The Unix user base is anything but small.  Most of the doctor's offices 
and small hospitals in this area run SCO; the biggest one runs AIX with 
PC's connected to it.  Every interent account at EATEL or NTG is a Unix 
user account.  I know one would think that POP and personal web space 
doesn't make one a "user", but that's the word the system uses when you 
add them.  Of the millions of Linux desktop users out there, there are 
precious few who've ever been wormed by Lion or that thing ZDNet keeps 
saying jumps back and forth between Linux and Windows.  What a load.  
People who run Linux all day logged in as root like that shoot themselves 
in the foot.  That goes back to my suggestion that Windows really ought to 
have users work in a "My Sandbox" and prompt them for an Admin password 
when anything tries to make system changes.  Unix doesn't have viruses 
because-and-when people don't run it as root.  The famous sendmail worm of 
so many years ago hit sendmail because it runs as root, case in point.  
It's impossible for anything in my Linux email to infect a system binary, 
period.  I could lose $HOME, but that's about it.

-- 
-j

John Beamon

On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, mat branyon wrote:

> Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 01:52:30 -0500
> From: mat branyon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [brlug-general] security through obscurity
> 
> i know the whole security through obscurity crap that microsoft is
> trying to sell is crap.  but if you think about it, *nix doesnt really
> have many viruses because the user base is small (compared to M$).  
> you could say that well, ok, and i agree, the user base is also has a
> minimum iq requirement, but then, i havent heard of mac viruses
> either... just thought i would share a thought
> 
> 


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