4 ms·

People who say Windows is insecure aren't comparing it to Flash or Java, they are comparing it to OS X, Linux, or *BSD. Without addressing that comparison, this

People who say Windows is insecure aren't comparing it to Flash or Java, they are comparing it to OS X, Linux, or *BSD. Without addressing that comparison, this article is useless.

tptacek 15y ago
Windows is comparably secure to Linux and OS X. This stuff is hard to pin down; for instance, there's a lot of hardening you can (but most people do not) do on Linux, and Lion changes the game on countermeasures for OS X. So it's a uniquely bad time to try to resolve this controversy decisively. But it's also hard to ignore the fact that much of what Lion is doing was pioneered in WinAPI. (I'm an OS X user; also, I do systems software security). Whether Windows (Vista+) is safer than Linux is up for debate. But safety and security are different concepts.
- niels_olson 15y ago
  > safety and security are different concepts I did anti-terrorism in the military for awhile and I totally agree, but I would love to read the great tptacek's breakdown of the differences.
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    I'm not tptacek, but I think it's mostly clear that a castle in Compton is more secure than a cottage in a village in the Alps, but less safe.
    - cosgroveb 15y ago
      I believe I've seen tptacek say a liquor store in Englewood, Chicago with bulletproof glass in front of the cashier is more secure than a 7-11 in Lincoln Park, but the 7-11 is safer. Or something like that. :)
      - StavrosK 15y ago
        Oh, hm. Sounds like I was close, then :)
        tptacek 15y ago
        This is a weird little thread right here.
bediger 15y ago
This is Preston Gralla writing. As near as I can tell, that's as good as saying it's a Wag-Edd press release.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Funny, I've always Preston Gralla as anti-Microsoft. At least in the past year, his anti-MS articles easily outnumber his pro-MS articles.
  - pierreminik 15y ago
    Criticism does not mean being "anti". It does sometimes but if it's a complex issue and people take their time to understand it's various aspects, the critics are usually never "anti". From Windows 95 I was hooked on GUI's. I didn't like Microsoft but I liked Windows. I'd almost never care enough about Microsoft to say anything but when it came to Windows I always had an opinion I'd want to air and it was always in the spirit of wanting an improved product. Mac OS 9 felt like a joke and the various Linux distributions felt unfinished. But eventually I changed to OS X when one of it's later "kitties" came out. Among my friends who have a Mac I'm pretty much the first to ever criticize Apple products but if you look at how much money I spend on the platform and how much time I invest learning about it you wouldn't think I was a critic. I don't have opinions about Windows beside wishing IE wasn't such a pain to design for. Being critical does not equal being against something. When your critics no longer want to share their opinion of your product or service, that's when you should be truly scared. That is when you're in a really, really bad place.
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      Fair enough. But Preston Gralla is certainly not like a walking MS PR firm. Compare and constrast Preston's stories with someone like John Gruber for Apple. Gruber has written maybe 100 blurbs about Apple in the past year and maybe one that was critical. Daniel Dilger is basically the same -- except maybe he hasn't yet written the critical Apple article yet. Preston OTOH regularly writes critical MS articles, more often than he writes those that defend MS. The author who refered to Preston as the equivalent of an MS PR firm doesn't know his history well.
udp 15y ago
It's amusing that Windows only recently introduced both real home folders and UAC, when *nix had been working like that for years. Imagine how much trouble could have been avoided if MS had used that model in the first place...!
- etha 15y ago
  If people cared about "we did x first" as a reason why some software is better, everyone would be browsing with Opera. What matters is how well they do something now.
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    I can't imagine how bad the guys from Opera must be feeling, when everyone points to them as an example of a pioneer, yet nobody actually uses Opera (a startup once called me "their Opera user")...
  - lukeschlather 15y ago
    Windows XP is still supported, and even if I wanted to run Windows 7, it's too bloated to run on fully a third of the hardware in my organization (and that's just counting x86 desktop/laptops.) Windows XP is a problem, and Microsoft hasn't solved it.
    - serge2k 15y ago
      Yes, they have. The solution is called windows 7. The only problem is people refusing to upgrade from a decade old OS.
      - lukeschlather 15y ago
        I'm talking about machines which barely fit the minimum specs for Windows XP - I guess this is hard for you to grasp, but some people can't afford to buy a $300 netbook when they have a perfectly functional desktop from 6 years ago. Also, we have several applications which, while they will run on Windows 7, they simply do not run well. From a business standpoint, it's really hard to justify an upgrade that results in reduced functionality in the name of security. I can clean up after malware pretty quickly - people working with outdated but business-critical applications lose hours of their days when software starts acting up because it wasn't written with a good security model in mind and it's being forced into that environment. You can say Windows 7 solved the problem all you want, but there remain countless areas where Windows XP is required, and virtualization is not a magic bullet - networking is always tricky. And in any case, we do all that work of migration and what do we gain? Exactly what we have right now, except with hardware accelerated graphics that don't support all our hardware and some difficult to quantify reduction in malware attacks.

People who say Windows is insecure aren't comparing it to Flash or Java, they are comparing it to OS X, Linux, or *BSD. Without addressing that comparison, this article is useless.

tptacek 15y ago

Windows is comparably secure to Linux and OS X. This stuff is hard to pin down; for instance, there's a lot of hardening you can (but most people do not) do on Linux, and Lion changes the game on countermeasures for OS X. So it's a uniquely bad time to try to resolve this controversy decisively. But it's also hard to ignore the fact that much of what Lion is doing was pioneered in WinAPI. (I'm an OS X user; also, I do systems software security). Whether Windows (Vista+) is safer than Linux is up for debate. But safety and security are different concepts.

niels_olson 15y ago
> safety and security are different concepts I did anti-terrorism in the military for awhile and I totally agree, but I would love to read the great tptacek's breakdown of the differences.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  I'm not tptacek, but I think it's mostly clear that a castle in Compton is more secure than a cottage in a village in the Alps, but less safe.
  - cosgroveb 15y ago
    I believe I've seen tptacek say a liquor store in Englewood, Chicago with bulletproof glass in front of the cashier is more secure than a 7-11 in Lincoln Park, but the 7-11 is safer. Or something like that. :)
    - StavrosK 15y ago
      Oh, hm. Sounds like I was close, then :)
      - tptacek 15y ago
        This is a weird little thread right here.

bediger 15y ago

This is Preston Gralla writing. As near as I can tell, that's as good as saying it's a Wag-Edd press release.

kenjackson 15y ago
Funny, I've always Preston Gralla as anti-Microsoft. At least in the past year, his anti-MS articles easily outnumber his pro-MS articles.
- pierreminik 15y ago
  Criticism does not mean being "anti". It does sometimes but if it's a complex issue and people take their time to understand it's various aspects, the critics are usually never "anti". From Windows 95 I was hooked on GUI's. I didn't like Microsoft but I liked Windows. I'd almost never care enough about Microsoft to say anything but when it came to Windows I always had an opinion I'd want to air and it was always in the spirit of wanting an improved product. Mac OS 9 felt like a joke and the various Linux distributions felt unfinished. But eventually I changed to OS X when one of it's later "kitties" came out. Among my friends who have a Mac I'm pretty much the first to ever criticize Apple products but if you look at how much money I spend on the platform and how much time I invest learning about it you wouldn't think I was a critic. I don't have opinions about Windows beside wishing IE wasn't such a pain to design for. Being critical does not equal being against something. When your critics no longer want to share their opinion of your product or service, that's when you should be truly scared. That is when you're in a really, really bad place.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    Fair enough. But Preston Gralla is certainly not like a walking MS PR firm. Compare and constrast Preston's stories with someone like John Gruber for Apple. Gruber has written maybe 100 blurbs about Apple in the past year and maybe one that was critical. Daniel Dilger is basically the same -- except maybe he hasn't yet written the critical Apple article yet. Preston OTOH regularly writes critical MS articles, more often than he writes those that defend MS. The author who refered to Preston as the equivalent of an MS PR firm doesn't know his history well.

udp 15y ago

It's amusing that Windows only recently introduced both real home folders and UAC, when *nix had been working like that for years. Imagine how much trouble could have been avoided if MS had used that model in the first place...!

etha 15y ago
If people cared about "we did x first" as a reason why some software is better, everyone would be browsing with Opera. What matters is how well they do something now.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  I can't imagine how bad the guys from Opera must be feeling, when everyone points to them as an example of a pioneer, yet nobody actually uses Opera (a startup once called me "their Opera user")...
- lukeschlather 15y ago
  Windows XP is still supported, and even if I wanted to run Windows 7, it's too bloated to run on fully a third of the hardware in my organization (and that's just counting x86 desktop/laptops.) Windows XP is a problem, and Microsoft hasn't solved it.
  - serge2k 15y ago
    Yes, they have. The solution is called windows 7. The only problem is people refusing to upgrade from a decade old OS.
    - lukeschlather 15y ago
      I'm talking about machines which barely fit the minimum specs for Windows XP - I guess this is hard for you to grasp, but some people can't afford to buy a $300 netbook when they have a perfectly functional desktop from 6 years ago. Also, we have several applications which, while they will run on Windows 7, they simply do not run well. From a business standpoint, it's really hard to justify an upgrade that results in reduced functionality in the name of security. I can clean up after malware pretty quickly - people working with outdated but business-critical applications lose hours of their days when software starts acting up because it wasn't written with a good security model in mind and it's being forced into that environment. You can say Windows 7 solved the problem all you want, but there remain countless areas where Windows XP is required, and virtualization is not a magic bullet - networking is always tricky. And in any case, we do all that work of migration and what do we gain? Exactly what we have right now, except with hardware accelerated graphics that don't support all our hardware and some difficult to quantify reduction in malware attacks.