Reply #34: I don't think this pleasant situation can last much longer [View All]

First of all, Windows gets most of the viruses because most virus authors write for (and on) the most common platform. As Linux, MacOS, and other architectures emerge, viruses will be written for them, too.

Then, a lot of viruses target Windows because so many hackers hate Microsoft, since Microsoft is the Evil Empire. But the young'uns don't remember when Apple sued the writers of every GUI -- including Xerox Sparc, the original GUI -- and slowed the technology down by five years. At the time, Microsoft was a middle-sized software house, but it was writing for a command-line/character-based market.

Macintosh is adopting the Intel architecture pretty soon. Most malware that exploits machine codes will find the Mac to be "easy meat". That is going to provide a major boon for the cyberviral universe.

You'd think there would be a big push for hardware-independent OS architecture. Well, I would. But it's not happening.

Finally, a lackadaisical attitude toward security holes may allow particular weaknesses in OS architecture to proliferate; when the right virus comes along, it could easily produce a massive wipe-out, the same way a newly-mutated version of Bird Flu or an H9N1 flu could threaten a whole area, or even the entire human race.

Such disasters are exceedingly rare, and I'm sure both physicians and computer scientists are keeping tabs on the situation. But a little extra diligence can go a long, long way.

The "design selection" model (as an analogue of natural selection) also implies that Microsoft architecture is "evolving" the kind of viral resistance that MacOS and Linux have not had the chance to. The superior programming of MacOS and Linux provide a different kind of viral resistance, but will that prevail?

Scan that box, Baby, scan it! :)

--p!