On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Vivien M. wrote:
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.
Rhetorical questions illustrate a lack of technical rational, thanks. But do re-read the message you're referring to, specifically, the section regarding unpublished APIs and context switching. If you need more in-depth reasons see any of the URLs listed at <http://www.msfree.com/>.
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.
No, sorry, false analogy though it does account for some portion of MS' mess. The larger reason is that viruses are substantially easier to write for Outlook, Exchange, et al. For another example look at Unix Apache's market share (>75%) and it's vulnerability share (<1%). As Java applications make clear, it doesn't matter what your market share is if the software is secure in the first place. -- Roger Marquis Roble Systems Consulting http://www.roble.com/