[Joss]

You wrong. Windows is secure by default just like the Unix.

[mverta]

No, it is not, as has been widely reported and documented. The Windows operating system has had full-access security backdoors since later-release Windows 95. Microsoft has not denied the presence of access keys for the NSA and other agencies, in fact they confirmed such at the Crypto '99 conference. They just won't say why or what it's for. Not that you have to.

_Mike

[Mihai]

Doesn't OSX have to do the same? Or Linux distributions?

[b-kandor]

quoted: from this article

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/01 ... -mac-os-x/

"“Our intention is to help everyone with security,” Tony W. Sager, the NSA’s chief of vulnerability analysis and operations group, said yesterday. . . .

Microsoft said this is not the first time it has sought help from the NSA. For about four years, Microsoft has tapped the spy agency for security expertise in reviewing its operating systems, including the Windows XP consumer version and the Windows Server 2003 for corporate customers.

With hundreds of thousands of Defense Department employees using Microsoft’s software, the NSA realizes that it’s in its own interest to make the product as secure as possible. “It’s partly a recognition that this is a commercial world,” Sager said. “Our customers have spoken.”

Other software makers have turned to government agencies for security advice, including Apple, which makes the Mac OS X operating system. “We work with a number of U.S. government agencies on Mac OS X security and collaborated with the NSA on the Mac OS X security configuration guide,” said Apple spokesman Anuj Nayar in an e-mail. — Washington Post

[Joss]

No, it is not, as has been widely reported and documented.

Can you provide any links on this?

Some countries has restrictions on strong crypto, so if you installing any software that has strong cryptography in it, you anyway violating local laws. And you never know, what you get, when you installing linux software. There was already few cases with hacked package repositories and malicious code injection. Or maybe you checking linux sources every time manually?

And finally, i think that Adrian meant under "secure" is that on linux you have to enable initially disabled connections and such. Just like in Windows you have firewall initially turned on. If you mean bugs - both OS has serious flaws in kernels ans system services. That's why i said that windows as safe, as unix(unix = linux in 99% of cases).

And PS: http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/

[mverta]

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html

[Joss]

Thanks for link. Really didn't knew this.

Fking biatches.

[aitraaz]

lol, this all sounds vaguely familiar. Didn't know they've been toying with linux releases though...

[glypticmax]

Do you guys know about this meat eater?

http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/defl ... error.html

[pluMmet]

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5263/1.html

Quoted from Mikes article:

"the IT world should be thankful that the subversion of Windows by NSA has come to light before the arrival of CPUs that handles encrypted instruction sets. These would make the type of discoveries made this month impossible. "Had the next-generation CPU's with encrypted instruction sets already been deployed, we would have never found out about NSAKEY.""

The encryption hardware is what Vista uses. As information travels across a new motherboard it is encrypted and decrypted from point to point. All based on MS standards that are another thing slowing down Vista benchmarks.

______________________________

@glypticmax - The article from University of South Carolina is not surprising.
A little more carnivore info: http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q2200 ... 002392.htm

[philhoole]

The encryption hardware is what Vista uses. As information travels across a new motherboard it is encrypted and decrypted from point to point. All based on MS standards that are another thing slowing down Vista benchmarks.

Is that actually true? For all data ?

My benchmarks on Vista64 (Cinebench only) show that pure CPU performance is not really any different from XP64 to Vista64. Only the hardware OpenGL performance is about 10% slower on Vista which isn't too bad given the doom and gloom that everyone seems to delighting in. Especially as these are still quite early drivers and better performance may be forthcoming.

Maybe Cinebench isn't showing up the "slowness" of Vista?

[pluMmet]

Is that actually true? For all data ?

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... _cost.html

Quote form the Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption section

"In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content sent to video devices has to be encrypted with AES-128. This requirement for cryptography extends beyond basic content encryption to encompass not just data flowing over various buses but also command and control data flowing between software components. For example communications between user-mode and kernel-mode components are authenticated with OMAC message authentication-code tags, at considerable cost to both ends of the connection."

[Mihai]

It is inevitable that encryption systems will move more and more to hardware and any system that will want to play a future blueray or whatever ray disk wil need that encryption or it just won't play. HDCP, developed by Intel, not Microsoft, is now pretty standard on high definition TVs.

What about Macs? Nobody mentions if they will also have to implement this if they expect Mac users to play protected content.