# Terrorists prefer Linux.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 11, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496 "2004-04-11T22:01:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496/1 "2004-04-11T22:01:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> [Man goes ballistic, says Linux is a security threat](http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15274)
>
> EE TIMES said a real time operating system (RTOS) firm has gone apeshit bananas about the very idea of using Linux in embedded systems because it poses a security threat.
>
> The magazine quotes CEO Dan O’Dowd from a firm called Green Hills as saying that Linux is wide open to attacks by foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists.
>
> Dan doesn’t have to worry about the UK intelligence agency nor our home grown terrorists from Northern Ireland. Both sets have a similar set of incompetencies.
>
> But O’Dowd feels that code added from evil empires like China are being added daily into command control, comms systems and weapons systems.
Some people have really lost it. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496/2 "2004-04-12T01:48:13Z")
Linux is susceptible to hacking, terrorists, etc???
What about Windows and Outlook Express whereby, some high school kid in his basement in Wichita can create a virus that will spread itself worldwide through E-Mail? MicroSoft is notorious for being vulnerable to hackers.
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### Author:  [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496/3 "2004-04-12T01:57:01Z")
Sounds like someone’s worried about losing their market share.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496/4 "2004-04-12T02:49:45Z")
Hmmmm… a few days ago, the _Globe_ supplement _Report on Business_ had a focus on Linux. Microsoft had a paid ad in there in which they implied that Linux systems were a security problem because of the Open Source approach meant that anyone (presumably bad guys) could go over the source and identify weaknesses.
Of course, in practice, Linux is _more_ secure because anyone can go over the source and identify weaknesses. Security holes get closed because you’ve got an unpaid army of nerds reporting even the most remote of threats.
Microsoft’s propriety protection model means that the only people who get to look at the source are the finite number of monkeys that are paid to debug it – and the malicious twats who steal it off MS “secure” servers, in order to identify and exploit security holes.
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496/5 "2004-04-12T12:11:31Z")
You know people like Gartner and others that actually study and compare the o/s don’t make such claims. Actually what they say is that all o/s has holes. You can even spend a few minutes on google and read up yourself, with such stats has number of vulnerabilities exposed and time to release a patch. Might actually be interesting reading if you’re really curious…
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### Author:  [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrorists-prefer-linux/239496/6 "2004-04-12T18:26:45Z")
Wow… the anti-Microsoft bigots can’t take the crap they’re so fond of dishing out, can they?
The fact is, all OS’s have security holes. Just as it’s true that no non-trivial program is ever completely bug-free, no OS is completely secure. Anyone who remembers the pre-Windows era must remember the vast number of exploits that Unix had; _sendmail_ was (and still is, to some extent) a laughable mess of security holes for instance.
Frankly, if I was creating an embedded device for which security was paramount, I sure as hell wouldn’t use Linux (although I’d probably use it before Windows). I’d use a lesser known, or even home-grown, OS that had only the bare minimum of features I needed.
And you’re surprised why a vendor of a competing operating system would deride the choice of Linux for embedded systems? How naive do you have to be for that?