aaaaand there's our frothing penguin.
The rock I've been hiding under is the rock of doing my job. On a wintel network. Connected by Cisco gear. With VMware, Citrix, Avaya, Linux, Solaris and Mac sprinkled throughout. I specialise in networking, telephony and, here's the fun part, SECURITY.
I'm well aware of the history behind Windows, it's issues, the fact that Linux is configured more securely by deafualt upon installation and of the dominance of Apache as a webserver platform (SURPRISE!! I have one myself. It runs next to the IIS servers I have) but I've also got enough experience to know that most of the commonly held beliefs about Linux and Mac OS security and stability when compared to Windows are simply overegged. Simply repeating the mantra 'Linux is secure' over and over across a whole community does not make it so any more than me saying 'Windows can be secured' makes Joe Blogg's own installation protected.
I don't need to babysit my Windows boxes any more than I do my Linux or Solaris boxes. I can't remember the last time I had to do a rebuild for any Windows platform due to performance issues, malware infection, or other and the only time I have to restart my Windows servers because of poor performance is because of a badly written 3rd party application. This, incidentally, happens about as often as it does on one of my Solaris and two of my Linux boxes.
Nothing you have said here debunks my main point and you have, if fact, only provided me a platform to provide a further example of my main point. I thank you for that.
It should be clear from my examples that the important thing here is not the platform itself, but the way it is administered. All platforms have their crosses to bear and all can be made more (or less) secure.
I'm not a windows fanboy. Over the years it's been a painful platform to work with. It has also been a joy at times and made my life a lot easier. Fact is though, I'm trained in Windows and better at it than I am at Linux. hell, I can't remember half of my Suse course now but I can remember the majority of my Microsoft training. It's horses for courses and, to repeat my earlier post, no one size will fit all.
So sit down, have a cup of cocoa, and realise that I'm not trying to convert anyone away from Linux or rubbish it's security credentials. Because I prefer windows and feel that it can be effective that doesn't mean to say that you, or anyone else, has to. It's called a preference and my comments are my heartfelt opinions - not solid facts or theories that need 'debunked'.
