Given the increased chatter once more due to mydoom I was wondering what peoples views were on the subject of whether or not there will come a day when we no longer have to worry about viruses? or whether they will be able to be dealt with easily.

It seems that the handling of computer viruses is similar to that of biolgocial viruses. Cures are few and far between, instead we develop ways to deal with things (I think Cholera was the last virus that was actually cured, Aids, cancer etc... all have drugs which help you to live longer but do not for the most part cure the diseases). So, does the computer virus industry behave in the same way as the drug companies? Is the money to be made from fixing inherently insecure applications and providing patches? rather then providing a way to remove, or at least greatly reduce, the threat of viruses? (Yes, is the simple answer to that)

Personally I think we will never see and end to the current situation (at least not for a long time). Operating systems continue to be full of holes which for the most part seem to be due to poor coding. We then have an entire industry that thrives on the FUD from viruses. Anti-virus companies roll out new products every year offering the latest and greatest solutions to the problem, but which require a paid subscription at some point to maintain your signatures. Consulting companies tout huge figures around as the result of virus attacks, leading to new contracts with companies who are scared to death that the next virus will be the one that makes their servers self destuct. OS vendors release new 'improved' versions, which turn out to be full of the same holes as before, just in a different disguise, and so the cycle continues. This cycle creates alot of cash so why stop that by providing users with stuff that actually works as it should and is problem free. True there are OS's out there that are for the most part immune from viruses due to their architecture, but the cost of these makes them totally impractical for all but the largest corps.


So, I fear that the cycle will continue, email virii are the equivalent of the common cold, a very commonplace occurence that you would think we would be able to deal with (yes, i know, 300+ versions of the common cold, but you get the point) and yet they continue to cause havoc on a regular basis. Now, many folks will say that the users have a part in this, that they should be educated in what to do (I myself have said this elsewhere on this site), but for those who don`t they should still be protected, you don`t need to know how to configure your Airbag in order for it to save your life in an accident, and who knows how seatbelts work? or for that matter who can fix their car? probably a very small percentage of those who drive, and yet cars seem to work ( for the most part) and their safety features save lives. End users should not need to know much in order to protect themselves, they are afterall, 'endusers'. so why can`t we make their lifes as easy as possible? Leave the tech stuff to those of us who want to do it. I think our culture is playing a part in this too, but thats an even longer discussion..

Sorry to rant, just wanted to get this out there and hear what others have to say.