Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on April 12, 2006 01:15 AM
"Either you do all of the things that define a virus, and do them, or more to the point, *have* done them, in the real world, or it is a just a paper tiger."
According to the description of the code, it *is* a virus. If placed in my nfs-shared home based ~/bin directory and used by other users it would infect *their* files. The definition of a virus does not include a requirement that it be released, universally effective, seen in the wild, be successful, be destructive, etc.
Security on a linux system is not *fundamentally* better than windows, from a single user's point of view. If I can get code, ANY code, to run as you through any exploits whatsoever, your account is mine, period. Linux and MS Windows do nothing to prevent this. Both have extremely complex and buggy email and web applications. SELinux may be configurable enough to prevent this, but the complexity makes it unusable for the average user. If MS wanted to pay programmers to destroy the "myth" of Linux invunerability to viruses, I'm certain they easily could.
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Re:Blah, blah. I remember Red Lion.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on April 12, 2006 01:15 AMAccording to the description of the code, it *is* a virus. If placed in my nfs-shared home based ~/bin directory and used by other users it would infect *their* files. The definition of a virus does not include a requirement that it be released, universally effective, seen in the wild, be successful, be destructive, etc.
Security on a linux system is not *fundamentally* better than windows, from a single user's point of view. If I can get code, ANY code, to run as you through any exploits whatsoever, your account is mine, period. Linux and MS Windows do nothing to prevent this. Both have extremely complex and buggy email and web applications. SELinux may be configurable enough to prevent this, but the complexity makes it unusable for the average user. If MS wanted to pay programmers to destroy the "myth" of Linux invunerability to viruses, I'm certain they easily could.
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