In defense (was Re: what to do about Windows email worms)

[Rich Braun]

miah <jjohnson at sunrise-linux.com> wrote:
> No Offense, but it truely amazes me the number of people ...

No problem, ve have our vays.  ;-)  Your name has been entered into the
Homeland Security airline checkpoint database for "special treatment".

> on a Linux mailling
> list that run Windows, and on top of that windows mailer software.

The issue I'm pointing out for the benefit of the list membership is that you
don't have to be running Windows mailer software to get bitten by this (or by
a rogue website using the same trojan technique).  All the attacker needs to
do is convince you that it's OK to run his program on your Windows box.  In my
case, I use Squirrelmail (a Linux PHP program) to read my mail via a Mozilla
window.  The problem with Squirrelmail (with sendmail 8.12.10 as the MTA and
spamassassin as the spam-checker) is that it doesn't scrutinize the MIME
headers and flag those with type "application/octet".  You have to either
avoid opening ANY attachment (my habit 99.9% of the time) or manually look to
make sure the headers are safe (my habit another 0.09% of the time ;-).

As for why one would run Windows on a home-based Linux network, let alone one
at an ordinary R&D or other office environment:  there are widely used apps
that either don't run well or don't run at all on a Linux desktop.

My list includes:
  - Excel/Word
  - TaxCut
  - Quicken
  - Quickbooks
  - StreetAtlas
  - MusicMatch
  - ImageWalker (a photo-album and scanner tool)
  - Exact Audio Copy
  - Citrix Client
  - 3D Home Architect

Would love to hear from anyone else here on the list who uses programs like
these under Linux.

-rich