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On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 10:07:18AM -0400, Derek Martin wrote: > As is often the case in our society, no one is looking at the real > problem. Virtually all e-mail viruses/worms target one family of > programs: Microsoft Outlook. Why is Outlook so aggressively targeted? > Because it's crap, and because its perveyors have a monopoly, > engendering rather a lot of hate. If you want to avoid these worms, > you need only not use Outlook. No other program is so aggressively > targeted. Similarly, non-email viruses/worms most popularly target > Microsoft systems. Even with the dramatic increase of the popularity > of Linux, there just aren't that many Linux viruses/worms out there. > So I really don't think it's a simple matter of virus writers > targeting the most popular platform; I think a lot of it is about > genuine hatred. But even if it were simple economics, there's no > better argument for more competition in the market... > > Why is no one looking at Outlook? For the same reason Microsoft has a > monopoly in the first place: people who use it often feel compelled to > use it, for one reason or another. Rather than admit their choice was > wrong, they seek more amenable scapegoats. Plauges, Wars, floods, fire, earthquakes, volcanos and MS-Outlook. The seven curses of humanity. Derek nails it again. :-) -- Jeff Kinz, Open-PC, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. jkinz at kinz.org copyright 2003. Use is restricted. Any use is an acceptance of the offer at http://www.kinz.org/policy.html. Don't forget to change your password often.
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