Benjamin Geer on Sun, 14 May 2000 07:50:10 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> Viruses on the Internet: Monoculture breeds parasites |
On Fri, May 12, 2000 at 11:33:40AM +0200, Menso Heus wrote: > As a software engineer you should have known that the I Love You virus > could have been written for Unix or Linux as well, just put the code in a > shell script. Not so. To write a virus, it is not enough to write a shell script that would do damage if you ran it. A virus is a program that *runs itself* when you receive it in the mail, and does damage. You can't write a virus for Linux because no Linux mail agent would run a shell script. If the author of Pine, Elm, Mutt, or any of the other Linux mail agents said that they were adding such a 'feature', people would think they had gone insane. Viruses can exist for Windows only because Outlook automatically runs programs that it receives. > The *PROBLEM* is the *USER* Like always, it's the end-luser that goes 'hey > someone loves me clickclickclick' whithout paying attention to what it isz > they are actually opening. There is (or should be) a difference between reading a mail message and executing a program that it contains. If you send me a shell script in the mail, my mail agent will show me the text of your message (and of the script), without running the script. If I want to run the script, I'll have to save it in a file, give it execute permissions, and run it myself. This is how a mail agent should behave, and this is why there are no Linux viruses. Outlook, on the other hand, runs the ILOVEYOU virus *when you read the message*, without even telling you that the message contains a program. See the difference? Benjamin Geer # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net