On Sun, 6 Oct 1996 01:28:16 -0500 (CDT), snow wrote:
An NT machine running off the shelf protocols and services is certainly mor= e secure than your average linux install. Of course clueless administrators= for either (any) platform can leave the door wide open easily enough.=20
How about an "average" NT install versus a "average" linux install?
Or, better yet, the typical "rent-a-loser" admin install. You know, the one who installs everything in the root directory? (I've seen this happen; don't laugh)
Neither of my machines are all that secure, but they don't have to be right now. Neither has more than 5 users, all of whom I either trust personally, or don't know enough to do anything. On the other hand, I would be willing to bet that Mr. Metzger, or adamsc (sorry, I forgot your full name) could lock a linux box down as tight as a networked NT machine.
With enough time and net access, just about anyone could - if they thought it was important. Unfortunately, many people just don't realize how open their system is...
Hell, I'd bet 20 bucks I could. The machine wouldn't DO a whole lot, but it would be tough to break into. (basically, don't run telnetd, ftpd, sendmail, run sshd for incoming/outgoing connections, use a secure httpd IF NECESSARY, NO NFS, shadow passwords etc.)
++agree.
But what do you mean by secure?
Safe from undesired intrusion.
Now, the much harder one is: safe from undesired usage by authorized users. As in that guy from the Dept of Health who was handing out the AIDS info... # Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams@acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)