__/ [Madhusudan Singh] on Saturday 15 October 2005 16:49 \__
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> __/ [Madhusudan Singh] on Saturday 15 October 2005 04:25 \__
>>
>>> mikek <"mikekcenter dash usenet at yahoo dot com dot au"> wrote:
>>>
>>>> What would happen if the AV companies started payin g hackers to write
>>>> virus for platform such as linux?
>>>
>>> You seriously think that a certain monopoly in north western US is not
>>> doing that already ?
>>
>> There is an individual department assigned that very particular task
>> already, but the operation may be disguised. We may have all heard about
>> that department, which is commonly referred to as the Microsoft Open
>> Source Lab. The name sound benign, aye?
>>
>> I think Madhusudan raised a very important point. Would you really refure
>> to believe that Microsoft pays a 'pittance' (READ: millions) to people
>> who discover flaws in Firefox and other popular applications that are
>> suseptible to damage via the network? This will get worse as OSS fear at
>> Redmond mounts. The shady past is there to suggest it.
>>
>> In conclusion, it is likely that more effort is realistically put into
>> hacking Open Source than its commercial equivalents. With exposed source,
>> it is an even easier task.
>>
>> As a pressing reminder, GNU will not pay under the table for hacking
>> Windows. On the contrary, I have seen Ballmer lick his lips in the past.
>>
>> Roy
>>
>
> I think that Microsoft is doing Linux a favor that way. Linux thrives on
> bug reports and quick fixes of those bugs. Microsoft still thinks that if
> it finds a bug and tries to exploit it, it would drive users away since
> bugs are not fixed promptly at Redmond. However, Linux (and other open
> source offerings) are fundamentally different in that respect.
I am not too sure, or I am skeptic at the least. Linux critical patches, if
any ever came out, would easily be distributed because it also thrives on a
community that is IT-savvy. There are not many Internet cafes, for
instance, that run Linux and are too lazy to bother fixing security
loopholes.
Roy
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