MA>> I welcome input from anyone regarding security but before you
MA>> put in your two penny worth could you at least do a little
MA>> research an not waste my time.

ML>> research on what? i gave examples of critters that move and
ML>> infect without using SPAM as their avenue of attack... i'm making
ML>> that point because you specifically are limiting your statements
ML>> to SPAM and how you dump it in the trash... my point is that SPAM
ML>> is only one avenue of infection... there are others that are
ML>> already being exploited and i'm positive there are a whole passel
ML>> of others just waiting to be discovered...

 MA> You have given me exploits that only infect the Windows
 MA> environment.

yeah? so? not knowing your level of expertise, i reached into the hat that
most would know... besides, it is not their target that i was expounding on
but their method of egress and expansion...

 MA> They only infect the local machine as far as i know. Charles
 MA> has said that by operating as root when using Linux i am a
 MA> danger to other internet users.

yes... take one of the above types of critters and it'll be using your
system, connection and bandwidth to attack others with...

 MA> The research you need to do is what if any exploits i am
 MA> liable to fall foul of by operating as root in the Linux
 MA> environment and in what way they would make me a menace
 MA> to other internet users.

any time there is a chance that you may be more open to infiltration one
must be extremely wary... there's no telling what some hacker may stumble
upon while developing win oriented critters... IIRC, there are some
critters that can get on to other OS' but whether they do any damage is
another matter... i know for a fact that some 16bit win critters have been
known to get in to OS/2 systems and infect files but that was the extent of
their activity... they never got executed once in... their infection was
done getting in and then stopped there...

 MA> You may wish to follow this in the Linux echo as taking
 MA> up Charles's challange i have thrown my hat in the ring. ;)

that is quite alright... i'm tired of all the petty bickering, bitching,
whining and crying... i'm about to start turning off echos so that i can
read something that actually interests me and that i can enjoy... LINUX is
one of those things but i'll shut it down, too, if that mess starts up in
there...

once again, some of this comes from not knowing your level of expertise...
your "sudden" appearance and the level at which "you"
"speak" can put others on "edge"... in other words,
many have seen a lot of inexperianced folk come out of no where espousing
that there is no harm from doing such'n'such when, in fact, there can
actually be real harm...

)\/(ark