server' versions of windows are more hardened out of box than 'home' versions of windows which not only have a lot of the server features turned off but removed entirely.

nothing is completely secure, even fort knox can be robbed if enough people with the right equipment have enough smarts, determination and time.
the big difference between linux and windows here

market share may be one factor, but isn't the be-all and end all as those numbers are heavily skewed towards windows, since it's impossible to keep track of how many actual people are using a free software like Linux, and since buying a computer from a big box store such as wal-mart or best buy etc.. comes pre-installed with windows, so that counts as a windows user in the demographics even if that computer gets re-formatted with linux the moment it is removed from the box


i believe most people are simply saying it isn't the ONLY factor in these issues
the fact is, windows is built to spoon feed the average idiot who doesn't want to bother them selves with the more 'technical' aspects of a computer, but this spoon feeding comes at a cost of leaving holes in the system big enough to pilot o jumbo jet through.

one of the chief complaints of people trying to switch from windows to linux is that it isn't 'user friendly' enough, but their concept of 'user friendly' amounts to
'just do it for me' without realizing that by automating a system to the extent windows does compromises the very security they were hoping to achieve by switching to linux in the first place

that is quite true, unless you analyze every line of code yourself, then you can't say that it's secure, however there are several levels that a computer can be infected, including the firmware, and boot sector, so ultimately you are going to have to trust someone.