On Mon, 9 Jul 2001 16:18:28 -0400, Roger Turk wrote:
> Sam,
> Sometimes it is not the person with the virus on his/her computer that sends
> it, it is the virus itself.
It is the responsibility of the user to check his computer to determine
if there are any viruses in it. Similarly, it is the responsibility of
a gun owner to check his gun to see if it is loaded.
> Some of the more frequent virii will send out e-mails to everyone in a
> person's Outlook address book without the owner of the machine even knowing.
How can this be? Even when running WIN95 I know when my machine is
attempting to access an SMTP server.
> I received one such from a person that I had had only a few contacts with.
> It was one of those, "Wow! Take a look and my web site!" virii. I "looked"
> at the attachment and sure enough it was a virus. I alerted him by e-mail
> and he took care of it. BTW, that virus was sent to 15-20 addresses taken
> from his Outlook address book.
If you have defective software in your computer, such as MicroSoft
Outlook, then it is your responsibility to replace it. Similarly,
if you have a defective part in your gun, such as a bad sear, then
you should replace it so as to avoid accidental discharge or a
runaway gun.
> An analogy to the example you used, this is like having a loaded pistol and
> when you were not at home, it started firing and hit a person on the street
> or in the next apartment. The "fault" would not lie with you, but with
> either the manufacturer of the pistol or the manufacturer of the ammunition.
The fault would lie with you if you left the gun chambered and cocked
because everyone knows or should know that a sear or a safety mechanism
can fail all by itself. Although this is extremely rare, everyone
knows or should know it can happen. (qv. Murphy's Law). Having
ammunition that is so defective that it might go off by itself is even
more bizarre. I have some military ammunition that was manufactured by
our enemies during WWII. It works just as well and fires just as
accurately and it is just as reliable as the modern stuff produced by
US manufacturers. Also I bought it for an amazingly cheap price.
> But to answer your subject question: It seems that M$ makes it so easy!
M$ makes things so easy for you that you can even screw up easier than
you ever could before. Not only that, but you can even screw up far
worse than you ever could before.
Sam Heywood
-- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser - http://arachne.cz/
