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Microsoft bringing Defender to Linux desktops. Repeat: Microsoft bringing Defender to Linux desktops (www.theregister.com)
submitted 5 days ago* by to c/linux@programming.dev
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pauses massive bong rip

Wait what this doesn't sound like reality

checks

Hmmm

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[–] 112 points 5 days ago (44 children)

Who on Linux is going to consent to Microsoft telemetry on their machine?

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  • [–] 98 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    Corporations

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  • [–] 39 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    You know... Morons.

    "I install the malware to protec me from malware"

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  • [–] 39 points 5 days ago

    It’s just gonna be part of security audit theater. “Prove your organization is [x] compliant.”

    IT: you have to use windows so we can add your computer to intune

    Developer: no

    IT: Microsoft pls

    Microsoft: Ok it’s on Linux now, that’ll be another seat license for clamav wrapped in our logo or something

    IT: omg we’re so secure

    Auditing company: omg they’re so secure

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  • [–] 65 points 5 days ago (10 children)

    IT departments that need to check the box thats says "does your organization have antivirus or anti malware protection on all desktops?". Common in soc audits and cyber insurance attestations.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    ClamAV exists...

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  • [–] 27 points 5 days ago

    Yeah but clamav doesn’t have “a centralized dashboard with mdm and intune integration” e.g. a spreadsheet that says when everyone’s last scan was and that their definitions are up to date so the security theater can exist. Not to worry, more likely than not this is just built on a mountain of open source software like clamav that’s probably MIT licensed so MS can slap their logo on it and charge for it

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    There already better alternatives like clamav but I guess that assumes the IT department is actually Linux proficient.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    ClamAV is shit, and I’ve been using it on my machine for years

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

    in what sense?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    The definitions are always behind, and custom sources are still behind. The configuration sucks and that’s from a NixOS user. The IO latency is atrocious when set to watching the filesystem, and it’s generally unwieldy. The clamscan/clamdscan separation doesn’t make sense either. And it’s slow as hell parsing definitions.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    “does your organization have antivirus or anti malware protection on all desktops?”

    Talk about suggestive question phrasing. Where better organisational security could often be accomplished by assuming every device attached to the network is a potential threat, and focusing on the network security, shielding devices against each other with only whitelisted protocols, plus locking down all devices that are configured by corporate IT.

    Practical IT security in most orgs these days is "configure a big firewall with default settings from corporate provider, assuming everything is safe inside." then they get one compromised device (USB stick, cell phone transfer, exploit, whatever) and the whole ass network is fucked. and they have a "oh well, we did everything we can" excuse. fucking BS.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Complicate requirement are kind of out of date. They keep adding requirements to them but then don't often take them away. So if a requiment made sense 20 years ago it's still there even though there are better strategies to protect your environment.

    You could skip a requiment if you can establish a compensatinh control and show that the threat the requirements is intended to address is addressed. For example skipping antivirus by reimagining the devices every morning, this is an absurd example but would work.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    Doesn't help that IT is outsourced to the lowest bidder, which typically means the IT contractor enslaving corporate IT to microsoft and playing a game of "forward the ticket". Then "IT managers" in the organisation responsible for the contract typically know jack shit about IT and are busy trying to save face over protecting their users from incompetent contractors.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago

    No IT Auditor ever tests this, the just ask and if you say yes they move on. To actually test this you would have to statically sample a random sample of devices and confirm the antivirus is installed.

    Instead that auditors are going to ask for a list off devices enrolled in the antivirus and a list of all devices (if the company even has an asset inventory) and see if they look right. But, most like the asset list will come from the antivirus enrollment and it won't matter.

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  • [–] 20 points 5 days ago (10 children)

    Same people who use Microsoft Edge on Linux.

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  • [–] 13 points 5 days ago (3 children)
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  • [–] 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    On their own machine, maybe not. On their employer's machine, maybe if the employer demands it.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    I didn’t realize businesses used Linux. Every place I’ve worked it’s been windows and Chrome/Edge.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 days ago

    It's mostly Windows of course. But some people in those companies may prefer to use Linux, and this gives a them a higher chance of being allowed to do so. I for one am running Linux in a company that's increasingly pushing for Microsoft stuff.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 days ago (11 children)

    People agree to Google telemetry on their Linux phones.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago (7 children)

    Why is there google telemetry on Nura, Ubuntu Touch and SailfishOS?

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (6 children)

    Android is Linux with orders of magnitude more users than all of those combined.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (5 children)

    yeah no... Android is as linux as Windows is POSIX compatible e.g. absolutely irrelevant that in the backend is running a linux kernel. Besides, only Google Android is plastered with Google Telemetry.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago

    Their point is to answer the question "who is going to consent to Google telemetry on linux". 99% of humanity, that's who.

    Corporations can plaster over the open source baseline to make a Product, at which point Consumers will feel the comfort and familiarity of being able to displace responsibility for their satisfaction onto someone else in exchange for a price, such as their privacy.

    Consider the Capitalist adage "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product". How would that belief affect how someone feels about baseline Linux, about FOSS in general? They would constantly be waiting for the catch, for the monetization or hack or cult pitch or communism that explains why people are spending their time contributing to FOSS instead of making money.

    Corporations are the devil they know.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago*

    absolutely irrelevant that in the backend is running a linux kernel

    I don't think so. Android is a Linux distribution, because it distributes Linux and is build the operating system using it. Besides that, Linux itself isn't fully POSIX standard conform too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX#Partially_conformant and thus no operating system built distributing the Linux Kernel is POSIX compliant. Android supports lot of POSIX functions, so its not that far off. The difference is not POSIX, it's actually GNU tools and proprietary blobs included, and the user application packages that make it so much different.

    Also interestingly there is a man page about these type of standards: https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/standards.7.html

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

    Ah, so there’s no Linux in Android and it’s running some other kernel. Must have been mistaken, sorry.

    I wonder what will be the point where we stop calling SteamOS a Linux distribution too. Maybe greybeards and their GNU/Linux thing were right. But now Ubuntu switched to Rust coreutils, I guess it’s no longer Linux. Apple recently stopped certifying POSIX compatibility so MacOS is longer UNIX even if they run BSD coreutils. Gosh, darnit.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (1 child)

    tell me, how much do you interact with linux when you are on an Android Phone? 0 percent perhaps? No, you start in the single user application of android and that's it.

    SteamOS meanwhile is a full featured Linux distro, heck Steam in that Distro makes it super easy to switch to "Desktop Mode" e.g. KDE.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

    Linux is a kernel. If you try to define it as more you’ll find yourself in a land of contradictions due to previously mentioned examples.

    Android is “Linux”. It might not have GNU userland or X11/Wayland. It is essentially a commoditised appliance but there’s Linux kernel there. KDE runs on many different Unix-like systems, it’s not something that defines Linux.

    If I log into a remote Linux shell where a system administrator locked me out of most of the things, does it make it less Linux?

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Not by default

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

    I think that depends entirely on whether opt-in is legally required in a given jurisdiction but they’ll certainly try and use every dark pattern in their arsenal to do so.

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