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read moreWould you like some malware with your GNU/Linux, sir?
Sam Varghese
Friday, 11 December 2009 05:49
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It was bound to happen sooner rather than later, given the push to make GNU/Linux easy to use on the desktop. And it has.The fact that malware has been detected in some files posing as screensavers for the GNOME desktop and the fact that it is aimed at Ubuntu is incidental. It could as just as easily have happened with another distribution and another desktop environment.
What is central to the emergence of something that is as common to Windows as cornflakes is to the average Western breakfast is the fact that as people try to make GNU/Linux easier to use, this was just an accident waiting to happen.
The details first: two files, which were claimed to be screensavers at the GNOME-Look.org site, contained scripts which could open up users to a distributed denial of service attack.
One of these files was called Ninja Black and the other waterfall. Both files were in the .deb format which is used by distributions based on Debian GNU/Linux.
That it has taken so long for something like this to happen speaks volumes for the level of scrutiny which happens when you deal with open source software.
The amount of publicity these incidents have received and the swift remedies offered are further indications of the FOSS community's ability to deal with problems in a non-bureaucratic way.
There is a trend in GNU/Linux development towards making things easy. There is also an old saying that if you make a thing so easy that an idiot can use it, then many idiots will end up using it.
Everyone of us likes a certain amount of decoration on our desktops, given that it's where we spend at least a third of each working day. Some like more bling, some less.
For many new users, bling is increasingly important as they are coming over from operating systems where looks are everything and often serve to hide technical deficiencies.
(Of course, technical superiority can be used to hide glaring deficiencies in other aspects of a system or a person. I'll say one name here: Tiger Woods.)
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