Linux.com

Hello? It can infect files in the same directory! Therefore it meets the definition of being replicating. Before WORMS, and whiz-bang complex content email programs, the ONLY way a virus could spread was by infecting files on disks and hoping that those files were moved through human interaction to other machines by way of floppies or file transfer programs. A proof of concept virus can BE a virus. Nothing prevents a virus run by a user from modifying files in the user's own directory on a regular Linux machine. If the user has executables stored locally they can be infected on 99% of the Linux machines out there. Linux may not have significant virus problems now, but that does not mean that it cannot happen. Unintelligent advocacy is worse than no advocacy.

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