[GRLUG] Apple did it already (was: Proof of concept)

[Roberto Villarreal]

On Friday 06 April 2007 13:53, Tim Schmidt wrote:
> On 4/6/07, Roberto Villarreal <rvillarreal at mktec.com> wrote:
> > But if he was to get some kind of
> > userland virus (open source programs do still have bugs, remember!), it
> > would, as far as he's concerned, destroy his system.  It doesn't matter
> > that the system is still running... it is the *user data* that determines
> > the worth of a user's computer.
>
> Precisely the type of data for which you should have good backups.  :)

I actually anticipated that someone would bring that up :-).  However, I think 
it'd be safe to say that for the "normal" people (and even probably most 
technical people), they backup for purposes of "catastrophe", i.e. hard drive 
dies.  But unless you are actually backing up for "archiving" purposes (i.e. 
where's that file I worked on last year?), chances are your backup(s) are all 
still going to be virus-laden... doesn't do you a whole lot of good!  While 
it is SOP for most businesses, it's probably out of scope for your typical 
home user (technical or otherwise).

Roberto