Misplaced flamewar... WAS: RE: in case nobody else noticed it, there was a mail worm released today

Fri Jan 30 09:11:45 UTC 2004

On 30-jan-04, at 7:20, Alexei Roudnev wrote:

> Second problem is directory structure. In Unix, when I configure IDS 
> (osiris
> or Tripwire or Intact), I can just be sure, that 'bin' and 'etc' and 
> 'sbin'
> and 'libexec' directories does not have any variable files - all 
> non-static
> files are in /var (Solaris is an exception, they put some 'pid files 
> into
> .etc, but even here, it is not a problem). But windose... you have not 
> any
> directory which never changed, and I find few .dll files, changed 
> every few
> days. Every application puts log  and data files into it's own 
> directory
> (with rare exception of applications, derived from Unix or written by 
> people
> with Unix background). It makes terrible difficult to configure IDS, 
> and
> makes system very vulnerable.

Actually IMO putting all their crap in their own dir is a feature 
rather than a bug. I really hate the way unix apps just put their stuff 
all over the place so it's an incredible pain to get rid of it again.

I think MacOS got it right: for most apps, installing just means 
dumping the icon wherever you want it to be, deinstalling is done by 
dropping it in the trash. The fact that the icon hides a directory with 
a bunch of different files in it is transparent to the user.

And if an installer wants to mess with the system, a request to provide 
the administrator password comes up, even for users with administrator 
privilidges.

> Of course, it is all trade-off for functionality, but people 
> overestimates
> it - many MS benefits come from it's dominance , not from 
> functionality.

I think MS's tradeoffs are mainly time to market vs even faster time to 
market. Hopefully they'll rip off Apple's ideas for their new stuff. 
Then add some zone alarm like stuff so apps can't mess with the network 
without the user's permission and we're in pretty good shape.

> And it all makes it a very good target for the viruses / worms.

The fact that SMTP believes everything you tell it doesn't help either.