I know that you already know the answer to the question. It just springed in my mind after what happened yesterday. I was getting some books off of Amazon.com, since they are cheeper than bookstore, and my mother said something that made me laugh 'till I couldn't breathe. I have a Debian Lenny box while my parents have an XP box. My mom still doesn't understand the difference so she thinks that because I don't have antivirus or antispyware like she does, that my box is less safe I tried to explain it again but she still can't grasp M$ virus vs PC virus. So she says that we must do it on an M$ box since it is more secure. So, basically, this is a question for all you UN*X users out there, and maybe you Mac fans: Has a Windows user ever told you that your machine wasn't safe from all those nasty viruses and trojens [that only affect Windows I might add] since you don't have anti virus or anti anything?

P.S. She also told me that that Norton 360 was safer than Linux.

Any ADMIN can delete this if they believe that it breaks any UNIX.com rules.

There's malware out there for mac and linux. Don't get too cocky there

In my last job we had a Solaris based ftp server. It had a Microsoft virus infected file that was distributed to dozens of our clients' pc's before we caught it. Our clients complained our ftp server was infected. Were they right? In any event, we started runnning a virus scanner. That virus scanner would have caught the infected file.

So depending on your home network and what interactions can occur among your home systems, I might agree with your Mom. Just because you're immune doesn't mean that you should not care if you bring infected files into your home.

In your case Per, its the file that was infected. I wouldn't say that your Solaris server was infected, but it did act as a host/carrier.

The argument could be made that it was infected. Even in medical terms an a host or asymptomic carrier is defined as being infected but not suffering the symptoms of infection; that seems like an appropriate description, the host suffers no ill effects but can transmit the disease.

Well the virus scanner on a server is a definiate since probably 70% of your clients are going to have a M$ Windows box, and most viruses are Windows aimed. I am going to add stuff to my computer like virus protection, but I already had IPtables setup via FireStarter at the time. But the orginal statement was saying that, as I have found, the average Windows user doesn't know the difference between Windows virus and PC virus and believe that all viruses and malware in Windows works on almost any PC.

For example, I called an Internet Service Provider, I won't say who though, and asked them if their internet security that they offer through their internet connection only protected Windows PC's or does it cover other OS such as UNIX or UNIX-like and the response I received was: Don't those viruses affect all computers?
Not bashing windows users, but people just need to understand the difference between PC viruses and Windows viruses and Linux viruses, etc...

Hm, could all of us refer to Microsoft as MS instead of M$? I mean everyone is in the OS business to make money...