I doubt I'll be having sleepless nights anytime soon but there are "virii" in form of "root kits" etc for linux, infact the majority of exploits written by "developers" (you could say) worth their salts are for the linux base.. however the security enforced by the linux administrator - if he's doing his job should be strong enough to withstand any script kiddy using juvenille tactics.
I would say the security risk is much less with an up to date linux machine and an informed system administrator. Then again, there are developers who hack (in the real sense of the word) for the good of the community, which is pretty much the whole idea of linux in a sentence the perception of this however is somewhat misintepreted by the media on many occasions and there is always the bullshit made up as a marketing driven scare tactic and on many occasions the good work done by open source bug testers is used as a way to break some poor sod's system.. how else do they sell support other than playing on people's imagination and fear?
We can only hope that in the future it stops being about money (to an extent, we all have to make _some_ money) and begins to be about what is better for the environment which it is implemented in. The day when the consumer begins to matter, that is the day computing will take a role which fits around life, instead of the vice versa. The scare tactics wont matter then, because the consumer will have the best working behind them rather than fighting about insignificant nonsense, the work will get done without the "politics" - maybe this is all a dream today, but we can hope.
Little OT I know, but I had to fill my coffee break somehow!
On 12/04/06, Kevanf1 <kevanf1@gmail.com> wrote:
In case anybody has seen the sensationalist headlines proclaiming a
virus that infects both Windows and Linux PCs (pity it wasn't
announced on April 1st). Check this website out:
http://tinyurl.com/jasap
It gives a little more information about it. I would say that the
site is slightly biased :-) on the Linux side, but it does ask
pertinent questions.
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Kevan Farmer
Linux user #373362
Cheslyn Hay
Staffordshire
WS6 7HR
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