The good and bad of Linux LiveCDs (ComputerWorld)

Posted Mar 31, 2005 18:42 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227)
In reply to: The good and bad of Linux LiveCDs (ComputerWorld) by brianomahoney
Parent article: The good and bad of Linux LiveCDs (ComputerWorld)

Sure, you can never provide 100% security, but there is a stark difference between kinda secure and very secure. The vast majority of thieves, vandals, and so on do not have the knowledge or equipment to get past many security measures.

Not letting a user boot of a live CD can have a very dramatic effect on security because NOT because you have removed the possibility of running unauthorized software, but because you HAVE removed the possibility of a large segment of attackers from running unauthorized software. Instead of having 40% of people being able to steal your data you now only have 1% of people being able to steal data (those are made-up numbers).

ALL security is about deterants. The lock on the door to your house, car, locker, whatever can be circumvented. But it's still better than having no lock. Truly determined or very competent thieves will be able to get in no matter what you do, but the casual or ignorant thieves will be stopped.

The number of directed attacks a system receives is not infinite. The smaller the chance of any one of those attacks being successful, the smaller the chance of actually having a successful security breach. That's what security is all about. Decreasing the chances. You can never eliminate them, but you can decrease them to the point that they are improbable to ever happen in the lifetime of your system.