> of course MS is part of the problem as well
> as the solution, with the poor security of some of their software.
To be fair to MS, spam isn't their fault, it's the fault of the basic SMTP
protocol not being secure enough, and the numerous people out there with
insecured servers. (and most of those are not Exchange, much as MS would
like them to be)
Email-borne viruses, sure, but even so, being able to automate Outlook from
code has a _lot_ of uses, and installing the various security patches
scuppers a lot of apps out there that rely on being able to do exactly the
same things that viruses do, just for a good reason rather than a bad one.
Trust me, once you've seen the "my app doesn't work any more, because
Outlook keeps saying 'a program wants to send mail on your behalf'" or "I
can't receive executable files any more, how do I get them back" question as
many times as I have, you get a different perspective on this stuff. If
virus writers ever bothered using ExMAPI to write their viruses, then the
fun would really start..
The reason there's no PINE (say) viruses is because PINE isn't powerful
enough to support them, -- it's more secure because it has less features..
Alternatively, I'll bet you could write a nice virus for the EMACS mail
reader if you wanted to, but nobody bothers because there are too few people
out there using it.
-- dan
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