[SGVLUG] Penguin vs monopolist systems and safety

[Sean O'Donnell]

I was going to reply to this thread, but apparently pretty much what I
was going to say, has now been turned into a slashdot article, so I'll
spare you all.

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/07/10/227220.shtml

This was the main reason why I used Slackware (and compiled most of my
apps from the source) for the last 8 years. It's no wonder why I've felt
so 'dirty and lazy' this last year using Debian and aptitude. =p

-x0d

Robert Leyva wrote:
> For what it is worth:
>
> I have never been compromise (to my knowledge?) using 'Debian stable' and
> rountine scans with clamav on my home workstation.
>
>
>   
>> I was just asked a very interesting question in the breakroom -- "is it
>> safer to use linux without any sort of anti-virus software compared to
>> windows running stuff like Norton when doing online banking?"
>>
>> To be honest, I don't exactly know how to answer that.
>>
>> He was also a bit concerned about converting an openoffice document to a
>> microsoft office format and somehow picking up a "macro" virus in the
>> process (i.e., it would be "clean" on a Linux system in OpenOffice, but
>> "dirty" once converted, and therefore capable of infecting a windows
>> system)
>>
>> Again, I stumbled a bit trying to figure out HOW to answer that -- my
>> mind kept coming back to a line from Star Wars: "The FUD is strong in
>> this one..." -- Sure, I know WHAT the answer is (it is essentially
>> imposible(*)) but I don't know how to answer it in a way that would make
>> sense to him.
>>
>> Anyone else encounter situations like this?  What was your answer?  What
>> would you tell this guy?
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> (*) or "highly improbable" -- that would mean that the version of
>> Openoffice on a linux system was deliberately injecting viruses when
>> converting to/saving as "Microsoft Office" formats -- certainly not
>> impossible for this to happen, but given the "peer review" nature of
>> open source, you'd have to be damn clever to get it in to the active
>> codebase without anyone noticing.  [well, I suppose you could get
>> "everyone on-board" on the idea that it /should/ do this, but that is
>> only marginally easier -- refer to Dustin's post, to do wo would be
>> ethically wrong, and we like to think we're above all that, right? ;) ]
>>
>>
>>     
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