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How do you know? The only reason your unpatched debian box will not become part of a botnet is because the total amount of linux desktop users is so small to make it uneconomical for spammers to use it. I posted the links for the different update pages, if you're to lazy to read them and realize that all OS's have buffer overflows, bugs and holes, then too bad for you.

When Linux get's a little more popular, we'll see then who's box lasts the longest, your unpatched debian box, or my fully patched debian box. Oh, and kaiwai is smart enough to patch his OS X install, so I guess that attempt at name dropping didn't get you very far. If you read his first post in this thread, he doesn't agree with you.



They did fix it, in October! Look at those friggin' links, you'll see that all the major desktop operating systems have holes, and they are fixed. This is not MS's fault, they did their job.



10% of all windows users, apparently, what's that? 20,000,000 (I have no idea the real number) machines? They are all are to blame for conficker, everyone. If they kept their machines patched, then it wouldn't have been able to infect any machines, and would have died out. Stop blaming MS for users stupidity, there is more than enough to blame them for, this worm is not one of those things.

This problem with conficker was fixed in october, for gods sake. Oh, but it's MS's fault. Yeah right, whatever.

Edited 2009-04-14 20:33 UTC

No, no, no... I cannot agree to this assertion at all. There was a time when Linux distros would ship with lots of services turned on, daemons that were listening for connections from the internet by default and stuff like that but that has been rectified a long time ago. Besides, Linux desktops maybe a smaller target than the huge number than Windows morons out there but there are plenty of Linux servers that, given the chance of them being rooted, would make for a far more attractive target for crackers.



You were reading too much in what I said: I didn't mean to imply that Kaiwai's box is unpatched. I think that most OSNews visitors should know better than that. What I meant is that, even if it were, chances that it would become part of a huge botnet would be negligible given that it is not Windows.



Every operating system has holes, you will not see an argument from me there. However, I'd argue that the severity of Windows systems are far higher than the typical hole found on most other operating system these days. It seems as if any hole on MS OSes will let an attacker drive the machine to do anything, no matter what.



Hey, track record says that another Conficker will show up sooner or later. Is it MS fault? Perhaps not... But it is disgusting to see each and every Windows hole out there being blamed solely on the user. But that's me.

A lot of the machines have already been said to be located outside of North America. We can afford to spend a day or so's pay on an operating system and still have money left over. However, in third world countries (that makes up a large percentage of the conficker infections) they can't spend a month's, or more, pay on an operating system - they then pirate it. So, what Microsoft did to "help piracy" is reject these PCs that came in for security updates. So while you can view it as not being Microsoft's 'fault' they still did have a play in the numbers getting up there.

Luckily there hasn't been an issue that affects all internet users (yet), but what happens if there is? While Microsoft is pointing fingers at these 'pirates', Microsoft did have a role in causing such a large botnet.