That may be true, but it might also be all the people who hate corporate entities like MS who seek ways out to get them, moreso than less obtrustive companies like Apple. If Apple was the standard the world used, you would see the same number stories and viruses for it that you see for MS now. It's just the appeal of sticking it to the "man" or the "big guy on the block." That's my view.


Sir Spectre

.... Ours is not to reason why, but to fly or fry!

Edited by - Sir Spectre on 25-09-2003 22:50:29

but if apple where to allow people to look inside there tech to see how it worked?

"What? Another girl! Tell me my boy. *whispers* what have you been doing?" - Tobias

You'd get even more viruses. It's like the trojan horse. "Come on in, we know you won't conquer us with good tidings."


Sir Spectre

.... Ours is not to reason why, but to fly or fry!

Then you should stop using Windows and switch to OSX or BeOS or any OS of your choice, then you'd be safe. The same way you don't have the right to complain if you get overweight because too many visits to McDonald's. Noone put a gun to your temple and tell you to buy the burger or buy Windows.

Individuals are responsible for their own actions - should you choose to surrender to peer pressure or cool advertisements, fine - but remember that you still do it on your own free will.

The only thing that would stop MS monopoly is when people start diversifying in purchasing. MS plays by the rules, don't hate the players - hate the game

I'm in total agreement with Fear Factor.


Sir Spectre

.... Ours is not to reason why, but to fly or fry!

FF, no true, but ms dont exactly let us by a computer without windows and assorted crap already on there do they.

"What? Another girl! Tell me my boy. *whispers* what have you been doing?" - Tobias

It's a standard, it doesn't mean you can't upgrade. Like a car, comes with a tape deck, but you want a cd player, are you actually thinking you're stuck with the tape deck because it came with the car?

Besides there are a ton of companies where you can buy a system without an OS on the hard drive, then you just buy your own and install it.


Sir Spectre

.... Ours is not to reason why, but to fly or fry!

Why does everyone blame MS. If you buy a car and it gets stolen, do you blame the manufacturer or the builder if your house gets broken into. No, you blame the thief! IMHO, the guilty parties are the pratts who write the viruses. If they are so talented at programming why don't they put their skill to better use!

Microsoft are at the low end of the scale when it comes to security, unfortunately this comes hand in hand with the services windows products offer. The more serivces you offer the more ports you leave open to vulnerability.

But that report is dead on, the fact that viruses are custom built to attack Windows ensures an excellent propogation rate as apposed to attacking a Linux based system where a virus wouldn't even make news reports.

However, the statement that allowing source code out in to the open would be inviting trouble is a complete fallacy. Im a big fan of open source as it allows a wide variety of professional people to view the source and find security faults as quickly if not prior to hackers, ensuring a quicker patch rate than MS who are always in disaster recovery mode. Everyone who has some experience with any software knows that the only true test environment is a live one.

That's not to say I dislike MS products, I use XP as my main OS but im certainly not living under the false pretence that MS security is good, because it ain't. I wouldn't put a Windows box on the internet without some form of firewalling in a blue fit. Infact I just got attacked while I was writing this.

@Richard: yeah, you dont blame your builder if someone breaks into your house, but if the builder forgot to brick up half of a wall, so the thief could just walk in and nick your tv then its his fault. general security (firewall, antivirus, prudent with opening unknown attachments in email) are your responsibility, massive security flaws in the software are a different matter. I class myself as an advanced computer user, it's been about 10 years since my computer has gone wrong to the point where i cant handle it and i needed to get someone else to do it for me. i use a computer 90%+ of my waking day and am doing computer programming at university, yet i have absolutely NO clue how to protect my computer against outside attack from virusses, trojans, hackers beyond firewall and proxy server. there is no such thing as a hack-proof computer while it is physically connected to the internet (one way or another) so blaming the user is kinda stupid, microsoft made it, microsoft should have made it SECURE.

-arcon
------

Arcon, I'm not blaming the user, I'm blaming the pratts who write viruses. If your house had a window missing or no door it wouldn't matter if there were no thieves around! Security holes in software are only a problem because people exploit them, and as you've said yourself, to find these holes takes a lot of knowledge. I know we don't live in a perfect world, I just feel that we'd all be better off venting our spite at the people who write viruses, rather than the people who try and make a legitimate living writing software.

but even if there where no loopholes, people would still make viruses