Mike Coslo wrote:
Dee D. Flint wrote:
"David or Jo Anne Ryeburn" wrote:
"Dee D. Flint" wrote:

If you have a suggestion on how to stop them, please let us all in on
it.

Persuade the universe to cease using unsafe operating system software,
browsers, and e-mail programs coming from Redmond, WA ;-). UNIX, including
the version now marketed by Apple, is pretty safe.

David, ex-W8EZE, whose computers are happily MS-free except for safe 11
year old versions of Word and Excel


If everyone switched to UNIX, the solution would be short-lived as the virus
writers would then switch to attacking it. Right now, they simply get more
"bang for the buck" by attacking Windows and it doesn't give them much of a
thrill to also go after UNIX system users or Apple computer users.

You have touched on the answer, Dee.

David is the one who touched on it. The answer *is* to use an
OS designed to be secure. Microsoft products are not, while
virtually all of the current unix systems are. Some unixes (the
ones with open source code, which does not include Apple) do
have higher potential for good security than others.

The "bang for the buck" argument is proof of it too. If you
want a *bang*, then shutdown the *entire* Internet, not just
some percentage of the hosts connected to it. The fact is
that from the start the Internet itself ran on unix. That is
less true today, but it is still true enough that if one could
write a virus to knock out unix, one could just shut the
Internet off for days.

But, of course, it can't be done (or that is exactly what they
would be doing).

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)