On 01-Apr-99 Paul Farber wrote:
> But in driving a car means that you were educated formally BEFORE you got
> the keys. Schools, a test, permits, etc. Any dolt can by a computer and
> screw it up.. and they do!
>
> You cannot make any case against making it DIFFICULT to erase a
> file/format a drive. Most of the helpdesks in the WORLD would get laid
> off if MS said "Were gonna make it a royal pain to erase a system file".
> But they won't. And sadly enough, they will not relase source code to let
> US do it for them.
>
> So, I will use my UNIX/LINUX boxes cause I like to know that there are no
> viruses, and no way for "Carl the computer retard" to screw it up.
I've been watching this thread with amusement. I've yet to see anyone
mention the real cause of the spreading of the virus. The world is full
of stupid people. Technology (of all forms) attracts them, remember CB?
Anyway, like most other industries, the software industry isn't driven by
the engineering dept or the security teams or really even the lusers. It's
pretty much run by the marketing departments. These people are pretty
much among the stupid when it comes to technology. They go for the buzz
words, then shove them down the throats of the unsuspecting.
These unsuspecting lusers go crazy over it (a body part gets hard) and
think they've become experts in all aspects of computing (I see these types
on a regular basis). The marketing departments feed off of this and
dictate what the developers will produce. Want to see (or at least remember)
a demo of this? Think/go back to the discussions of news software on
news.software.readers a year or two ago. The developers from either Netscape,
M$ or both stated that they would stop making the default compositions an
HTML document. They agreed it was the wrong thing to do. BUT! They also
admitted that it was the marketing depts that would push for it go remain.
Around the same time that Netscape was about to hit 3.0, there was a
presentation given by Netscape, Lotus, IBM and a few others at work (Chrysler).
The Netscape marketing types were going on about how the new Netscape would
have all these wonderful things included in the mail portion of the browser.
All the things that the programmers said wouldn't be there but the marketing
dept would lobby for them to be there. Those wonderful HTML mail messages,
the same for News, too. These marketing types had the non-technical types
ooh-ing and ahh-ing over this new and wonderful stuff that soon be gracing
us with their long awaited and needed presence.
Remember, if you tell someone something enough they will eventually believe it.
So who is to blame? The luser? M$? Netscape? The virus authors? Fill
in the blank: ___________? If you ask me it's the marketing depts for
Netscape and M$ and any other company that gets involved in this. (M$ isn't
off the hook here, they were battling Netscape over who could promise the
most features) A good marketing gimic or campaign will be able to sell
sand in the desert as long as the lusers are gullible enough to believe
it and whine for it. Once this cycle starts, there's no turning back.
Who gets the short end of the stick? It's not marketing, it's not the
lusers, it's not M$ and it's not Netscape. It's us. The admins and
support folks. We're the ones that have to make this crap work, and when
a Melissa or Papa or Fill in the Blank _________ comes around, we're the
ones that have to mop it up. And you know what? We have the right to
be pissed off about it 'cuze if they'd listened to us to begin with, this
would never have happened! And halfass fixes like the sendmail thing
only makes it worse.
Y'know how it's always darkest before the dawn? We ain't even close to
dawn yet. As it stands, the Wintel folks have been the main recipients
of these gifts. With the (almost scary) rapid growth of Linux' popularity
we're going to begin to see a number of virus infecting our world (that
covers FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc) in the not too distant future. The
way IBM, Novell and every other large company is jumping on the Linux
bandwagon, you're gonna see the marketing departments jumping on this new
ground playing their old games. Question is, is it too late?
Not sure if this was a soapbox, a rant or what, but I'll shut up now.
Vince.
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Vince Vielhaber -- KA8CSH email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] flame-mail: /dev/null
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