VIRUS (Worm.SCO.A) IN YOUR MAIL

Dan Barrett nullpointer at pobox.com
Tue Jan 27 14:05:10 EST 2004


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On Tuesday 27 January 2004 13:33, Chris Devers wrote:
> 
> You say that as if it's a good thing. Or a bad thing, from the other point
> of view. Isn't it the Right thing though? 
> 

I never thought of it as a security feature, principally because the vendor's 
track record shows security to be a non-priority.  I filed it under the same 
reason why proprietary UNIX vendors don't ship their C compilers with the 
operating system.

> This isn't the original, public, peer-peer internet anymore -- you can't
> just do things like trust your neighbor not to abuse his personal SMTP
> server. 
> 
> I suspect the spam problem would be *a lot* worse if every copy of Windows
> shipped with a working SMTP server. 
> 

That's a good point.  
<RHETORICAL_QUESTION>
But that would be awesome.  Windows users are already armed to the teeth with 
ways to barf all over the public network, why not just give them one more 
self-destruct button?
</RHETORICAL_QUESTION>

Best,
d.
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