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Latest Linux security threat: Alien hackers
Saturday December 03, 2005 (05:51 AM GMT)
By: Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
We didn't hear about this danger from flying saucer nutcases but from the ultra-respectable British publication The Guardian, which says, "According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men." So far, there is no evidence whatsoever that Linux is immune to alien computer viruses. Could this threat bring the spread of Linux to a halt?

Can your network defenses stop a sophisticated attacker?
www.perimeterusa.com
We know Windows is unlikely to fall prey to alien computer intruders because a Forrester study showed that "Microsoft was the only vendor to have corrected 100% of the publicly known flaws during the study's time period" and "Windows has the fewest vulnerabilities and the fewest 'high severity' vulnerabilities of any platform measured."We know this information is reliable because it didn't come from some bunch of flaky Linux zealots but from Microsoft's own "Get the FUD" site.
What's more, an equally reliable source tells us that, over a year after the above report was released, Windows users have found "a 100 percent improvement in Microsoft's security in the past 12 months.
"Obviously, all those Windows vulnerabilities you read about are nothing but the ravings of demented free software communists. Or are they? Could this all be a disinformation campaign by aliens who plan to invade us?
We know that not everyone believes aliens are harmful; the folks at The Lightside certainly seem to think they're a force for good. But can The Lightside be trusted?
We did a "What's that site running?" query at Netcraft, and got an OS unknown response. This immediately makes us suspect that this site uses an alien OS and is part of an alien disinformation campaign. Or could it -- even more insidiously -- be part of a dis-disinformation campaign?
How advanced intelligences have corrupted Linux Obviously, beings that travel interstellar distances are way beyond us technologically. It is no great stretch to realize that they helped spawn the free software movement, which accepts code contributions from all life forms. It is also no great stretch to realize that these beings are so far ahead of us that their code contains hidden instructions that will shut down all our defenses when their invasion force is ready to strike.
Yes, I know: Linus Torvalds and the Apache inner circle and other heads of big-time free software projects check all code before it is accepted. You're forgetting that we are talking about incredibly advanced aliens whose mental powers dwarf those of even genius-level earthlings like Linus.
What looks to him like an innocuous device driver may in reality contain a code snippet which, when run in conjunction with another hidden code snippet in OpenOffice.org and one in XMMS, then activated by a coded message on an Apache-based Web site, may infiltrate the Pentagon's most secure computer networks and fire our entire nuclear arsenal at bogus targets.
Why proprietary software keeps you safe
Have you ever thought about submitting a great bit of code to Microsoft so they can include it in the next version of Windows? I haven't either, and even if I could program beyond the moron level I wouldn't. Windows and other Microsoft programs -- and virtually all propriety software -- is written by staff employees and a carefully-selected group of subcontractors, not by random strangers who toss stuff into online submissions bins.
Imagine a drooling alien covered with slimy green scales showing up at the personnel office in Redmond. That creature would be out the door (and in the hands of exobiologists) before you could say "Developers! Developers! Developers!"
If that same alien escaped from the scientists and returned home, you'd better believe that in his anger he'd load some sort of horrible computer virus onto his race's interplanetary radio communications so that the SETI Institute would pick it up and infect our world's computers.
As mentioned above, Windows is far too secure to be compromised by an alien. Not only that -- and this is the important part -- there is no way for that alien to hide code within Windows itself, while it could easily become a Linux kernel contributor and slip its nefarious Easter eggs into Linux.
Can you say with certainty that every contributor to every free or open source software project is an Earth human?
I don't think so!
Until you can, the surest way to defend your computer against alien invaders is -- obviously -- to stick with good old-fashioned proprietary software, which is what I will do as soon as I get smart enough to run Windows instead of simple, reliable Linux.