Microsoft's Charney Suggests 'Net Tax to Clean Computers (PCWorld)

Put a bunch of fucking idiots on Linux and it's going to get just as many
viruses. Nothing about Linux stops people from downloading random
"Installer Scripts" (or random RPMs or random DEBs) and executing them.

The appliance model of most distros tries to stop that but fails because
ultimately the appliance model is hostile to real-world users. Most people
want at least a few pieces of software that is not packaged by their distro
(or at least not packages in a recent enough version) and they must resort
to third-party packages or installers.

The only way to stop stupid people from damaging their systems is to stop
letting stupid people do anything remotely interesting or useful with the
system.

It's no different than driving. You can't design a car that is incapable
of being crashed; the only thing you can possibly do is ban anyone who
can't prove themselves truly capable of the task from getting behind the
wheel (which in theory a driving test is supposed to do, but fails horribly
at, because the tests are short and easy and don't generally involve
stressful or distracting situations).

Linux is safer because the average user doesn't use Linux, because the
average user actually wants the computer to just work and not require them
to get a PhD in Excessively Complex Interfaces for Things Regular People Do
With Computers That the CS Nerds Who Develop Linux Don't Do Because They're
Not Representative of Normal Folks. The average user actually _really
wants to install random apps from the Web_ because that's where you find
cool stuff and not Word Clone 3.0 or Math Engine App or
LibOnlyDevelopersUseThisBecauseItsAFreakingLibraryNotAnApplication and so
on. They don't want KDEGeneaologyApp, they want GeneologyPro that their
Grandma is using because that's what their Grandma is using. They want
Cool Commercial Game because for a very large number of users those games
are the _only fucking reason they own a computer at all_... while the Linux
nerds don't play any games because they're not normal people and they
actually have fun writing code instead of shooting zombies with friends
online. There's nothing wrong with that -- nothing says you have to have
fun shooting zombies and that you can't have fun writing code. But only a
moron thinks that just because they don't want to shoot zombies with
friends online in a quality game that actually handles lag and voice chat
and match making and has cooperative and versus modes and has graphics
where the zombies look like zombies (yes, that's L4D I'm talking about)
that the game industry as a whole is somehow irrelevant despite being
mostly recession proof and having grown to the same size and budget levels
as Hollywood.

And then there's people like me who (despite being hardcore Linux users for
years) have their fun writing games for friends to shoot zombies online...
which pretty much means not writing for Linux because the graphics drivers
suck and the audio driver interface changes every 2 years and there's no
way to develop any kind of remotely useful installer that doesn't have to
be rewritten and redeployed every 6 months. Oh, and the Linux game userbase
has an even higher percentage of pirates than Windows and jhas a teensy
fraction of gamers as a whole, as Loki's sales vs usage figures of the
original Quake 3 for Linux box will show you; they couldn't even sell
50,000 copies but a couple hundred thousand people were playing Quake 3 on
Linux based on server stats. Go go asshole Linux users who think Freedom
means getting everything for free just because they want it.

Until Linux makes it easy for people to actually install the apps they
actually want -- Free or non-Free -- with no bullcrap, it's going to be
unpopular with Regular Folk on a desktop machine. Unfortunately, as soon
as Linux does that in order to become a popular desktop OS, it's going to
be just as easy and likely to get a virus on Linux as it is on Windows.

Pretty much a textbook case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Back in 2003 or 2004, I took a 15 mile drive along a back road in
Vermont. Along the way, I found several tiny computer stores. One was
run out of a one-room storefront; another was run out of somebody's
barn.

All these stores theoretically sold merchandise, but the selection was both
tiny and dubious: Chinese UPSs with no brand names(!), funny-looking
mice, and old monitors, for example.

I asked one of the store owners where his income came from. He said that
about 98% of his income came from spyware removal, and the other 2%
from hardware and teaching people how to use eBay.

Shortly thereafter, Microsoft released Windows XP SP2, and within a year,
every single one of these little computer stores had gone out of business.
Around the same time, several people with chronically infected Windows
machines stopped getting constant spyware infections.

But we know that in the recent past (last decade):

• Microsoft now insists on giving programmers (at least those who write customer facing code) some introduction to the principles of secure programming, knowledge which is lacking from many (most?) Free Software developers.
• Microsoft's core libraries (their C library, and so on) include components designed to be less mistake prone, and thus cause less security flaws, and they have mandated the use of the safer options wherever practical in new work by their own people.
• Microsoft invested (training, logo programs, etc.) in getting ISVs to stop doing things that encourage unsafe behaviour, like spuriously requiring Administrator privileges.
• Microsoft began developing and giving away anti-malware products to clean up already infected systems.

and in the more distant past (last two decades):

• Microsoft began producing an OS which has an actual security model, in which it's possible to look at a problem and say absolutely "that should not happen", rather than just being permanently scared of what's possible.
• Microsoft began accepting reports of security threats and acting on them, not as quickly as some would like, and not as openly, but they do act now.