A Lebanese cyber-terrorist from Munich

Hans Zöbelein and his IOS - Internet Operating System Counter (newest data and analysis)

Hans Zöbelein sells jewellery for a living. In his spare-time he helps blind and visually impaired people to a more crash-proof computing (Blinux-Link). Last October he suddenly became target of the Israeli security-consultants of COMSEC, who did not hesitate to 'inform' their country's press. The conviction: counting the internet-server's operating-systems (OSes) once a month (ios count), falsely announced as 'hacking hundreds of Israeli servers' (documentation).

The Internet OS-counter: Hans Zöbelein interviewed

The event did not cause very much of an echo in the German public: only slashdot-devotees have been informed. On the other hand the IOS came to a halt for nearly three months and the counting-effort only started again last weekend. Its results are proof of the sublime spread of Linux:

Of nearly 1.2 million servers that answered the 'queso'-request (Que Sistema Operativa?), 78 percent's Operating Systems were identified. 31% of them run on Linux (+3, 28 in September 1998). But also Solaris increased its share, since it became freeware to academic institutions: 19% (+6). Following close behind: The Windows-flavors with their 18%-share (-5). This adds up to about 70% market-share for freely distributed OSes - the BSD-family ranks fourth (15% -5). The commercial Unices are holding 11% (+1) altogether, while Apple defends its less than 2% niche.

These results are still to be taken with a grain of salt. None of the big names, like the .com, .org, .net or .us-Top-Level-Domains (TLDs) are represented yet. Only the .edu-TLD with its 25.000 hosts was included for the first time. Those who want to query the big ones, either have to buy the lists or be inventive. Today the IOS relies on the freely available database from RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens), adding Zöbelein's home-brew-.edu-list using the host-tool.

The tendency of his survey is still to be considered: why should .de, .uk or .fr-domains choose significantly different OSes than .com-domains do? A lot of .com-domains are hosted in these countries geographically and a .de-domain can 'live' in the US seen in a net-topologic context.

If you take a closer look at the results and examine the use of OSes for different purposes, you see that Linux is strong especially when it comes to hosting FTP-sites (40% +6). It seems improbable that this may change very much even with a significant error in the calculation of the total number of hosts. The statistical changes would be much bigger if you took into account the quantity of daily page-views per host, even if - like rumors want it - microsoft.com was a Linux-box (a rumor that spread before microsoft.com refrained from answering queso-requests).

German Sys-Admins seem to follow a money-saving and perfectionist approach to hosting Internet-services (41% Linux-boxes). Money-saving is very much of an issue to the universities in our country especially, so generally Linux is used there more often than in other places. US-universities, that carry .edu as their surnames traditionally, give us a different impression: The Windows-Flavors are dominating (27%) while Solaris ranks second (25%) and even Apple is as strong as the Penguin-OS (both 11%). Here the millions of US$ invested in sponsoring seem to pay off.

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/1/1933/1.html