Why this really is all just baying at the Moon
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| AnonymousCoward Oct 12, 2005 4:55 PM EDT |
There are more users of each of the top ten Linux distributions now than there were of MS-DOS and/or MS-Windows when viruses started circulating in earnest, and we do not have widespread Linux viruses. Today we have networks -- vast, high-speed networks -- across which viruses and worms may rapidly travel, which we did not have then, and we do not have widespread Linux viruses. There are more users of each of the top six Linux email clients now than there were of all forms of MS-Outlook then, and we do not have widespread Linux viruses. Our source code is public, it's practically got an "infect me" sign plastered across it everywhere, and any idiot can help himself to a CD and a complete build chain (legally, even) and yet we do not have widespread Linux viruses. We have old machines in the field -- we have machines which have not been rebooted since before Windows 2003 was released -- and we do not have widespread Linux viruses. Why? Not saying that we will never have one, just pointing out that -- unlike theory -- Real Life(tm) says that it's damn hard to get one to work. The arguments in the article may be strong or weak, it does not matter because what we observe is that the sky has not fallen despite all of the prerequisites having been met. This reminds me of astrophysics, where for years we've been told that Dark Matter is vitally necessary, explains countless anomalies, and has definitely been proven to exist. William of Ockham would have whipped out his razor, and asked "why is it necessary to invent an entire new class of matter to explain this?" and probably been academically torched as an heretic. This week (ironically about three days after another paper was published explaining that the Dark matter for a famous "corner case" has finally been found) we see a paper at arXiv which presents a very strong argument that Dark Matter isn't needed and doesn't exist: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051010_dark_matter.htm... http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0507619 What this all tells us is that as a general statement, we do not really, as a community, consciously understand why MS-Windows is so singularly risky -- which is the real worry, because if we did understand, we could plan ahead and avoid falling into the same trap ourselves. Chicken Little only has to be right once. |
| tuxchick Oct 13, 2005 5:29 PM EDT |
Applause. Great post, AC. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!