Yesterday, Steven W. Orr gleaned this insight:
> I just feel intruiged by this message. If you go into Netscape -> Edit ->
> Preferences -> Navigator -> Applications
>
> There are predefined slots in there for everything including the kitchen
> sink. There're even slots for shell, csh, perl, tar, cpio, you name it. If
> anyone *was* to define these entries and then receive a perl program as an
> attachment, and then go ahead and execute such a beast, I betcha we'd be
> in just as much doodoo as all those WinBloze weenies. Right now, for
Nope. Because:
1) By default, Netscape does not ship with this stuff enabled. This is
the correct behavior. You've got to actively go define the stuff.
2) you'd have to not only define them, but specifically configure them to
run automatically. The vast majority of current Linux users realizes this
is a bad thing.
3) The worst the thing could do is delete all that user's files, unless
the recipient were dumb enough to have their mail delivered to root and
read it that way.
Added all up, that's a whole lot of dumbness that someone would have to
ACTIVELY CHOSE before major damage could be done. Now, it could easily
find ways to send itself to other people, but unless they're all stupid
too, that's where it would end.
> purposes of this ILOVEYOU discussion, I don't think their OS did anything
> different than what out Netscape running under linux would do. The only
Generally speaking, yes. Even on Windows, Netscape asks you if you want
to run an executable by default. You have to go looking for the config
option and change it before Netscape will let you automatically screw
yourself over, and most people just aren't willing to go through all the
effort.
My $.0002 worth... :)
--
PGP/GPG Public key at http://cerberus.ne.mediaone.net/~derek/pubkey.txt
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Derek D. Martin | Unix/Linux Geek
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