RE: [Asrg] News Article - Editorial on spam by Bill Gates

["Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker@verisign.com>]

Points of information:

	The DDoS exploits against the DNS roots were launched from Linux
boxes.

	Worms existed on the Internet and DECNet long before Windows

Worms and viruses will always do better if they attack a common platform
than a rare one for the simple reason that to propagate a virus need only
pass the infection on to an average of more than one new host per host
infected.

None of the O/S platforms in use today scores well on the security front.
Microsoft is the only company to have made a public recognition of this
fact.

		Phill	


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Barry Shein [mailto:bzs@world.std.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 11:04 PM
> To: Yakov Shafranovich
> Cc: asrg@ietf.org
> Subject: Re: [Asrg] News Article - Editorial on spam by Bill Gates
> 
> 
> 
> >Why I Hate Spam
> >And what we're doing about it.
> >
> >BY BILL GATES
> 
>       ...
> 
> >But a single company can't stem the tide of spam alone...
> 
> 
> Ironically, it may well be that a single company can stem the tide of
> spam alone and, remarkably enough, it's Mr Gates' company.
> 
> Apparently much of the spam is forwarded via computers which have been
> infected by viruses turning them into unwaitting mail slaves for
> spammers.
> 
> Reviewing the most common of these viruses, such as Jeem, sobig.a and
> Proxy-guzu, indicates that they all target Microsoft's winows
> operating system. Versions up to and including their latest XP and ME.
> 
> There's a reason for this: Microsoft's operating systems are
> vulnerable to viruses.
> 
> Other operating systems, or at least late-releases (e.g., Max OSX),
> are not susceptible to viruses.
> 
> The technology for immunizing OS's against viruses has been known for
> about 40 years (before viruses even existed!) It's been commonly used
> in other OS's for about 20 years. And it's been available on
> consumer/desktop PC-class machines for at least 10 years.
> 
> So why does Microsoft continue to provide opportunity for spammers
> unnecessarily?
> 
> And why does Mr Gates act like he does not know this?
> 
> 
> -- 
>         -Barry Shein
> 
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