Malware for Linux

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

"Michael ODonnell" <michael.odonnell at comcast.net> writes:
>
> >> Those who use terms like "immune" or "virus-proof" when
> >> discussing Linux do everybody a disservice since neither
> >> is true.
> >
> >Ouch.
>
> Ooops.  I forgot about your signature line.  ;->
>
> > I gave careful consideration to adopting my current signature
> > line, for exactly the reason of the problems of conveying an
> > inference of "immune" -- when that is not, and cannot possibly
> > be, the case.
>
> Ah.  I'll probably concede any point you want to make about
> the dictionary definition of "-proof" as a modifier
[...]

I believe his signature actually uses "-proofed", not "-proof";
so the relevant dictionary-entry might be...:

    $ dict -- -ed
    1 definition found

    From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
    [gcide]:

      -ed \-ed\
         The termination of the past participle of regular, or weak,
         verbs; also, of analogous participial adjectives from nouns;
         as, pigmented; talented.
         [1913 Webster]

... which indicates that "virus-proofed" is a conjugated verb,
not an adjective like "virus-proof". i.e.: he's telling us that
his PC has *gone through some sort of process* ("suffered an action",
as my copy of GCIDE puts it...).

In other words...:

> The security-is-a-process-not-a-product dictum

So...:

> FWIW, some term that conveys the "process" idea, or the notion
> that "perfect-security-is-impossible-but-we're-better-than-most"
> would be preferable.  I sorta like "hardened".

Not to be confused with "hard"? ;)

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."