MyDoom seeks to destroy antivirus firms

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Falling into the classic "religious" trap

"I suppose you're one of those people who thinks it's the woman's fault that she got raped."

No dude. However, if she kept walking through dark alleys in bad neighborhoods at four in the morning, she is being openly irresponsible. If she stayed in open lit areas during reasonable hours of the day, she could wear whatever she wants and she would be safe.

"I'd expect that of a professional IT person, but not of Joe sixpack with the latest Dell."

That does not matter. That's like saying a person just randomly popped pills and wound up in the hospital, but it can't be his fault because he "didn't know any better". The end result for this person will be the same. No one should be so naive as to think they'd connect to a WORLDWIDE PUBLIC network without any problems. He should consult Dell as to what he should do before going online. And indeed, many compkanies are starting to offer some initial assistance with acquainting new users to security, viruses, spyware, etc. To assume that all online evil should be abolished just because of these unsuspecting people is asking for a fantasy world. Surely we don't expect all pimps, drug dealers, rapists, and gang members to be wiped off the face of the earth just so Suzie can wear a miniskirt through a Harlem back alley at four in the morning. We don't look to get rid of all evil so much as we take precautions against it. You are falling into the classic "religious" perspective which thinks that if someone even thinks of something evil, then they are evil. This is retarded. I could think of raping and killing whole villages of people, and there is NOTHING wrong with that. However, if I actually DO these things then that is evil, for I intended to do these things. See the difference now?

Your motorcycle response, once again, made no sense. The difference being, you have control and oversight as to when you connect the box to the Net. The only way someone could tamper with it is if YOU allowed them to do so..kind of like how you need to invite a vampire into your house before they are allowed to do their dirty work.

"No, the action (the criminal element) IS the crime.. the intention is only a mitigating circumstance that decides how much jail time the criminal receives.."

No, for the reason I explained above. Let's say I work for Symantec and I am creating a virus (or using one already in existence) that I want to use to purposely infect a system so I can learn about the nature of how a virus works. You're saying this is a criminal act? Where's the crime? Who got hurt? Who lost money?

"Again, the same flawed logic... and do you know how many CDs it would take to backup a 200GB hard drive? Not a practical solution.."

Whatever dude, now you're just pulling stuff from your behind. You tell me what company uses multiple CD-ROMs as their backup solution. TAPE BACKUP, my friend! Just like any company uses. And no home user needs a 200Gig drive. I don't know anyone that has more than an 80 or 100, which is already overkill. And if someone is filling up a drive that large, they are obviously more than a Joe Sixpack, and thus know to some extent what they are doing.

"but what about systems that indirectly are responsible for someone's life? Like the computer of the lawyer of the death row inmate, convicted of a crime he didn't commit?"

Again, backup and redundancy are the solutions to what you described, and this is old hat. Any lawyer dealing with important data like that should definitely have some kind of real admin on his staff, and if he doesn't, that is his fault, not some fart lard writing cyberdeath in mom's cellar.

"and the innocent man is put to death because the lawyer couldn't access the necessary information."

Even if some extraordinary circumstance happened like that, they'd obviously put a hold on the execution if they thought they mnight be able to prove innocence, no? C'mon!

Lawyer: "but I'm telling you, I could prove his innocence but my machine just got hosed!"

Court: "too bad! No one told you to run Windows, you moron! For that, your client will fry!"

Posted by: Jeff Spicoli   Posted on: 10/19/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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