hi! just quickly, the thread gets a little bit too "off topic" ;o)
> So , the careless Linux user imports his virus by installing insecure > programs or games - not a major difference > to opening a suspicious eMail attachment when the eMail client "allows" it. linux "user", as opposed to windows "administrator". how many windows users do you know who log in as users with lesser privileges, let alone 95/98/ME that do not have a real privilege system? how many outlook worms (these are technically not viruses) did you hear of in the last year? how much damage did they do in the corporate world? of course UNIces would have more viruses when they where used more widely on the desktop. nevertheless, the security awareness in the broad mass of users is undeveloped because of Win3.11/95/98/ME. > When I was in Tim's situation at the University years ago I even ran into > a MAJOR security leak of SunOS 4.x on a > UNIX multiuser environment: you can do the same on any system that allows remote logins... and I did not say there are no security issues involved with UNIX systems. it's just the difference in quantity and quality (of the leaks! ;o) > c) a virus has to be very "intelligent" to break that barrier from user > (=PC) to user in a company intelligent? dunno... melissa et al. where put together by some kids, apparently in a few hours, with not very much programming skills. all the functionality (access to adress book, sending mails automatically, opening attachments automatically and allowing all this to code in attachments) is already in outlook. > The inbox assistant of many mail clients (beginning with Outlook Express) > allows you to even delete the > BugBear virus from the server without downloading it (due to the constant > attachment file size) > Outlook offers 3 levels of "security" for executing eMail scripts > (probably > similar to a browser's JVM or script security settings) and some signature > support - including that "are you sure" dialog. well, yes. how many windows users do you know who are fully aware of this, or even the risks themselves? > Personally I'd stayed with older and cheaper Outlook Express anyway, but > Outlook > a) was included in my iPaq software package (Microsoft's "market power") - > why not use it if you pay for it ? > b) has some convenient (but slow) data transfer features for the mobile > device > c) reduces my desire to buy something like Aibo(TM),Furby(TM) or other > virtual pets by offering several animated assistants > (you get weird otherwise by the people around you telling which nice pets > are populating their screen) I never doubted *your* ability to judge for yourself what's good for you (judging from your JAVA related posts ;o) but see above - I'm always talking of the broad mass of users who are mostly unaware of such issues. perhaps you know that the major risk posed to corporate networks does not come from the classical "bad hacker" from the outside, but from your own users plugging in their infected notebooks, PDA's, opening mail attachments despite warnings not to do so (if not in office, where mailservers are mostly equipped with powerfull virus scanners, then at home, and afterwards plugging in their PDA in office....) ok, I'll stop. I'm just talking about the experiences I'm having with issues like that and I see a lot more Windows environments affected by this. on each and every mailing list there are constant warnings about the newest outlook worm (every few weeks), I never read a single warning about UNIX viruses that are distributed via email ;o) greets -- +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++ NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. G�nstige DSL- & Modem/ISDN-Tarife! ____________________________________________________ To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm Be respectful! Clean up your posts before replying ____________________________________________________
