Quote from: jgraham on June 20, 2011, 11:44:05 PM

Quote from: iCEBREAKER on June 20, 2011, 09:39:06 PM

In the CS community, it's well known that BSD is more stable, secure, and the best OS for critical infrastructure, while Linux is more friendly, flexible, and better for hobbyists or businesses that can save money (by hiring cheaper Linux fanboi rather than expensive real computer scientists).

Referring to a commonly known fact, such as the security of BSD vs Linux, is not an argument.

If it were a fact, then you would be able to point to some clear and objective evidence of that right? (Keep in mind that because you are referring to 'security' as some kind of blanket term you'd be responsible for providing that kind of evidence for the majority of aspects of the term and of course how exactly you know that your set of aspects is the majority).

Nice labeling there mac. This isn't gainsaying. I, simply as a IT security professional and the holder of a degree in computer science, have seen no set of well-defined, broadly scoped evidence that BSD is superior in "security" to Linux. Nor in my conversation with other security professionals or members of the CS community (like my alumni, Usenix attendees) see any clear consensus as to the superiority of BSD. I have, certainly met people who make that claim but they always seem to fall down when trying to come up with a general definition of security or if they do they fall down in substantiating it with regard to their favored OS/Platform/Giant Spider. Ergo it seems reasonable to me to call such a term "complex" furthermore given that even the most secure systems from a theoretical point of view can be entirely undone in implementation (such as EMF side-channel attacks on QKDS) it seems again reasonable to me to call such a system "nuanced". Given these two facts (using the term correctly here). I think it is entirely justified to be mistrustful of any and all who consider "security' as an open and shut case for product (or platform or giant spider) X over product (you get the idea) Y.

What do you want from me here guy? The two sentences above tell me to look at your use of the term "well-known" as: your opinion of the opinions of two very large groups of which your sample size is probably so small and poorly randomized it's useless. Not to mention that even if the majority of those two groups held the opinion you claim it still isn't necessarily meaningful Computer Science and EECS people do not always have a background in computer security. Making their opinion anywhere from questionable to useless. Given the size of the groups and the variance in the population's skill set you could easily be getting the opinion of the least qualified people. I mean would you really rank the opinion of someone's who's focus was in Combinatorics or AI or Queuing Theory as equal or greater than Bruce Schneier or (going old school) D. J. Bernstien when it comes to an application or operating systems "security". If you don't then how many Combinatoricists, AI researchers or Queuing Theorists make one Bruce or Dan?

Not to mention it's not hard to find high-profile people in computer security who disagree on "well-known" concepts.

You, BB, and Tux may huff, puff, insult, gainsay, and dissemble until blue in the face, but that won't change anything in reality.

Bickering and playing word games don't cut it, especially when a statistical modeling expert (specialized in computer security) is schooling you on the facts and logic of the issue at hand. Thanks Maud-dib, for attempting to educate these stubborn script kiddies (1337 RHEL cert notwithstanding, LOL!).

I repeat: Referring to a commonly known fact, such as the security of BSD vs Linux, is not an argument.

Quote

What is the most secure operating system?
In: Operating Systems, Computer Security

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_most_secure_operating_system

Answer:

Security is a difficult and sometimes controversial thing to analyze. The only truly "secure" operating systems are those that have no contact with the outside world. The firmware in your DVD player is a good example.

Among all modern general purpose operating systems (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) the most secure by default is by far OpenBSD.

OpenBSD has an extremely stringent security auditing policy; only two remote attack vulnerabilities have been found in the last ten years. This is because OpenBSD doesn't create a large attack surface by running a large number of networked apps.

I've met Linus Torvalds in person. He's a nice guy, and it sucks his baby is being represented here by fanboi suffering from Tiny E-peen Complex.