[plug] M$ buys RAV antivirus, sad.

[Craig Ringer]

> What's a bet that that one or more AV companies will secretly write a
> virus that targets or even exploits it?

No bet. They won't have to. Much easier to wait for the usual people to 
do it, then proclaim that their product will /really/ protect you. If MS 
does integrate a virus scanner (and remember, I'm only guessing about 
that being the purpose of this buyout), it probably won't be long before 
something comes along that can avoid then disable it.

Unless, of course, you're running MS Palladium. In that case, the virus 
scanner will no doubt not be disabled. Though the virus/exploit will 
still probably bypass the virus scanner, it won't be able to damage it 
nor the user's certified apps. Of course, the user won't be able to see 
what their certified apps and OS components are doing or mess with them, 
either... no thanks.

My home box has a win2k partition, and it's never been anywhere near a 
virus scanner. It's not needed if the user has a brain, the PC in 
question doesn't even know how to connect to the 'net and it is never 
used to do anything beyond the odd game anyway. The DHCP server on my 
home LAN identifies that my PC has booted into windows by the client 
identifier, and sends a different reply. Same address, but it doesn't 
set the gateway - no 'net access for you.

Craig