Computer Extinction

from the origin-of-kernels-theory dept

With the outbreak of recent virus attacks, I got to thinking. Why have humans survived as long as we have without being completely erraticated by viruses? It's because we all have different DNA. The problem with the current state of computers is that we for the most part all run the same software.. windows. How is our data to survive if we all have the same DNA? Could there be a virus so bad it wipes out all the computers?

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Friends of the Revolution
Computer Extinction
by Brian Day

With the outbreak of recent virus attacks, I got to thinking.  Why have
humans survived as long as we have without being completely erraticated by
viruses?  It's because we all have different DNA.  The problem with the
current state of computers is that we for the most part all run the same
software.. windows.  How is our data to survive if we all have the same
DNA?  Could there be a virus so bad it wipes out all the computers?

Security Through Obscurity
--------------------------
My solution, I use only outdated and unpopular OS/Hardware platforms.  I
have an IRIX gateway!  The only thing that could be better would be an
Amiga gateway.  I would like to see some hacker or virus attack that thing.  

A couple of weeks ago my wife was on the IRIX machine and was checking her
mail when she turned to me and asked why the attachment wasn't doing
anything?  I told her that she had just been sent the Love Bug, and if she
wanted to get it to work on IRIX she would have to compile it herself...
and that I did not have G++ installed on the computer... and she could
download it for free... but it is only available as source code... so she
would have to compile the compiler.  My point... there was no way she was
going to launch this thing.  

Celebrate Diversity
-------------------
The other way to survive the big outbreak is to have a large number of
players in the application market.  This way everyone uses different
programs much like we all have different DNA.  Mike Masnick recently
admitted to me that he still uses his copy of Eudora from 3 years ago.
Good for your Mike!  I celebrate your diversity!  I still use the NCSA
Telnet for the Mac I downloaded 6 years ago (version 2.7B for mac).  We are
both survivors.

Microsoft Break-up is good?
-------------------------
My last point is that perhaps the breakup of Microsoft will allow other
software company's to compete both on the OS and application front so that
we can not only have more choice in software, but also so that our data
might live to see another day.

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