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As soon as somebody makes a suitable VPL (Virus Propagation Language) available for Linux, viruses and worms will abound. NT was designed (and largely implemented) to be an OS for grownups just like most *nix variants, but NT boxes are infested with viruses and worms because VPLs are common in that world. What are examples of such VPLs? Well, the M$word/Excel macro facilities and certain ActiveX controls are good representatives. Another example is the breathtakingly stupid "blindly-decode- and-execute-any-random-executable-I-happen-to-receive-via-email- and-cluelessly-or-accidentally-click-on" misfeature of many email softwares popular on M$ boxes. That's the mechanism exploited by Melissa and the like. VPLs simply go around the OS and its protections in the name of "convenience". Yeesh! It's probably only a matter of time before such features find their way into software packages running on Linux boxes - the price of popularity. - Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" on the first line of the message body to discuss-request at blu.org (Subject line is ignored).
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