Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751082AbVJFPKr (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Oct 2005 11:10:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751081AbVJFPKr (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Oct 2005 11:10:47 -0400 Received: from rrcs-67-78-243-58.se.biz.rr.com ([67.78.243.58]:56464 "EHLO mail.concannon.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751078AbVJFPKr (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Oct 2005 11:10:47 -0400 Message-ID: <43453E7F.5030801@concannon.net> Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 11:10:55 -0400 From: Michael Concannon User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6-1.4.1.centos4 (X11/20050721) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Chase Venters CC: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton , Marc Perkel , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: what's next for the linux kernel? References: <20051002204703.GG6290@lkcl.net> <200510041840.55820.chase.venters@clientec.com> <20051005102650.GO10538@lkcl.net> <200510060005.09121.chase.venters@clientec.com> In-Reply-To: <200510060005.09121.chase.venters@clientec.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1901 Lines: 52 Chase Venters wrote: >On Wednesday 05 October 2005 05:26 am, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: > > >>>Now I certainly wouldn't advocate a Windows-style registry, >>>because I think it's full of obvious problems. >>> >>> >> such as? :) >> >> > >If such a thing were even going to be attempted on UNIX, it would have to be >so different than the NT approach that it would stop looking like a registry >altogether. > > All good points, but perhaps the most compelling to me is that virtually every successful windows virus out there does its real damage by modifying the registry to replace key actions, associate bad actions with good ones and just generally screw the system up... One could argue that this is no different than a hapless victim running as root getting his/her /etc/* files modified but: a. the decentralization there makes it easy to distinguish those files which have been touched and how to fix them b. they are all ASCII c. they are not modified often, most almost never after initial system config d. you don't have every app that runs mod'ing those files... (in fact few are even allowed to) e. what the !@#$ would I want to cache my most recently visited URLs in the same place I decide where the entry hooks to my video driver live? Anyone suggesting that Linux or Unix in general should inherit this, what I consider, most fatal flaw of all the flaws of windows should be dealt with harshly... Sorry, could not resist responding - I cannot count the hours I have spent searching and clearing registry entries in family and friend's computers after they downloaded the latest cool virus... /mike - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/