mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (07/22/89)
I've been reading this newsgroup for a while now, and have come
to speculate about whether or not the situation is going to become
self-perpetuating. That is, I'm sure that the human scum who write
viri are doing so for the same reasons that any act of vandalism is
committed. The motivations of attention getting and of maliciously
hurting innocent (and often unknown) people are common to all vandals.
The question is: can we speculate that many, if not most, of this
scum reads (and perhaps participates) in this newsgroup? Isn't the
effort of cataloging all the viri egging the scum on to greater
efforts?
The next question is: how much effort should we be putting into
getting the vendors of various machines and operating systems to
design their software to be virus-proof as opposed to writing new
virus detectors/fixers? Let's face it, the current generation of
personal computers have non-existant security not only from viri but
also from user screwups.
Mark Crispin / 6158 Lariat Loop NE / Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-2020
mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU / MRC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil / (206) 842-2385
Atheist & Proud / 450cc Rebel pilot -- a step up from 250cc's!!!krvw@sei.cmu.edu (Kenneth van Wyk) (07/25/89)
In article virus sociology of 21 Jul 89 20:10:28 GMT mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes: > The question is: can we speculate that many, if not most, of this >scum reads (and perhaps participates) in this newsgroup? Isn't the >effort of cataloging all the viri egging the scum on to greater >efforts? I suppose that it's possible to find a pessimistic outlook on just about everything... The flip side of it is that we're getting valuable information out to people who really need it to understand (hence cope with) the virus problem. I think that positive side outweighs any negative side. > The next question is: how much effort should we be putting into >getting the vendors of various machines and operating systems to >design their software to be virus-proof as opposed to writing new >virus detectors/fixers? Let's face it, the current generation of >personal computers have non-existant security not only from viri but >also from user screwups. Newer machines are already being equipped with features, such as hardware memory protection, privileged i/o instructions, etc., that can help in preventing viruses. It's still up to the operating system software to properly use the available hardware. To that end, I believe that it is worthwhile for customers to push vendors to supply more secure and thoroughly tested hardware and software. Ken