From: John Stracke <francis(_at_)ecal(_dot_)com>
I don't agree, and merely wanted to point out that other mail systems
have the same problem. There is anti-virus software for Notes, too.
But a sane mail system does not *spread* viruses.
And people I'd want to hire even indirectly through a retail store don't
do as more than one Microsoft advocate has this week (including privately)
and blame Microsoft customers for persistent and common problems. It's
disgusting to hear people whine for years "everyone's software does it"
(despite evidence to the contrary), "it's not fair," "it's someone else's
fault," and making false and misleading claims about the number and types
of bad messages instead of jumping to fix the problem.
Is this junk bad enough to be completely banned from the Internet (assuming
that notion made sense, which it doesn't)?--no, of course not. There are
worse things that should be vigorously stomped out completley, such as
directed broadcast forwarding.
Is this stuff bad enough to be banned from places where it is known to
cause problems in order to encourage its perpetrators to stop at best
willfully ignorantly claiming that all software is as bad and fix the
problem?--Yes. Is the vacation feature of the package separate from the
main thing?--perhaps but that's irrelevant. Is it possible to configure
this stuff to not be abusive?--perhaps, but that's also irrelevant. Would
the IETF lists refusing mail with the stigma silence anyone including,
those who insist on using that package?--no, they can figure out
alternatives just as those who insist on using spam houses for their mail
services can figure out alternatives.
To say that IMS is "designed to be a trojan horse" just seems a little
off-the-mark to me.
I think the reason Verson's calling it a trojan horse is that it's a program
you install and that then starts spreading viruses. Typically, a trojan
horse is one that spreads its *own* virus; but, from the user's point of
view, that's not a vital difference. (On the other hand, by this viewpoint,
any OS for which viruses exist is a trojan horse.)
Actually, I don't distinguish between Exchange and Outlook(-Express) and
was referring to the misfeatures of the latter (that for the little I know
might be shared by the former) and that are infamous for carrying enemy
soldiers into umpty-million virtual cities. If you've forgotten that
business, just turn a TV to one of the many end-of-year surveys to hear
all about what the media claims was the biggest virus or worm problem ever
and that was entirely the fault of an idiot boy in the Philippines.
As long as problems such as that and this vacation notice bug remain the
fault of people outside the vendor, they won't be fixed.
On a related note, http://www.cert.org/reports/activeX_report.pdf seems
to be a good survey of the problems and available defenses for another
wonderful Microsoft feature that makes sense in a singular, large,
centrally managed corporate network but that is crazy nonsense outside
where authentication is not the same as authorization.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com