Five TV makers preparing Internet TV specs, Mar 30, 2003

Five Japanese TV manufacturers will form a working group to hammer out technical specifications by October for digital TVs with Internet access.

As a result of the joint effort, the working group is expected to adopt Linux as the operating system for its TV-Internet connection specification.

He also pointed to the fundamental building blocks of the two systems as the reason for the disparity in their levels of vulnerability. The Windows operating system basically allows any operation possible within the constraints of the hardware it runs on, said the spokesman. This means viral attacks can easily force machines to perform damaging operations resulting in losses of data or functionality. "Windows was never designed to be secure," he said.

The Linux system is effectively configured in the opposite way, with the operating system only allowing the operations specified by the root operator (the network administrator). This means that even if a virus (or worm, as most attacks on Linux systems have been) gains access to a Linux client, it cannot actually cause any damage.

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