Worm bait?

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Derek Martin writes:
| On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 11:02:50PM +0000, John Chambers wrote:
| > you want to attack.  And it has to have an opening  so  you
| > actually can attack it successfully.
| >
| > The latter is mostly  what  makes  Microsoft's  systems  so
| > popular with virus/worm writers.  People may hate MS, true,
| > but security holes in the software is what  really  enables
| > the attacks.
|
| Indeed, and I did say that: the software is crap.  It was not my
| intention to emphasize the hate factor over the crap factor.  :)
| I hope no one got that idea...

Well, I've seen a number of quotes from top MS people to  the  effect
that their customers want lots of functionality but aren't interested
in security.  So by their understanding, they  are  doing  just  what
their  customers want.  And the fact that their customers continue to
pay them very well for their software is proof to them  that  they're
doing it right.

The Market can't be wrong, y'know.

(By this economic theory, we'd have to conclude  that  Windows  users
are  lying  when  they  say  that  they  want  software  that behaves
differently than the  software  that  they're  using.   There  is  no
shortage  of  other kinds of software, much of it either cheaper than
MS's products or entirely free.  But they keep paying good money  for
MS software. So this must be the sort of software that they want. ;-)