On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:57:32 -0500, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
This doesn't seem like a good idea to me, but what do I know - I've only been using computers for nearly 30 years now.
And in that 30 years UNIX was used to build the Internet and there has yet to be someone who cared enough to write something that can hack root on the fly and self-perpetuate a payload to every system that accesses it. Again, remember what Yoda said .. " you must unlearn what you have learned. "
Perpetrating a virus through servers doesn't make as big a splash. There are plenty of reasons why nobody has cared. Windows has a big ol' bulls- eye painted on it for the virus writers.
I just want the question answered as to why Apple has about 20% of the laptop market and x amount of the "desktop" market yet no one has written a virus that can hop from Macbook to MacbookPro to Mac Mini to Mac Pro as they hop from Win2k to XP to Vista? Please just answer why a mainstream UNIX OS has not one virus for it?
So, Bliss doesn't exist? Yep, that's a Linux virus that infects ELF binaries. It self-replicates. It is proof-of concept work, but it does demonstrate that it is theroretically possible. Then there's also things like the Morris worm. Some of the oldest worms on the 'net were propagated solely through Unix systems. That was designed as a POC and it got out of hand and caused massive denial of services. Oh, and the US GAO estimated the cost of the worm between 10 and 100 million US dollars.
When I get a good answer about why UNIX has to have it's users execute the Trojan like a bunch click-click monkeys .. I'll probably stop being a pain in da butt about it. ;D
Because people are moving from Windows to Linux. Windows users have a tendancy to do stupid things like run programs they shouldn't trust. There is no magic about becoming magically smarter when you move from Windows to Linux - you don't get any special insight that says "oh, I shouldn't open the executable file that my sister-in-law's second cousin's mother's third cousin sent to me without checking to see if it's a virus first". Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org