Re: [Auth]Somebody on this list has an e-mail worm -- please scanyour systems if you use an MS mail client.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

David Sugar wrote:
> 
> While I have never received any of those infamous solecitius emails last
> year, I still find many people continue to have the need to share their
> most intimate files with me, and now this.  I can setup a procmail filter
> to kill this, but I still have to go through the trouble of receiving and
> processing mail I never wish to read.  It is unfortunate that a
> proprietary software manufacturer has refuse to acknowledge or repair what
> clearly is a fundimental design flaw in their software or to give their
> users the freedom to fix this on their own.
> 


I agree completely.  The sheer lack of security in the MS OS' and
applications (including the "New Technology" line) is sickening.  I
would not care so much if it were Free Software because massive problems
like this could be readily engineered out of the system.

If something like this were to happen on GNU/Linux systems (not entirely
impossible, although it would be very hard for it to survive in the wild
due to people having different software combinations on their systems)
it could be fixed in the code.  This is the way that nature chooses to
deal with such threats: adapt and survive.

The proprietary method is duck, cover, and if you don't see it then it
must not be there.  However, if you do see it then it's your fault for
using your PC.  I actually read a Slate article a few years ago (Slate
is an online magazine owned by MS, IIRC) where the author actually said
that the user was at fault for all of MS Windows' flaws.  The crux of
the article was that the user was at fault because they had taken the
time to turn the PC on in the first place.  This is like a car
manufacturer not putting locks on their car doors and then, when public
outcry occurred, saying "It's not our fault that your cars were stolen. 
You chose to drive it."

The sick thing about this argument is that it's somewhat true.  People
are somewhat at fault for buying into the Redmond monopoly.  However, MS
is not without blame.  They are at blame for actively working to lock
people into a system - through technological, legal, social, and
marketing means - that has a degree of quality so low that it would
never survive in any other comparable free industry.

This is not to say that everything that comes out of Redmond is without
merit - it's not.  Some technologies (like CLI/CLR) are very worthwhile
and certainly MS has hired some very intelligent people.  However, for
every great technology that Redmond comes up with, there are at least 10
mediocre or downright dangerously misengineered technologies.

The best polemic for the pragmatism of Free Software under copyleft
licensing is the existance of these large monolithic proprietary
software companies that can't even take the time to properly fix
problems that are ravaging many of their customers' systems.  And no, I
don't consider releasing a patch to outlook which disables it's ability
to download executable files a "decent fix".  That amounts to fixing a
broken arm with a sledgehammer.

        -Barry