A solution to viruses

I have to agree with Doug

I have to agree with Doug and Larry: Which ever OS is hot at the moment is going to be targeted by malware writers. I know this is going to draw some fire from the Mac enthusiasts out there, but I firmly believe that one of the reasons Macs see less malware is because they're such a small portion of the target systems. I'm not going to say Mac is or isn't a more secure operating system, I'm just saying that OS X is only receiving a fraction of the attention from malware writers that Windows is. And the more attention you get, the easier it is for someone to find fault with the way you did things.

Sorry Doug,

Martin McKeay
martin_cw@mckeay.net
http://www.mckeay.net/secure/
Voicemail: 916.231.9479

The virus writers could

The virus writers could shift their targets, but since their viruses won't run, it would be a waste of time.

Ok, it is really easy to

Ok, it is really easy to blame Microsoft and true, they have a reputation for having security holes uncovered, exploited, hacked, blah blah blah... But if everyone were to shift to another OS, wouldn't the writers of such fun malicious code and viruses shift their efforts as well?

But then, why do the other OS contenders have system updates? Let's face it; we are in a computing world that the hot OS is going to be tinkered with.

User education, now that is a tool EVERYONE can use and I can guarantee would yield some noticeable results!

It is time for microsoft to

It is time for microsoft to deal with the flaw problems ahead of time, not waiting for trouble to show to its clients pcs. I suggest a flawkless operating system. to much for microsoft ?

Most computer pundits cut

Most computer pundits cut off debate on this issue. It needs to go on. We're quite possibly in a losing race against the virus writers unless we render their creations harmless.

There's nothing in the architechture that I described that would prevent you from installing your iTunes, Firefox, or any other program you wished.

But don't expect your Firefox, iTunes, or any viruses that arrive in the email to access your Outlook address book or to write things all over your disk. Now, if you want them to have access to your mail, you can do that, but they can't do it by themselves.

It may be hard for those whose only experience is with the Microsoft/Intel architecture to imagine that there could be another approach that would maintain the same flexibility and freedom that they now have. No one is suggesting going back to the giant mainframe dinosaurs, but why continue to suffer when there are alternatives based on solid experience, and yes, common sense, that would change our computers for the better?

Oh... on the time-sharing systems I described, people wrote and ran lots of programs--no administrator had to give approval. Just don't try anything funny, it wouldn't work anyway.

Alternative architectures can also speed up our PCs. Currently they are wasting time checking everything for evilness, and the overhead is only growing. They also pause when accessing devices, a legacy of the old IBM PC architecture. Believe it, you can compute while things happen, jobs can run independently without interruption -- but not on the systems we have. Let's demand better. The technology has been here, but has been ignored.