RE: in case nobody else noticed it, there was a mail worm released today

[Roger Marquis <marquis () roble com>]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Vivien M. wrote:
> And, care to tell me why, as someone else pointed out, if I were to switch
> to Evolution on your random GNU/Linux distribution, someone couldn't write a
> similar worm.

Rhetorical questions illustrate a lack of technical rational, thanks.
But do re-read the message you're referring to, specifically, the
section regarding unpublished APIs and context switching.  If you
need more in-depth reasons see any of the URLs listed at
<http://www.msfree.com/>.

> The reason they don't do it is because there isn't a critical
> mass of Evolution/GNU/Linux/glibcX.Y to make a big stink... And there is
> such a critical mass for MS.

No, sorry, false analogy though it does account for some portion
of MS' mess.  The larger reason is that viruses are substantially
easier to write for Outlook, Exchange, et al.  For another example
look at Unix Apache's market share (>75%) and it's vulnerability
share (<1%).

As Java applications make clear, it doesn't matter what your market
share is if the software is secure in the first place.

-- 
Roger Marquis
Roble Systems Consulting
http://www.roble.com/