Re: Good news for SPARC

From: Joe Pfeiffer (pfeiffer_at_cs.nmsu.edu)
Date: 10/31/03 

Date: 30 Oct 2003 16:19:13 -0700

Peter Perlsų <nospam@nospam.com> writes:
>
> Agree. The various Unices don't have braindead designs which:
>
> - automatically enables Windows Scripting Host (or equivalents)
> - allows execution of email attachments
> - uses loose firewall defaults
>
> Any of these three could more or less negate the flood of Microsoft OS
> hosted worms and virii, but Microsoft haven't gotten around to using
> its collective 3 (or was it four?) brain cells and actually do
> this. Same thing for Office Macro virii. They never lifted a finger to
> fight the problem.

What's interesting about this is that it would be quite
straightforward in the Unix world for a mailer to do exactly the sort
of brain-dead auto-execute crap as the Windows world, doing the same
sort of major damage (how many sysadmins read mail as root? Too
many...). This really isn't a flaw that's inherent in windows but not
Unix.

But there's some sort of cultural difference which has led the Unix
world to take one look at that idea and, so far as I've seen,
unanimously decided not to do it.

> PS: The last month or so, I've had over 10000 worm-ridden emails
> enter my mailbox, and every time I get a new one, I feel like bashing
> a sensibility-derived Windows user thoroughly. A big Thank You to all
> of the morons who can't properly secure their Windows systems. May
> your harddrives head crash, your CPU coolers fail, and your CPUs burn
> to a cinder.

I was on the shuttle to the airport a little while ago, and overhead a
little old lady talking to a friend, "it said it was from Microsoft!
How was I to know?" 

-- 
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D.       Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science       FAX   -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University          http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
Southwestern NM Regional Science and Engr Fair:  http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair

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