[66887] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: in case nobody else noticed it, there was a mail worm released today
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vivien M.)
Wed Jan 28 23:06:35 2004
From: "Vivien M." <vivienm@dyndns.org>
To: "'Roger Marquis'" <marquis@roble.com>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:05:55 -0500
In-Reply-To: <20040129033709.51546DAF2F@mx7.roble.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On=20
> Behalf Of Roger Marquis
> Sent: January 28, 2004 10:37 PM
> To: nanog@trapdoor.merit.edu
> Subject: Re: in case nobody else noticed it, there was a mail=20
> worm released today
>=20
>=20
> > (Note: I really do not want this to degenerate into another rant=20
> > against vendor M;
>=20
> Sorry for not sharing your disinterest in the actual reasons=20
> we continue to see these viruses and trojans infecting MS=20
> and, for all intents and purposes, only MS operating systems.
If Microsoft is the problem, you care to tell me why I haven't gotten
infected by a single one of those emailed viruses/worms/trojans despite
years of running MS software? (And for that matter, neither have my
parents... Apparently, years of yelling at them that 3+ meg binary
"Christmas cards" from their friends were not worth opening, or their
friends learned the hard way and hence stopped sending them)
I don't think my MS software is any different from anyone else's, except
that
A) I don't open .SCR attachments=20
B) I actually believe Windows/Office Update is for me, not for the =
random
dude/gal working down at the Burger King down the street.
So why is it that idiots doing/not doing these things can't be the =
problem,
but MS must be?
And, care to tell me why, as someone else pointed out, if I were to =
switch
to Evolution on your random GNU/Linux distribution, someone couldn't =
write a
similar worm. The reason they don't do it is because there isn't a =
critical
mass of Evolution/GNU/Linux/glibcX.Y to make a big stink... And there is
such a critical mass for MS.
Let me put it this way: if you know one bank has 100 million dollars in =
the
vault, and another has 5000 dollars, wouldn't you expect most of the =
bank
robbers to focus on robbing the first bank, irrelevant of whether the =
first
bank's fault is better protected than the second's?
Vivien
--=20
Vivien M.
vivienm@dyndns.org
Assistant System Administrator
Dynamic Network Services, Inc.
http://www.dyndns.org/=20
