Wireless Protected Access

Differences

WPA is an encryption algorithm that takes care of a lot of the vunerablities inherent in WEP. WEP is, by design, flawed. No matter how good or crappy, long or short, your WEP key is, it can be cracked. WPA is different. A WPA key can be made good enough to make cracking it unfeasible. WPA is also a little more cracker friendly. By capturing the right type of packets, you can do your cracking offline. This means you only have to be near the AP for a matter of seconds to get what you need. Advantages and disadvantages.

WPA Flavours

WPA basically comes in two flavours RADIUS or PSK. PSK is crackable, RADIUS is not so much.

PSK uses a user defined password to initialize the TKIP, temporal key integrity protocol. There is a password and the user is involved, for the most part that means it is flawed. The TKIP is not really crackable as it is a per-packet key but upon the initialization of the TKIP, like during an authentication, we get the password (well the PMK anyways). A robust dictionary attack will take care of a lot of consumer passwords.

Radius involves physical transferring of the key and encrypted channels blah blah blah, look it up to learn more about it but 90% of commerical APs do not support it, it is more of an enterprise solution then a consumer one.

The Handshake

The WPA handshake was designed to occur over insecure channels and in plaintext so the password is not actually sent across. There are some fancy dancy algorithms in the background that turn it into a primary master key, PMK, and the like but none of that really matters cause the PMK is enough to connect to the network.

The only step we need to do is capture a full authenication handshake from a real client and the AP. This can prove tricky without some packet injection, but if you are lucky to capture a full handshake, then you can leave and do the rest of the cracking at home.

We can force an authenication handshake by launching a Deauthentication Attack, but only if there is a real client already connected (you can tell in airodump). If there are no connected clients, you're outta luck.

Like for WEP, we want to know the channel the WPA is sitting on, but the airodump command is slightly different. We don't want just IVs so we don't specify an IV flag. This will produce "lucid.cap" instead of "lucid.ivs". Assume WPA is on channel 6 and wireless interface is ath0.

./airodump ath0 lucid 6


Dictionary Brute Force

The most important part of brute forcing a WPA password is a good dictionary. Check out http://www.openwall.com/wordlists/ for a 'really' good one. It costs money, but its the biggest and best I've ever seen (40 Million words, no duplicates, one .txt file). There is also a free reduced version from the same site but i'm sure resourceful people can figure out where to get a good dictionary from.

When you have a good dictionary the crack is a simple brute force attack:

./aircrack -a 2 -b 00:23:1F:55:04:BC -w /path/to/wordlist

Either you'll get it or you won't... depends on the strength of the password and if a dictionary attack can crack it.

Using Aireplay

Aireplay is the fun part. You get to manipulate packets to trick the network into giving you what you want.

WEP Attacks

Attacks used to create more traffic on WEP networks to get more IVs.

ARP Injection

ARP Replay is a classic way of getting more IV traffic from the AP. It is the turtle. Slow but steady and almost always works. We need the BSSID of the AP and the BSSID of an associated client. If there are no clients connected, it is possible to create one with another WEP attack explained below: Fake Authentication Attack.

With airodump listening, we attack:

./aireplay -3 -b -h ath0

Note: The -3 specifys the type of attack (3=ARP Replay).

This will continue to run, and airodump, listening fron another terminal, will pick up anY reply IVs.

Interactive Packet Replay

Interactive Packet Reply is quite a bit more advanced and requires capturing packets and constructing your own. It can prove more effective then simple ARP requests but I won't get into packet construction here.

A useful attack you might try is the re-send all data attack, basically you are asking the AP to re-send you everything. This only works if the AP re-encrypts the packets before sending them again (and therefore giving you a new IV). Some APs do, some don't.

aireplay -2 -b -h -n 100 -p 0841 -c FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF ath0


Fake Authentication Attack

This attack won't generate any more traffic but it does create an associative client MAC Address useful for the above two attacks. Its definately not as good as having a real, connected client, but you gots to do what you gots to do.

This is done easiest with another machine because we need a new MAC address but if you can manually change your MAC then that'll work too. We'll call your new MAC address "Fake MAC".

Now most APs need clients to reassociate every 30 seconds or so or they think they're disconnected. This is pretty arbitrary but I use it and it has worked but if your Fake MAC gets disconnected, reassociate quicker. We need both the essid and bssid and our Fake MAC.

./aireplay -1 30 -e '' -a -h ath0

If successful, you should see something like this:

23:47:29 Sending Authentication Request
23:47:29 Authentication successful
23:47:30 Sending Association Request
23:47:30 Association successful :-)

Awesome! Now you can use the above two attacks even though there were no clients connected in the first place! If it fails, there may be MAC Address Filtering on so if you really want to use this, you'll have to sniff around until a client provides you with a registered MAC to fake.

WPA Attacks

So far, the only way to really crack WPA is to force a re-authentication of a valid client. We need a real, actively connected client to break WPA. You might have to wait a while.

Deauthentication Attack

This is a simple and very effective attack. We just force the connected client to disconnect then we capture the re-connect and authentication, saves time so we don't have to wait for the client to do it themselves (a tad less "waiting outside in the car" creepiness as well). With airodump running in another console, your attack will look something like this:

aireplay -0 5 -a -c ath0

After a few seconds the re-authentication should be complete and we can attempt to Dictionary Brute Force the PMK.

Conclusion

Well thats that. APs crack fairly often but sometimes there is just nothing you can do. Obviously you are not allowed to illegally crack other people's wireless connections, this is purely for penetration testing purposes and some fun.

linux vs windows

Windows has two main lines. The older flavors are referred to as "Win9x" and consist of Windows 95, 98, 98SE and Me. The newer flavors are referred to as "NT class" and consist of Windows NT3, NT4, 2000, XP and Vista. Going back in time, Windows 3.x preceded Windows 95 by a few years. And before that, there were earlier versons of Windows, but they were not popular. Microsoft no longer supports Windows NT3, NT4, all the 9x versions and of course anything older. Support for Windows 2000 is partial (as of April 2007).
The flavors of Linux are referred to as distributions (often shortened to "distros"). All the Linux distributions released around the same time frame will use the same kernel (the guts of the Operating System). They differ in the add-on software provided, GUI, install process, price, documentation and technical support. Both Linux and Windows come in desktop and server editions.
There may be too many distributions of Linux, it's possible that this is hurting Linux in the marketplace. It could be that the lack of a Linux distro from a major computer company is also hurting it in the marketplace. IBM is a big Linux backer but does not have their own branded distribution. Currently there seem to be many nice things said about the Ubuntu distribution.
Linux is customizable in a way that Windows is not. For one, the user interface, while similar in concept, varies in detail from distribution to distribution. For example, the task bar may default to being on the top or the bottom. Also, there are many special purpose versions of Linux above and beyond the full blown distributions described above. For example, NASLite is a version of Linux that runs off a single floppy disk (since revised to also boot from a CD) and converts an old computer into a file server. This ultra small edition of Linux is capable of networking, file sharing and being a web server.

USER INTERFACE
Both Linux and Windows provide a GUI and a command line interface. The Windows GUI has changed from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (drastically) to Windows 2000 (slightly) to Windows XP (fairly large) and is slated to change again with the next version of Windows, the one that will replace XP. Windows XP has a themes feature that offers some customization of the look and feel of the GUI.
Linux typically provides two GUIs, KDE and Gnome. See a screen shot of Lycoris and Lindows in action from the Wal-Mart web site. The lynucs.org web site has examples of many substantially different Linux GUIs. Of the major Linux distributions, Lindows has made their user interface look more like Windows than the others. Here is a screen shot of Linux made to look like Windows XP. Then too, there is XPde for Linux which really makes Linux look like Windows. Quoting their web site "It's a desktop environment (XPde) and a window manager (XPwm) for Linux. It tries to make easier for Windows XP users to use a Linux box."
Mark Minasi makes the point (Windows and .NET magazine, March 2000) that the Linux GUI is optional while the Windows GUI is an integral component of the OS. He says that speed, efficiency and reliability are all increased by running a server instance of Linux without a GUI, something that server versions of Windows can not do. In the same article he points out that the detached nature of the Linux GUI makes remote control and remote administration of a Linux computer simpler and more natural than a Windows computer.
Is the flexibility of the Linux GUI a good thing? Yes and No. While advanced users can customize things to their liking, it makes things harder on new users for whom every Linux computer they encounter may look and act differently.

COSTS
For desktop or home use, Linux is very cheap or free, Windows is expensive. For server use, Linux is very cheap compared to Windows. Microsoft allows a single copy of Windows to be used on only one computer. Starting with Windows XP, they use software to enforce this rule (Windows Product Activation at first, later Genuine Windows). In contrast, once you have purchased Linux, you can run it on any number of computers for no additional charge.
As of January 2005, the upgrade edition of Windows XP Home Edition sells for about $100, XP Professional is about $200. The "full" version of XP Home is about $200, the full version of XP Professional is $300. Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition with 10 Client licenses is about $1,100. Because they save $100 or so on the cost of Windows, Wal-Mart can sell a Linux based computer for $200 (without a monitor) whereas their cheapest Windows XP computer is $300 (as of January 2005).
The irony here is that Windows rose to dominance, way back when, in large part by undercutting the competition (Macs) on cost. Now Linux may do the same thing to Windows.
You can buy a Linux book and get the operating system included with the book for free. You can also download Linux for free from each of the Linux vendors (assuming your Internet connection is fast enough for a 600 MB file and you have a CD burner) or from www.linuxiso.org. Both these options however, come without technical support. All versions of the Ubuntu distribution are free.
You can purchase assorted distributions of Linux in a box with a CD and manuals and technical support for around $40 to $80 (some distributions may be less, others may be more). Regular updates and ongoing support range from $35 a year for a desktop version of Linux to $1,500 for a high-end server version. August 2004 Red Hat started selling a desktop oriented version of Linux for under $6 per user per year.
After the initial cost (or lack thereof) of obtaining software, there is the ongoing cost of its care and feeding. In October 2002, ComputerWorld magazine quoted the chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York as saying that "the cost of running Linux is typically a tenth of the cost of Unix and Microsoft alternatives." The head technician at oil company Amerada Hess manages 400 Linux servers by himself. He was quoted as saying "It takes fewer people to manage the Linux machines than Windows machines." Microsoft commissioned a study that (no surprise) found it cheaper to maintain Windows than Linux. However, one of the authors of the study accused Microsoft of stacking the deck by selecting scenarios that are more expensive to maintain on Linux.
I don't know if there will ever be an objective measure of the ongoing care and feeding costs for Linux vs. Windows. If there were however, it would have to consider:

• Dealing with bugs in the operating system
• Dealing with bugs in application software
• Dealing with viruses, worms, Spyware, etc.(big advantage to Linux here)
• Dealing with software upgrades to new versions (both the OS and applications)

INSTALLING THE OPERATING SYSTEM
There are three ways to install Windows XP: a clean install, an upgrade install and a repair install. Then, there is a "recovery" install, which is not an install in the true sense of the word but rather the restoration of a disk image backup.

• A clean install refers to starting with nothing (either an entirely empty hard disk or just an empty partition or just unallocated space on the hard disk) and ending up with just Windows.
• An upgrade install refers to starting with an older version of Windows and ending up with a newer version. Existing data files and applications should not be affected by the upgrade to the newer edition of Windows.
• A repair install refers to installing the same version of Windows on top of itself. This is used to fix a broken copy of Windows and existing data files and applications are not affected.
• A "recovery" is typically used to restore a computer to its factory fresh state. All data files are wiped out. All applications installed since the computer was new, are wiped out. All upgrades to Windows itself (patches, service packs) are lost. Applications pre-installed by the computer manufacturer are restored. Originally this was done from CDs, then DVDs. Now it is normally done from a hidden area of the hard disk.

Then there is Windows Vista where much has changed. I'm not familiar with the install options for Vista. Andy Pennell, a Microsoft employee, wrote about his problems installing Vista on June 21, 2007. He is very familiar with Windows and installed Vista onto a second internal hard disk, leaving the existing hard disk with Windows XP unchanged. At least that was the plan. See Installing Vista: My Personal Hell. Installing Vista on a computer with an existing copy of Windows, with the intention of dual-booting, is much trickier than it used to be with earlier versions of Windows.
There is a huge variation in the Linux installation procedure. Different distributions of Linux have their own installation programs (which may even change with different versions of the same distribution). Installing Linux on a computer without an existing operating system is much easier than installing it on a machine with an existing OS that you want to preserve.
I'm sure that installing Linux is getting easier all the time. While I haven't done it all that often, I have seen it become easier over time. Is it easy enough for you?

• Ed Bott blogged about his experience installing Linux on July 31, 2006. Linux, XP, and my old PC
• In March 2007, he tried again with mixed success. Why does Linux hate me?
• A picture is worth a thousand words so this July 2007 picture show at ZDnet on Installing OpenSUSE 10.2 is instructive
• In June 2007, I installed Ubuntu v7.4 on an IBM NetVista machine that was about four years old. The system would only run at 640x480 and things went downhill from there. The problem may have been due to a KVM switch that prevented the system from querying the monitor. However, instead of asking me or telling me anything about a failure to detect the monitor, it just ran at 640x480 with no GUI based facility to increase the resolution.

When installing Linux on a machine where you don't need to preserve the existing operating system, there is likely to be an option to clobber the existing OS as part of the Linux installation procedure. Or, you can use a program to totally wipe everything off the hard disk before installing Linux. The free Darik's Boot and Nuke is fairly famous for this. Better yet, the hard disk vendor should have a free utility that not only wipes the hard disk but also can run diagnostics on the disk.
You can also buy a new computer without any operating system. A low end Dell server, the PowerEdge 840 sold for $600 in June 2007. You can buy an HP ProLiant server starting at $500 that is certified to run six Linux distributions. IBM is big on Linux, quoting their web site: "The entire IBM Systems product line is Linux enabled." They sell computers both with no operating system and with Linux pre-installed. Nothing there is cheap however. Wal-Mart used to sell Microtel machines without an OS, but no more.
Installing Linux for dual booting, that is, keeping the existing operating system in tact, is probably best left to techies. It is all too easy to lose the pre-existing OS. You need to be familiar with hard disk partitions and some Linux terminology. With Red Hat Linux 8, the booklet on how to install the OS was over a hundred pages.
In his Linux book, Mark Minasi said that installing Linux on a desktop computer was more likely to be successful than on a laptop computer.

Running Linux Without Installing It Hide Show top

Running Linux Without Installing It (This topic was re-written in April 2007)

Added November 23, 2008: ZAReason sells a bootable copy of Ubuntu on a 4GB USB flash drive for $39.99. In general new computers can boot from a USB flash drive, however older computers may not be able to. According to the company, the drive is configured to support persistence, but it is not the default option. That is, by default it functions like a Live CD and throws away all record of your actions. However, at bootup you can select persistence if you want. That said, the company noted in an email that versions of Ubuntu prior to Intreped were "somewhat buggy with persistence".
Added July 10, 2008: From my CNET blog Why you want a Linux Live CD.
One thing that Linux can do that Windows can not, is run from a CD. To run Windows, it has to first be installed to your hard disk. Normally Linux also runs from a hard disk, but there are quite a few versions of Linux that run completely from a CD without having to be installed to a hard disk. The term for this is a "Live" CD.
Running a Live CD version of Linux is a great way for Windows users to experience Linux for the first time. Among the Linux distros that have a CD-only version are Knoppix, Ubuntu and Open SuSE). I tried SuSE Live Eval version 9 in October 2003 and had some gripes. FreeBSD, a version of Unix (rather than Linux), also has a LiveCD.
That said, if Windows is broken to the point that it can't start up, there is a free program called Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) that can run a few Windows programs from a bootable CD. However, this is not from Microsoft and is only intended to fix a broken copy of Windows, it is not for everyday use. BartPE can only run a handful of programs that have been set up ahead of time for use with it. BartPE fills an important need, but creating the CD is not trivial, it requires a Windows CD (not recovery CDs or DVDs) and it only works with Windows XP and 2003 (not sure about Vista). The main point stands, in and of itself, Windows can not run from a CD.
The CD based versions of Linux differ in their use of the hard disk. Some, such as Lindows, do not write anything at all to your hard disk, making it the safest and easiest way to experience Linux. The downside of this is speed (CDs are much slower than hard disks) and continuity (being able to save data between uses). Other versions, such as SuSE 9 (this is now up to v10.2), do use your hard disk (SuSE 9 creates over 200 MB worth of files). What you give up in safety, you gain in speed. For reviews of Linux distributions that run from a CD see A Taste of Linux by Jim Lynch at ExtremeTech January 23, 2004 and A Taste of Linux, Part Two by Jim Lynch March 5, 2004.
In addition to kicking the tires on Linux, a Live CD can also be used to insure that your hardware is supported by that specific version of Linux. Bootable Linux CDs are also used to recover files when Windows breaks to the point of not being able to start up. A recent Live Linux CD should be able to see all Windows files (they can read NTFS) and copy them to an external USB device or another computer on a LAN. Older CD based versions of Lindows and SuSE could not read files stored in an NTFS partition.
In October 2005 a whole new way of running Linux without installing it was introduced: Virtual Machines from VMware. Virtual machines let you run multiple operating systems on one computer at the same time. You can't beat it (virtual machines are used to run Windows on the Intel based Macs).
Using the free VMware Player you can download pre-built Linux virtual machines. Think of the VMware Player as analogous to the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Creating virtual machines costs money, but playing them does not.
VMware has been creating virtual machines on PCs for a long time. Running a virtual machine previously required their expensive software (VMWare Workstation was $200 in April 2007, only a couple years previously it cost almost twice that). Now it can be done for free. And prior to October 2005 there were no pre-built virtual machines available from VMWare, if you wanted to run Linux, you had to install it.
Now you can get a pre-installed virtual copy of Ubuntu v7.04 Server, OpenBSD 4.0 and CentOS 5.0. Even better, many pre-built Linux virtual machines come with pre-installed applications. Want to run the Apache web server and the MySQL database? Just download a VM with them installed.
For years you could have installed Linux into a new virtual machine. It is a great way to learn and experiment. However, creating a new virtual virtual machine required the somewhat expensive VMWare workstation. Now, the free VMware Server software can be used to create a new virtual machine into which you can install any operating system. You can also download new, empty virtual machines from EasyVMX.
VMWare Server has another big plus: it supports a checkpoint (a.k.a. restore point, synch point). You can take a checkpoint in your virtual machine, work on it a while and then revert the VM back to the checkpoint. All for free. How things change.
Microsoft also has free virtual machine software but there are no-prebuilt virtual machines for it. Needless to say, Microsoft is not going to provide Linux virtual machines and they make a lot of money selling Windows so they're not going to give it away. Also, their software is not as mature as VMware, not as robust and I've read that it runs slower.
VMware is not the only free virtual machine software. VirtualBox is free and open source.
Yet another way to run Linux without installing it is from a flash drive (a.k.a thumb drive, USB drive, pen drive, memory stick, etc.).
In June 2006 David Pogue wrote about Linux distros can run from a thumb drive (A Handy Tip From a Reader on Flash Drives) where the two distros mentioned are 50MB (Damn Small Linux) and 70MB. In fact, Damn Small Linux does even more tricks. It can run from within Windows! And, if you have 128MB of ram to spare, it can run completely in ram, which has got to be fast. See Linux in Windows .. Again at ghacks.net.
In November 2005, you could have purchased a 3GB MicroDrive (1 inch hard disk) with Ubuntu Linux. The drive plugs into a USB port and is fully powered by the USB port. See Taking Linux On The Road With Ubuntu at Toms Hardware. I'm not sure if this is still available.

SOFTWARE
Obtaining application software: If you buy a copy of Windows on a CD-ROM, you get no application software with it. If you buy a copy of Linux on a CD-ROM (or two or three) it typically comes with gobs of free application software. Likewise, Linux ISO downloads usually include lots of application software. The exception are Linux distributions that are small on purpose such as Damn Small Linux or Pen Drive Linux.
A new computer with Windows pre-installed normally comes additional application software, exactly what to include is up to the PC vendor. On one extreme, I have seen a new Sharp laptop machine that came with no software other than Windows itself. This is rare. In contrast, Sony VAIOs, for example, are more mainstream and come with a lot of software. However, there are two problems with the pre-installed application software on Windows computers.
First, much of it is junk. So much, that a new term "crapware" is being used to describe it. The PC vendors make money by installing this software that many people consider worse than useless. In fact, the first thing many techies do is un-install this software, someone even came out with a PC de-crapifier program to automate the un-installs. Windows computers sold to businesses tend to have less undesirable application software pre-installed compared to computers sold to consumers. I have never heard of anyone complaining about the software that comes pre-installed in the normal, popular versions of Linux.
Second, important software is often missing or old. For example, the Adobe Acrobat reader, may not pre-installed by the PC vendor. In February 2008, I blogged about a new Lenovo computer that came with terribly old versions of application software.
On the Linux side, to get a feel for the application software that comes with Ubuntu version 8.04 see Adventures with open source apps on Linux - Part 1 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from May 23rd, 2008.
Application software installation: The installation of applications under Windows, while not standardized, is generally consistent and generally pretty easy. Installing software under Linux varies with each distribution and has not been nearly as simple, easy or obvious as Windows. A couple articles from 2004 griped about how hard it was to install software in Liunx: The May 20, 2004 issue of the Langa list newsletter and a July 4, 2004 review of Linux in the Washington Post (Linux, Still an Awkward Alternative) where Rob Pegoraro called application software installation "Linux's biggest embarrassment".
That said, current Linux distributions have an application somewhat akin to Windows update that can be used to install software. I don't have much experience doing this. However, in April 2008 I used one of the new $200 Walmart Linux gOS machines and found the application for installing software very confusing, and it failed every time I tried to install something.

SECURITY
The vast majority of malicious software (of all types) runs on Windows. I don't know the actual percentages, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was 98% or so. Windows users are burdened with the need for anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Linux users are not. Why is this?
In Linux vs. Windows: Which is Most Secure? (March 2007) Kenneth van Wyk writes:
Linux [has] ... the notion of an administrative (root) user that maintains and operates the system, and desktop users who only run the software on the system, is completely ingrained in most Linux distributions. Now it’s true that many Linux users ignore these features and run all their software from a root-level account anyway, but that’s a choice that they’ve made. The system defaults to protecting the operating system components from its user’s actions (intentional or otherwise). That feature alone must account in large degree for the dearth of viruses and other malicious vermin on Linux and UNIX platforms. Windows, on the other hand, started life as a single user system, with that single user being all-powerful. Although that’s no longer the case, the general attitude can still be found in many Windows-based software products – many of which just can’t be installed and/or run properly without desktop administrator privileges. This is all changing for the better, but it took Microsoft far too long to adopt this default-secure configuration practice.

SUPPORTED HARDWARE DEVICE
While Linux itself runs on many more computers than Windows, when it comes to hardware peripherals, many work with Windows but not with Linux. The hardware vendors write drivers for Windows more often than they do for Linux. Market share and all that. Some hardware vendors will release technical specs so that someone in the Linux community can write a driver for the device, but other vendors aren't so open minded.
Everything isn't rosy in the Windows world however. When Windows XP was released, many existing peripherals would not work with it because XP required new drivers and the vendors had little motivation to write drivers for old hardware. The exact same scenario played out all over again when Vista was released. I think it's fair to say that hardware support was pretty lame when Vista was first released. This is not a knock on Microsoft.
The poor hardware support in Linux is drastically illustrated in an article by Fred Langa. He wrote about problems getting nine different Linux distributions (versions) to work correctly with two different sound cards (one real, one virtual) that all versions of Windows, even back to Windows 95, dealt with perfectly (see Linux's Achilles' Heel, Information Week magazine. April 19, 2004).
In Ten key differences between Linux and Windows (September 2008) Jack Wallen, a Linux devotee, about this: "One issue that is slowly becoming nonexistent is hardware support ... You can grab a PC (or laptop) and most likely get one or more Linux distributions to install and work nearly 100 percent. But there are still some exceptions; for instance, hibernate/suspend remains a problem with many laptops, although it has come a long way."

LINUX -ONLY THINGS
The first item on his list strikes me as very important - you can update "every single piece of software on my system with a single action." Windows and Microsoft Update only do a handful of Microsoft applications. With Linux, the OS updater application handles software from other companies too. Huge plus for Linux. Huge.
An interesting point was the ability to "Run Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 on the same desktop" using software called IEs4Linux. Other points included the fact that most updates don't require a re-boot, Linux has a lesser need for anti-malware software and the ability to take "settings" with you when traveling.
Overall, Mr. Martin is very biased. For example, with portable applications, Windows users can carry entire applications with them with traveling. He also brags that Linux users can understand everything going on inside their computer, but, he doesn't offer software for doing this. Windows users have the excellent Process Explorer program which shows tons of information about what's going on under the hood. Process Explorer is a great program. Finally, some items on his list strike me as un-important.
March 10, 2008: Here's another Linux only thing, the ability to keep an application's window on top of other windows. From CNET blogger Dennis O'Reilly: "A nice feature of Ubuntu that Windows lacks (unless you tweak the Registry or download a separate always-on-top utility) is the ability to keep a window on top of all others. Just right-click the bar along the top of the window, and select Always on Top from the drop-down menu." According to reader comments this is really a GNOME thing, rather than an Ubuntu thing.