RE: Opinion re an interesting article on Linux security in Linux Journal

["Alun Jones" <alun () texis com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michal Zalewski
> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 1:16 PM
>
> Uhh, with some new worms, you not only can't execute the 
> rogue directly by
> just clicking on an attachment, but you need to enter a 
> password to get
> access to it... you just need a userbase clueless enough to 
> carry out even
> a fairly complicated action out of curiosity, and some social 
> engineering.

As ever, the chief flaw that is exploited by the most successful (in terms
of wide spread) viruses is that of human naivete / stupidity.

I reckon you'd get a fairly good spread of virus even if you asked people to
type the virus code into "debug" (a tool which, among other things, allows
you to directly enter hex codes).  The only thing that might slow such a
virus down is that many of the people typing it in would get a digit or two
wrong.

I've long maintained that Unix, Linux et al are not protected so much by
technical superiority as by a lack of users - particularly a lack of
technically uninformed users.  In some cases, too, the protection is that
there are less dumb developers.  To truly bring Linux down, what's needed is
a "Visual Basic 1.0" for Linux :-)

Alun.
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[Ed. Let's please keep this to a discussion of design features and NOT a
mudslinging contest (which no one can possibly win).  Thanks.  KRvW]