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Comment by dinosaurs | Hacker News Reader

"As these systems are based on Linux, they are open to infection."

Edit: This part seems to have been removed.

I don't see what the fuss is all about. They are open to infection. They're built on linux, rather than an entirely custom system. So they're vulnerable to existing malware floating around.

Custom systems would also be "open to infection". It just probably wouldn't be very likely.

It is very difficult to not read a strong implication into that line. If nothing else, then the line is useless and states nothing at all.

I think the implication is that had they been built on an internally built OS(es) they would have not been open to infections already existent, not that Linux is more prone to infections than alternative OSes.

I don't think he meant to imply that Linux is more open to infection than other popular operating systems.

I can see why people would assume that open source is a big security risk, but how deep does your head have to be buried in sand for you to think that Windows (which, AFAIK, is the only other OS often used in large government systems like this) has not been open to infection?

Who says that Windows is not open to infection? All that was stated is that Linux is open to infection. There's no implication that using another popular OS would have been a better choice.

Well if they used Windows, at least we'd occasionally get free ISS parts showing up in our backyards.

FTR: I'm a Windows user.

Agreed, but it was still quite disingenuous of them to say that Linux was the specific reason they were open to infection. The fact that the space station has computers and ways to connect to those computers means there's a chance of infection.

Viruses are harder to implement on custom software, though. Perhaps the ISS should have used a custom OS to protect against malware? Popular off-the-shelf software is going to be targeted before an in-house and not-publicly-documented piece of software.

Building an OS from the ground up would take a lot of money and manpower, and NASA aren't exactly rolling in cash nowadays.

And while yes, in-house software would be safe against most existing malware, and general malware, ISS would not be safe from direct attacks. Those are the real threat anyway...

VxWorks is pretty popular with space agencies (NASA uses it, as well as SpaceX. Curiosity and Dragon both run VxWorks RTOS). It has a 64-bit mode for Intel processors, runs on HRFS, DOSFS, and NFS, has IPv6 built in, and is POSIX compliant.

While direct attacks are a real threat, I don't see anywhere saying this was a direct attack. Not using an off-the-shelf OS could have mitigated the attack if it wasn't a direct attack.

unless FireFox Search is failing me, it looks like that quote has been removed.

Will these rocket scientists ever learn?!

Well it's not exactly brain surgery, is it?

Rocket Surgery Made Easy

http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-Do-It-Yoursel...

Yup, that's where I stopped reading.

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