Re: Newsgroup
From: William Morse (wdmorse_at_twcny.rr.com)
Date: 02/06/05
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Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 01:12:25 -0500 (EST)
dkomo <dkomo871@comcast.net> wrote in
news:cttvi6$1eh8$1@darwin.ediacara.org:
> Wirt Atmar wrote:
>
>> Phil writes:
>>
>>
>>>I've used Netscape and its newsreader for over a decade now, and one
>>>of the benefits is that its based on Mozilla, an open source program
>>>which many very smart programmers have collectively worked on over
>>>the years. The result is that, at least according to my computer geek
>>>friend, it is far more immune to viruses and the like than Microsoft
>>>programs.
>>
>>
>> And in that same regard, dkomo writes:
>>
>> > I caught a major adware infection this week surfing the Web with
>> > Internet Explorer. That program is a piece of crap in terms of
>> > security. It allows "drive-by installs" of some very noxious
>> > malware. If you are unlucky enough to surf to an unfriendly web
>> > site, your computer is infected in a matter of seconds before you
>> > can even react.
>> >
>> > As I clean up my computer, I've continued to web surf using the
>> > Netscape browser and bypassing the installed adware.
>>
>> As odd as these comments sound to the topic of the group, they're
>> actually very much on-topic. You hear these kinds of things
>> constantly among users, and while they're true to an extent, it's
>> also important to understand their context because they're not true
>> as to their general thrust: that is, IE is more poorly engineered
>> than the other browswers.
>>
>> Up until recently, Internet Explorer represented well over 80% of the
>> browser population in use, and as a consequence it suffered the same
>> slings and arrows of all monocultures: a vigorous attack by
>> pathogens.
(snip)
>> In this argument, no single species can come to be dominant simply
>> because once it does, it is attacked by a "rain of pathogens,"
>> thereby reducing or curtailing its capacity to spread, allowing
>> secondary and tertiary species, which are not yet under attack, to
>> temporarily prosper in the wake of the troubles of the primary
>> species.
>
> The pathogen analogy is a good one. The computer pathogen I caught
> was the kind that quickly incapacitates its host. It literally
> freezes a computer and renders it unusable. This is a pathogen that
> *must* be killed as quickly as possible.
> The people who develop these kinds of programs are idiots no matter
> how proficient they are. A program like this doesn't sell any product
> and motivates victims to get rid of it with all haste. The end result
> is a lot of frustrated and angry people.
And just as in biological evolution, internet evolution doesn't care
whether you are frustrated and angry, except as that affects the spread
of the program. Now the particular malware you cite may not be an
effective parasite, in that it invokes too strong an immune response in
the host, and the response includes actions that make it less likely to
spread. Some other programs appear to be much more successful in
infecting hosts and spreading themselves, partly because they are
relatively benign. Still others are not benign, but spawn so many copies
of themselves (some viruses and worms) that they are still successful. It
would be interesting to know to what extent web browsers use "sex"
(exchanging subroutines) to help block spyware and adware.
Yours,
Bill Morse
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