Re: Virus?

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <2h2cnZIT0KTtRuWjXTWcpw@speakeasy.net>,
Matthew Russotto <russotto@grace.speakeasy.net> wrote:
 
> In article <b595fr$1eom$1@merope.saaf.se>,
> Paul Schlyter <pausch@saaf.se> wrote:
> 
>> It's also a reason why you wouldn't want the Mac to become as
>> popular as the PC currently is: if it did, the Mac would become
>> subjected to the same flood of viruses and worms....
> 
> No, it wouldn't.  Microsoft products are inherently less secure.
 
It seems that Apple is not a computer but a religion to you....
 
No software is "inherently" more, or less, secure.  They're more, or
less, secure depending on how it's developed and configured, and this
may change over time.  Yep, Microsoft has a history of having been
sloppy on security issues, but they've started to improve on this.
Microsoft's cardinal sin here has been focusing on features and
adding as many of these as they could, and turning them all on by
default.  Sure, average Joe Smith enjoy seeing stuff like animations
people send them in their email, without having to worry about
configuration issues.  But this also poses a security problem....
 
Now, does the Apple Macintosh reduce the number of features in their
software order to enhance security?  I _don't_ think so.....  Apple
has all the time since the introduction of the Apple Lisa focused on
being user friendly, and in particular claimed being superior over
the PC's in this respect.  However, raising security often implies
becoming _less_ user friendly, which of course poses a serious
conflict to a company like Apple.
 
The main security advantage of the Apple Mac is that it's a niche
computer, i.e. only a minority of computer users choose Macs.
Therefore those who write and spread viruses and worms are less
likely to choose the Mac as their target: they want their stuff to
spread as much as possible, so they choose the most widely used
software as their target.  Which means Microsoft Outlook or Outlook
Express on Microsoft Windows.  If the Mac would take over as being
the most widely used computer, then those people would focus on the
Mac instead, and expose a lot of weaknesses which now go unnoticed.
 
Linux has enjoyed the same security advantage as the Mac for many
years: being a niche OS it has not been the main target for the
virus/worm authors.  However, that is starting to change: Linux
ever-growing popularity has now made it an interesting target of
viruses/worms, and they have started to appear more often during the
latest few years.
 
So don't bend backwards, thinking "my system is inherently more
secure"; doing so may some day bring you to a rude awakening some
day, if your system would gain in popularity.  Of course you can
always hope that your system will remain quite unpopular.... if
that happens, you'll probably remain quite safe from worms/viruses.
 
-- 
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Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
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