Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
ILOVEYOU as an anti-breakup argument
Author: Dotan Dimet Posted: 5/5/2000; 9:45:14 AM Topic: Virus from Manila Msg #: 16988 (In response to 16972) Prev/Next: 16987 / 16989
I think it's more of an argument for Microsoft to get into the anti-virus business, and to start taking security seriously.MS creates hundreds of niches for other software companies to thrive by its existance. Once in a while, we've seen them go after one of these niches and crush their competition like bugs. Once it was the FAX software people, another time it was people working on 3D software APIs, and most noticably it was Netscape's browser niche. Having MS eat up the anti-virus business will be a development most users would cheer.
Breaking up Microsoft is brain-surgery with chainsaws, used to remedy a mental health issue. But MS have been in denial about an obvious problem. By having their software everywhere, making all the pieces play nice together, enabling automation, etc. they've done some remarkable things. But they did this while ignoring the core problem of security. It is time for them to realize the fundemental problem and do something about it.
When every cell around has the same DNA, new kinds of viruses thrive, and these drive the development of new solutions. Really big multi-cellular bodies have immune systems to protect themselves, which are quite different (and several orders of magnitude more sophisticated) than the "anti-virus software" single-celled organisms have.
The problem of Security ("developing an immune system") looks too big to me for MS to solve with a white paper. They can't just whip up a security-concious version of WScript.exe, cmd.exe and their other general interpreters without breaking lots of stuff everywhere, and they probably aren't going to really address the problems of users running unsafe content in any forseeable version of Windows.
How about instead of breaking up MSoft, the US government passes a regulation specifying that no more than 50% of the desktops in any work place may run an OS from the same manufacturer? There are stupider regulations, and this will at least hinder the spreading of viruses a bit, so it's a bit of a safety regulation. (I say from the same manufacturer to catch the smart alec who thinks that NT & Win98 are different OSes - "we play both kinds of music, Country AND Western"...)
This will break the MS monopoly, which is based on business sales. It won't actually damage the company, but it will force it to deliver solutions for hetrogeneous environments.
Web applications and cross-platform browsers (like the one made by whatstheirname) will get a big boost out of this.
People will stop sending Word and Powerpoint attachments (or stupider things; a publisher I know, a Mac-only shop, once received a logo from a client as an image file embedded in a Word document...).
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