Path: ...!news.misty.com!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!diablo1.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder.usenetexpress.com!tr2.iad1.usenetexpress.com!69.80.99.22.MISMATCH!local-2.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2024 22:00:10 +0000
From: Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: German state gov. dicthing Windows for Linux,  30k workers migrating.
Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2024 18:00:09 -0400
Message-ID: <5c561j1ehdrvmu212nttaoglh1m6ajlq8u@4ax.com>
References: <uuqirt$6kgh$1@solani.org> <jgp21jl76nk0c3064ss3pbfq5pboav93hp@4ax.com> <5qb31j9c2ia9a6h2fr50onqa2vp4d4bsfm@4ax.com> <3hf31j9d0uq5b9imcq94b495c3hclbjv79@4ax.com> <1qrnmxu.99joma1j6s84iN%liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Lines: 68
X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com
X-Trace: sv3-Pkuf++c65dAdbtClbSeCTI1cOPRQQ1obDM4sEyyc806XN318N3xkoj5AHk0wNaOlzXe2xEuNy6Y/2mF!g32SU9p5Q+xJ0j/22pR1S2Js5xumbLsbyk7cm6S3IdZVyeEHFCUjfZnpmRZ4LR8EtCcWSLQ=
X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com
X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.40
Bytes: 4277

On Sun, 7 Apr 2024 17:35:11 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

>Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 06 Apr 2024 21:24:14 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> >On Sat, 06 Apr 2024 11:14:56 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>On Sat, 06 Apr 2024 04:25:32 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
>> >>wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>German state gov. ditching Windows for Linux, 30K workers migrating
>> >>>Schleswig-Holstein looks to succeed where Munich failed. >
>> >>https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/german-state-gov-
>> >>ditching-windows-for-linux-30k-workers-migrating/ > I'd suggest reading
>> >>the entire article.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>Less US spying too.
>> >>
>> >>Nah.  Linux is no harder for big intelligence agencies than Windows or
>> >>MacOS.  And Linux is already dominant in the infrastructure, so those
>> >>agencies are already there.
>> >>
>> >>Joe Gwinn
>> >
>> >... Unless you roll your own distro and know how to use it
>> >securely....
>> 
>> And are too small potatoes for the big agencies to bother, leaving the
>> field to various hackers.
>
>There are two extreme approaches to security:
>
>1)  Put a major effort into designing a universal high-security system
>that can be sold worldwide to cover its development costs.
>
>2)  Have every small operator design their own system, which is
>reasonably secure but may not be foolproof.
>
>The first option is the one which most people and businesses take, but
>it results in a prize that every hacker feels is worth breaking because
>of the results it will yield.  Sooner or later someone will find a
>weakness and exploit it.  A major update is then required.

Too many eggs, too few baskets.  Forces everybody into unending
whack-a-mole mode.

>The second option is theoretically weaker, so very few major players
>would consider it, but it would take a lot of time and effort to hack
>into the pecularities of each individual system and simply wouldn't be
>worthwhile if it only results in a tiny yield.  Small changes to the
>system can be made easily and will involve the hacker in an inordinately
>large amount of work for small returns.

My instinct is that this second method will likely emerge in some
form, but with larger lumps.  Lets say there were twenty totally
independent implementations (think N-version programming) of each of
the partitions, and there were five such partitions.  One can arrange
things such that it almost never happens the flaws of all the
partitions line up enough to be useful, and with different large
systems using a random set of partitions, the damage will be
contained.

Joe Gwinn