Intel Question

[Kevin Buettner]

On Jan 30,  3:46pm, David Demland wrote:

> I have heard and read that because of the way Intel chips are setup it is
> easier to have a security problem than with a Motorola chip. This would mean
> that a firewall that is comprised of a Motorola chip is better than an Intel
> chip. This is true? The assumption here is that both are running Linux.

What exactly are you referring to?  I am familiar (to some degree anyway)
with both architectures and do not see why one should be more (or less)
inherently secure than the other.

I guess you could make an argument based on popularity.  I.e, you
might be inclined to argue something along the following lines:

    The Intel IA-32 architecture is more popular than the IBM/Motorola
    PowerPC architecture, so more security holes are known.

But, there's also the counter argument...

    The Intel IA-32 architecture is more popular. Thus more security
    holes have fixed.

(I have no idea which is the stronger argument.)

It is certainly the case that a buffer overrun exploit written for
one architecture won't work on the other.  (I guess you could invoke
one of the popularity arguments again.)

Anyway... unless you can come up with something specific, I see
no reason to prefer one of these architectures over the other on
security grounds.

Kevin