[Am-info] E-mail virus picks up speed

[Mitch Stone]

I'm familiar with the countering arguments, but I tend to shy away from 
the more technical rebuttals, as I've found that most people don't 
understand them, and those that do, will claim I'm promoting "security 
by obscurity." The debate will often come down to whether one or 
another alternative OSs are inherently more secure -- and I'm prepared 
to admit that the case is probably unprovable.

As for "security by obscurity," I'm still trying to figure out what's 
wrong with it. I want security, and I really don't care if I get by 
religiously correct means or otherwise. If the MacOS market share 
should miraculously quintuple, then we can test the "security by 
obscurity" theory -- but until then, I'm happy to have it by whatever 
means.

But as I said, this completely pragmatic argument seems to be a dog 
that won't hunt. I know only a handful of people who've even considered 
throwing over Windows for the Mac because they were tired of fighting 
off virus attacks and security breaches. Personally, I think this is 
Apple's single best sales argument right now, but even they don't seem 
to want to use it.

That tells me something -- thought I'll be darned if I know precisely 
what.

Mitch

On Friday, January 3, 2003, at 10:07 AM, Marcus de Geus wrote:

> In reply to a message from "Mitch Stone" <mitch@accidentalexpert.com> 
> dated
> 2003-01-02 19:08:26 -0800 (Thu):
>
>> I've never got much milage out of suggesting that using an OS other 
>> than
>> Windows is a useful way protecting one's self against virus attacks.
>> Invariably, the response I get is, "If [...] OS was more popular, it
>> would be attacked just as often as Windows."
>
> Mitch,
>
> My reply to this reponse is, "Sure it would, but it wouldn't be running
> loads of stupid software that lay it open to attack, and so a virus 
> would
> have no effect."
>
> I usually try to direct the argument away from Windows per se to focus 
> on
> the Microsoft mindset that A) comes up with a standard system setup 
> that is
> a cracker's delight, and B) is behind the shoddy programming that goes 
> into
> such products as Word and Outlook. It's Microsoft I mind, not just 
> Windows.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marcus de Geus
> --
> marcus@degeus.com
> http://www.degeus.com
>
>
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