__/ [Nigel Feltham] on Friday 06 January 2006 18:59 \__
> It appears the MS astroturfers are so desparate to FUD linux they've now
> posted lies on several news sites about Linux software having had 4x as
> many vulnerabilities as windows.
>
>
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/05/windows_linux_unix_security_vulnerabilities/
>
> The reality - as anyone who actually follows the link in the article to
> CERT's original will discover is that the only way they could make the
> Linux list longer than the windows one was to not only count most of the
> vulnerabilities multiple times (all updates to a vulnerability report being
> counted as separate reports) but also add on Vulnerabilities for Mac OSX,
> FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, SCO's openserver and unixware, SGI, HP's Tru64
> and HP-UX, IBM,s AIX, SGI and Sun Solaris to the Linux list.
>
> http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB2005.html
>
> There's also the problem of fixes common to linux and windows software
> (such as Acroread, Firefox and Apache) have only been counted on the Linux
> list.
>
> As someone on slashdot has pointed out once all the obvious duplicates are
> removed Linux plus 11 commercial Unix systems added together only have 33%
> more vulnerabilities in total than windows does on it's own.
>
> How desperate does a company have to be when the only way they can show
> their software to be secure is to quote the figures for their system VS the
> figures for every major rival added together.
What bothers me the most is that Microsoft can get away with this. They can
skew the statistics and invest a lot of money in amplifying disinformation.
Aggressive and deceitful nature was never a hindrance (see below) and it's
merely a case of quotes taken out of context or a case of quote mining:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051231142317870
" First, this is a list of vulnerability reports, and it lists them in the
following categories: Microsoft Operating System, and Multiple Operating
System, and Unix/Linux Operating System. The last category means that AIX
and Apple and FreeBSD and Solaris and Linux and ... gulp, ironically enough
... SCO OpenServer and UnixWare vulnerabilities ... are all lumped together,
for a total of 2328, making a direct comparison between Microsoft and anyone
else nearly impossible."
I think Microsoft have got their pay day today because many Munchkins have
returned.
Dvorak: "Some years back, Microsoft practiced a lot of dirty tricks using
online mavens to go into forums and create Web sites extolling the virtues
of Windows over OS/2. They were dubbed the Microsoft Munchkins, and it was
obvious who they were and what they were up to. But their numbers and
energy(and they way they joined forces with nonaligned dummies who liked
to pile on) proved too much for IBM marketers, and Windows won the
operating-system war through fifth-column tactics".
Roy
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