[ale] Linux: Secure and Limits? - somewhat off topic

[fzamenski at voyager.net (Frank Zamenski)]

Sorry, I'm just an IS network operations person (as well as being a
non-programmer other than having some very basic pgmg courses at the A.A.S.
level, most of which I've allready forgotten due to non-useage but mainly
for also having a low aptitude for). What are 'buffer overflows' and how are
these exploited? Not looking to cause mischief, that's below my ethical
standards and way beyond my capabilities anyway, just noting that these
kinds of sploits in general seem commonplace amongst all Intel OS platforms,
and I'm desiring some better understanding from the bright programming minds
that hang out here. :-)

TIA.
..fgz

Flames worded in the form of a question cheerfully accepted!  :-)

----- Original Message -----
 From: Steven Rice <stevenrice at marnuke.penguinpowered.com>
To: <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 1999 1:15 AM
Subject: [ale] Linux: Secure and Limits?


> Compare to other NIX's, how secure and how limiting is Linux?
>
> >From my experince with *NIX, it has told me Linux is
> limited in what it can do unless you account for Beowulf stuff.
> But what about being secure?  Compare to larger UNIX'ies like
> HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, or SINIX how "secure" is Linux??  It seams
> like it would be hard to setup a secure box (secure being able to
> keep out the top .02% of crackers) due the amount of limits and
> nature buffer overflow in the kernel.
>
> If you can give a example please do and send flames to /dev/null
>