Diversity in Computers Prevents Major Attacks?

[Michael]

I read an interesting passage in the book "The Cuckoo's Egg," by Clifford Stoll, that I thought was provocative and worth noting. (By the way, for those who don't know, Stoll was an astronomer-turned-sysop at Berkeley who helped catch a gang of German intel guys who were breaking into US computers for the KGB during the 1980s.) It seems so obvious now, but I'd never really thought of it before. A lot of people knock the Macintosh OS, and say everyone should just use Windows--and I won't even go into the tiny percentage of people who use Linux/Unix, and other operating systems. But Mr. Stoll notes how it might indeed be a good thing we have so many different systems, even though it results in the lack of a true standard in computing. Consider this:

Wayne had a good point. The hacker's Trojan horse attack had failed because the operating system wasn't exactly what he was accustomed to. If everyone used the same version of the same operating system, a single security hole would let hackers into all the computers. Instead, there's a multitude of operating systems: Berkeley Unix, AT&T Unix, DEC'S VMS, IBM's TSO, VM, DOS, even Macintoshes and Ataris. This variety of software meant that no single attack could succeed against all systems. Just like genetic diversity, which prevents an epidemic from wiping out a whole species at once, diversity in software is a good thing.

I find that to be a rather profound statement, especially the final sentence. Imagine if every computer in the world was the same, and one attack could take out entire sections of a network in one stroke, or even an entire network. (Think about the recent outage that was due to a flaw in Microsoft's software.) I think Mr. Stoll's passage is definitely something to chew on. I suppose many people might find this pointless, but I am interested in computer security, and I just thought this was an interesting topic and passage to post.

[Anthony]

This is very intresting. The small amount of viruses on Linux just proves this point (actually I heard there are only trojan horses on Linux). I don't know if this would make me switch, but as diffrent OS become more user friendly (Linux is pretty close for me) I would jump ship.

[fuuucckkers]

This is very intresting. The small amount of viruses on Linux just proves this point (actually I heard there are only trojan horses on Linux). I don't know if this would make me switch, but as diffrent OS become more user friendly (Linux is pretty close for me) I would jump ship.

No.. there are Trojans and Virii on Linux as well. You'd actually be surprised that Linux is attacked just as much as Windows, but not as severly. And the attacked are easier to patch and fix because you have Open Source, in which the entire community of thousands of people working together to solve a single problem.

Linux is User-Friendly as well. Go to http://www.lindows.com
Mandrake is pretty user friendly as well, install is even easier than Windows, and the Desktop is similar to that of Windows.

As for that statement.. I like it. Is that whole book on computers, or what? I may have to check it out ..

[Robpol86]

dont 4get, competition is good 4 prices

[Michael]

As for that statement.. I like it. Is that whole book on computers, or what? I may have to check it out ..

It's a book about Stoll's efforts to catch the German hackers.

If you want a good book on computer security, read "CyberShock," by William Schwartau (sp?). Excellent, I must say. And not one of those damn computer security books that makes all hackers look evil...the guy who wrote it has actually been to DefCon and has at least a bit of respect for hackers.