Home
| Calendar
| Mail Lists
| List Archives
| Desktop SIG
| Hardware Hacking SIG
Wiki | Flickr | PicasaWeb | Video | Maps & Directions | Installfests | Keysignings Linux Cafe | Meeting Notes | Blog | Linux Links | Bling | About BLU |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 10:07:18 -0400 Derek Martin <invalid at pizzashack.org> 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. Derek, While I agree that Outlook and Outlook Express is crap, but I disagree with your premise. The reason that "Outlook is so aggressively targeted" is that it is the most widely installed email program. If Eudora Pro had as wide a distribution as the Outlook family, it would be targeted. Additionally, the W32.Sobig.F at mm does not target Outlook. If actually looks for email addresses in files. But it all comes down to stupid users running attachments. Most of these worms have dual extensions, such as FILE.JPG.pif Windows by default does not show extensions (and this includes most of the email clients on Windows). So the user see the attachment as FILE.JPG, so the user clicks on it. Instant infection. - -- Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/Q5A/+wA+1cUGHqkRAswvAJ96LLH5erTKrTWmT1JSFRlyJb6qXwCferXd F87N3krJKv+tI/5/fJJk9N4= =eoF7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
BLU is a member of BostonUserGroups | |
We also thank MIT for the use of their facilities. |