Coding Horror: Blacklists Don't Work
codinghorror.com
codinghorror.com
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1) Long ago: windows XP from 2002-2005 WITH Mcafee Virus protection, SpyBot and Adaware on a computer thats junk now. By 2003, its so infested that spybot and adaware can't do anything. Especially with "CoolWWWSearch." 2006: I used xubuntu and made sure it ran well as a server up to now.
2) I used Ubuntu, from 2004-now. I've actually tried to catch a virus. Nothing bad has happened to it. Oh wait, it has had things happen to it, like the bootloader getting screwed up, but that was from installing something wrong. Namely, a windows driver. And all I needed to do to right that was to use my super grub disk. NEVER has it been from any site.
Can virus writers change OS's? Theoretically, yes. Practically, yes, they know "everyone" (or everyone gullible) uses windows. Hell theres a good chance they do. But even ignoring that, they'd have to discover an exploitable flaw in linux (and in what flavor of it? what distro? many have different architectures, some are bleeding edge...) and then they have to make sure linux users even visit their sites or whatever. All that hassle to write something...they dont/wont do it.
Not to mention the OSS community's insane patching speeds. And Mark Shuttleworth is friggin awesome, hes been to outer space xDDD
Point being, as far as I go, the author is right in saying that any *nix has been 100% effective against malware, and its not just because windows has larger marketshare. Its because running as root is just DUMB.
But also point taken, people are always going to me infinitely more creative - blacklists are a necessity of life, as long as you have windows and blog-spammers.
My previous company worked on a content filtering system for kids called Penguin Feet. By the time we added 10 new domains to the blacklist, a 100 new ones had sprung into existence. Blacklists will never win. (Whitelists are marginally better.)