A quote from roughlydrafted. He is expanding on a remark by Phillip
Dunkelberger that "There are so many security issues with the iPhone,
because it is not just a phone. From an IT guy's perspective it is a
Linux computer with communications built in."
<Quote>
The Scary World of Linux Computers.
Dunkelberger likely wasn't intending to suggest that the iPhone was
running Linux, but instead that it is a full computing environment
with multiple vectors for potential exploits to attack. It is
interesting that he brought up Linux however, because it is a scary
subject for IT staff beholden to Microsoft.
The majority of Microsoft oriented corporate IT staff I've worked with
have a sort of reverential fear of Linux. They like to talk about it
in a respectful sort of way, but they are often afraid to actually use
it. Deploying a Linux server without an outside support agreement is a
very scary task to users who have felt safe for years in their
codependent relationship with Microsoft.
After investing tens of thousands of dollars into their troubled
relationship, after spending sleepless nights nursing NT servers back
to health after they fall off the wagon to binge on worms and the
other malware they have a genetic propensity to be addicted to, after
growing dependent upon calling up the Redmond Father's TechNet for
advice on how to deal with the regular schizoid mania and subsequent
crashing of Windows, it's difficult to start over with something
entirely new.
IT managers are a whipped bunch. Linux is an allure associated with
danger, like a pretty girl on the bus who smiles at the haggard,
middle aged family man. She's just being friendly, not inviting him
into a blissful world. He knows he has to think about his commitments
to Microsoft, all of the fighting that would have been for nothing,
all of the holding back of hair that he's already dealt with and wants
to use as credit toward an established relationship. It's too much
starting over, too late in the game.
Today's adherents of Microsoft are like the COBOL programmers in the
90s: too old to learn new tricks, and too tired to even want to try.
They are dinosaurs, dependent upon resisting change to maintain their
proprietary world.
Change isn't resisted successfully for long, but holdout adherents can
oppose progress and tenaciously hold things up for longer periods of
time than one might imagine possible.
Is Linux Really a Problem?
Of course, there are lots of phones that run Linux already--far more
than run Windows Mobile--and they are not plagued by security
problems.
There are also tens of millions of embedded routers and phone systems
running Linux or its BSD cousin, and none have suffered a scourge of
security rashes anything remotely like Microsoft's Windows. Perhaps
security isn't just a product of being powerful or having market
share.
Why would the iPhone's closed BSD environment be a special security
risk? Hackers working on the iPhone have to build and install their
own shell before they can even control it in ideal settings in a lab.
If iPhone enthusiasts can't hack their own phones without first
manually installing their own root access and shell environment, why
are pundits distributing scary stories about the potential for iPhones
to turn on their human masters and form a rebellion mechanical army of
robot terrorists?
Why didn't these flacks ever tell us about their brainstorming efforts
to imagine security problems for Windows Mobile devices?
</Quote>
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/8E67109A-41FD-4CB1-B92A-4B038428FAA2.html
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