RE: [cobalt-users] worm attack

[Greg Hewitt-Long <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Greg,
>	You have no idea how short-sighted a view that is.  We of the
>Linux/*NIX world are just as susceptible to these types of attacks.  Hell
>look at CodeRed, it was Solaris Systems which were used to launch the
>attacks against un-patched IIS servers.
>
>These types of things DO happen in the Linux/*NIX world, they are just not
>as widely published and glorified by the national media.


I know they do - I wrote a few worms for *nix 12 years ago - adaptive code, adaptive attack, adaptive naming  - the whole nine yards - it's not rocket science, and it's something you grow out of when you ruin your first machine (at least I did).


> But our time will
>come.  Just wait, someone will find a couple of nice security holes which
>they can use to bring down thousands of Linux/*NIX box's around the world.


I won't say I'll wait with baited breath, it's not THAT hard to do.


>Windows also gets tighter and cleaner with every generation.

It still doesn't have protected memory properly, and it's not properly multi-threaded, despite the pretty pictures on the server softwar packaging.  Until it is, you're never going to have a platform to rival *NIX for reliability and stability.


>  As much as we
>hate to admit it;  it is gradually coming up to speed. 

they've been at it long enough and raised enough money through licence fees - don't you think they could have done it by now?


>In the grand
>timeline, Windows is still a baby compared to the *NIX world.

hmm... 12 years behind?

UNICS created in Sept 1969 and Window first coded in Sept 1981.

Now - consider that unix is open source, they had a free model to follow, and the latter part of the 20th century is the era massive movement, innovation and considerable movement in the computer arean (much more so than the laid back 70s) - and I still say they're neaderthals for not "getting" the bigger picture as to what was required of a server operating system.


>Be a little more open minded.  It's not US vs THEM.  We are all in the same
>boat when it comes to such cyber-terrorism that we are seeing today in the
>internet server field.


I'm sorry, it's THEM causing US problems - as was Code Red.  This problem is STILL their fault - the security holes in our servers are patched until someone comes around and finds another one, true - but when they find it, we're pretty adept at getting the fix in before it becomes a liability (those of us that care about our servers).

I'm sorry, perhaps you're servers aren't that badly affected - ours are running slower and slower (at least 10,000 hits an hour, 20,000 at peark - this is MASSIVE), and we're likely to incur bandwidth charges - the hits are increasing and the worst offenders haven't even sent acknowledgement to our polite emails informing them of a list of IPs on their networks that are affected.

Work with me and it's a team effort, ignore me and I get upset - most of the network admins I've emailed are in the latter category - they're ignoring the problem, or at least not acknowledging the issues - say "ok, thanks - we're working on it" and I'll shut up and go away happier.  They aren't - I'm not.  Us and them.  Those that care and respond, those that ignore and are ignorant.

Greg


>
>-Troy
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Greg Hewitt-Long [mailto:greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 11:08 AM
>To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [cobalt-users] worm attack
>
>>
>>
>>A wide open guest account with administrator privileges.   That is not a
>good thing.
>
>
>I'm sorry - many tech savvy people and industry analysts have said for years
>and years that Windoze and variants of  it, are NOT suitable for servers on
>an open network (it barely copes with Exchange server in a complex setup
>with multi-hosting and cross LAN propagation of  addresses - it's NOT a good
>choice for a server period) - they brought it on themselves.
>
>Greg Hewitt-Long
>--
>http://www.webyourbusiness.com/
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