Linux is insecure. Open source is insecure. Windows is insecure. All software is insecure.
Deal with it.
People keep having this delusion that security is a product. That, if you just buy some magic box, you'll have a program or an operating system that's as secure as Fort Knox.
It doesn't work that way. Security is a process, not a product.
It is easy to get caught up in the banter that goes on between the open source community and certain commercial software vendors and fail to see what is going on in the real world. Open source software has its diehard advocates but for most it is one of a number of possibilities to consider as a pragmatic choice is made regarding IT investment.
THE BRAIN behind the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, has backed calls for an overhaul of the 2.6 version.
Yesterday, we reported how Torvalds' number two, Andrew Morton, said that he wanted a bug-fixing cycle because he thought the current version was too buggy.
Torvalds told Linux.com that although the story was "somewhat sensationalistic" [is that a word? ed] the worry was real.
Production Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton says Linux may be getting "buggier," and if he can prove it, he'll decree a "bug fix-only kernel cycle," according to an article at ZDNet UK. However, Morton's definition of "bug" is quite broad, observes Linux-Watch columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
Morton voiced his Linux bug worries at LinuxTag, a large annual technical conference and business expo held in Wiesbaden, Germany, last week.
The U.K. Cabinet Office and IBM are working together on a secure open-source environment for public and private sector organisations.
The Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA) said this week that the initiative had been launched to assure public and private sectors that Linux could provide security in a complex environment.
The design is based on Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) and IBM Websphere, a mandatory access control (MAC) application, which gives "need to know" access to security.
Why tune my system?
This is probably the first thing you want to know. When a distribution is packaged and delivered to clients, it is designed to be fully compatible with most of the computers available in the market. This is a very heterogeneous set of hardware (hard disks, video cards, network cards, etc.). So distribution vendors like Red Hat, SuSe, Mandriva and the rest of them choose some conservative configuration options to assure a successful installation.
Ubuntu is a pretty interesting Linux distribution isn't it? I mean, no other take on Linux has shot so high so fast. Nobody has single-handedly turned the desktop Linux world over on its ear like Ubuntu has. Nobody. What makes it so special? What sets it apart from the hundreds of other distros on the market today? Well, we're here to take a look at the latest pre-release copy of what is to become Ubuntu 6.06... Flight 5. First off, let me begin by saying I am not an Ubuntu zealot.
Efforts to bring glitzy new graphics to Linux are fueling an old conflict: Does proprietary software belong in open-source Linux?
Linux on desktop computers will begin taking off in mainstream markets in the next 12 to 18 months, Novell President Ron Hovsepian has predicted.
Linux has been widely used on networked computers called servers, but it has comparatively little success on personal computers, beyond technically savvy users. Many companies have argued the open-source operating system is on the verge of breaking out in PCs and have been proven wrong. But Hovsepian sees some changes that he believes make the market ripe.
Open Source Development Labs is previewing work that attempts to make life easier for software companies by bridging GNOME and KDE, the two competing graphical interfaces most widely used with Linux.
The effort, called Portland Project, began showing its first software tools on Tuesday in conjunction with this week's LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston. Using them, a software company can write a single software package that works using either of the prevailing graphical interfaces.
