padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com (Padgett Peterson) (04/10/91)
>From: mrs@netcom.com (Morgan Schweers) > Under MS-DOS, it's not possible to close all the security holes >without throwing out the OS and starting anew. Partly true: once you are under MS-DOS, you can't close all the holes (especially the undocumented ones), but if you start before MS-DOS and encapsulate it, you can come close enough for government work. I keep mentioning this since a good system starting at the BIOS level is able to creating a reasonably secure system. Once that is available, we can quit worrying about the next "super stealth" killer virus that infects extended memory and get back to some real work. For all of its faults, there are a lot of good things to be said about MS-DOS since it has transformed the way we think about computers. The biggest is that it demonstates the law of quantum economics: The market forces change until something becomes "Good Enough", once this occurs, the market becomes resistant to change and rewards only improvement. A good example is the proliferation of pointing devices (mice, trackballs, pens, etc.) that just shows that "Good Enough" has not appeared yet. Similarly, the plethora of menuing schemes that existed before Windows 3.0 was another example that has now resolved. It will be interesting to see how MAC 7.0 is received.