Simon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> There are also platform independant viruses - but
> definitely most are written for Windows simply
> because its the most popular and the juvenile
> idiots that write viruses tend to have 'issues'
> with Microsoft. In some ways its quite redeeming
> for Microsoft that these kinds of people hate them

Well, the "juvenile idiots" that do write viruses aren't always writing viruses for mass computer destruction. Windows' popularity also makes it a target for the creation of spam zombies--a huge problem.
>
> Yes there are a whole load of Windows worm viruses
> sitting on thousands of machines around the web
> scanning anything they can see, and then
> installing themselves on any unprotected machine
> they find. Some of them email things like your
> passwords on and the people that are infected
> don't have virus software and often don't have a
> clue they are infected and effectively spreading
> the virus around the world...

Yep, pretty much.

> Yes Linux is good and because its used by all the
> hackers no one really writes viruses for it...

Well, it only makes sense if you're some 15 year old kid out to start trouble and write a virus for linux, you could be asking for very serious trouble from any of the real pros out there if they track you down. But the biggest protection that Linux has is that it is opensource. If there is a vulnerability, you have a whole trove of people looking at it and saying "ah ha!". Windows is not opensource and that is its major downfall. If there is an error in the code that leads to a security breach, then its the people writing these things that are going to spot it and then everybody has to wait for Windows to try to fix the problem. You lose a massive think tank that way.

Stephanie





In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.--Ralph Waldo Emerson