>
> ``Has a Unix system using pine ever been exploited like
> Windows/Outlook?..'' Miles
>
> ---------
>
> I think the short answer is yes.
Apropos of not much, you may or may not be aware that there is something of a theological war raging in the Mac community over whether the Mac's relative immunity to malware (I've been using them since '85 without much care given to "protection," and have never caught even a virtual cold) is due to there being so few Mac users that there's no real point in writing Mac viruses, etc., or whether it's because the Unix basis of OS X is inherently safer than Doze.
The former group of believers argue that Unix is also vulnerable to exploitation, but it's just much harder to write Unix/OS X malware than the Doze variety, and the villains in this kind of caper are mostly kids who are far from having enough programming skills to do it. The proponents of the latter side of the argument insist that since OS X, by default, doesn't let even the user have root permission (unless she/he is skilled enough to give it to her/himself, and hopefully she/he is careful enough in that case not to do something so foolish as to go on-line and let someone else in), it has a built-in advantage over Bill of Redmon's diabolical machine.
I don't know who's right here, but as I said I seem to have been immune so far.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)