Re: Off-topic: Spam

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

> How incredibly stupid are these Spammers -- or how incredibly stupid
> must they
> know very many of their recipients to be -- for them to imagine that
> anyone with
> a lick of sense is going to open an unknown message that presents
> itself that way ?
I presume that virus spammers' goal is mainly to make Microsoft operating
systems less desirable; one seldom if ever sees Mac and Unix/Linux viruses.
The goal is obviously not to poison the systems of intelligent persons, but
the user base of innocent drudges -- is it 90%? -- that still opens every
attachment.
I think these people really do intend to do a public service, paradoxical
as that sounds. One only saw pdf viruses (which required considerable
ingenuity) when Adobe was in the forefront of suing that poor Russian
programmer; it was as if the hacker community said, "Let go, or we'll kill
the pdf format." And what do you know? Adobe changed its position pretty
darn quickly. And the pdf viruses disappeared.

Hacker and pirate culture is not at all simple.