Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

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Re: Unix and Email Viruses

Author:	Paul-Michael Agapow
Posted:	6/18/1999; 1:13:13 AM
Topic:	Unix and Email Viruses
Msg #:	7548 (In response to 7456)
Prev/Next:	7547 / 7549

I'd like to think Gosling was taken out of context. The alternative is that he said a completely boneheaded thing. Fred Cohen did his pioneering virus work on mainframes. And surely the Internet Worm wasn't that long ago.

Paul Bruno lists a host of sensible reasons why Unix might be less prone (not immune) to viruses, which might be summarized as this: Unix is safer due to social rather than technical reasons. Having done a related chunk of work during my PhD on this, I concur. Unix doesn't have a good infection vector (exchanging binaries), naive administrators/users, the Bulgarian Virus Factory, the critical mass of virus writers and potential hosts.

And because this safety is due to social factors, it could all change very suddenly.

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