security through obscurity

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Zack says:
| On Fri February 13 2004 10:56, geer at world.std.com wrote:
| > versus "opened source" (as in dropping Microsoft's
| > drawers for Russia, Germany, France, ...)
| ... the world...
| WideOpenWindows: please direct all sharp, flying objects toward this aperture.
|
| If/When this torrent of worms and viruses hits, *that* will be a great time to
| be a Windows non-user.

Not necessarily.  Consider the  recent  stories  about  the
supposed DoS attack on SCO.  Ignore for now the question of
whether this attack actually happened.

The SCO people publicly blamed linux  supporters,  and  the
media widely reported this as a fact. They casually ignored
the obvious explanation  that  such  code  is  most  likely
written  by  an experienced Windows programmer, not a linux
programmer.  The media didn't bother asking  for  evidence,
they just repeated the slander.

The PR success of this explanation implies  that  the  same
approach  will be used in the future.  So we can expect the
linux crowd to be blamed for any such torrent of worms  and
viruses.