[SGVLUG] Something to take your mind of Reiser...

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

I was just asked a very interesting question in the breakroom -- "is it
safer to use linux without any sort of anti-virus software compared to
windows running stuff like Norton when doing online banking?"

To be honest, I don't exactly know how to answer that.

He was also a bit concerned about converting an openoffice document to a
microsoft office format and somehow picking up a "macro" virus in the
process (i.e., it would be "clean" on a Linux system in OpenOffice, but
"dirty" once converted, and therefore capable of infecting a windows
system)

Again, I stumbled a bit trying to figure out HOW to answer that -- my
mind kept coming back to a line from Star Wars: "The FUD is strong in
this one..." -- Sure, I know WHAT the answer is (it is essentially
imposible(*)) but I don't know how to answer it in a way that would make
sense to him.

Anyone else encounter situations like this?  What was your answer?  What
would you tell this guy?

Tom

(*) or "highly improbable" -- that would mean that the version of
Openoffice on a linux system was deliberately injecting viruses when
converting to/saving as "Microsoft Office" formats -- certainly not
impossible for this to happen, but given the "peer review" nature of
open source, you'd have to be damn clever to get it in to the active
codebase without anyone noticing.  [well, I suppose you could get
"everyone on-board" on the idea that it /should/ do this, but that is
only marginally easier -- refer to Dustin's post, to do wo would be
ethically wrong, and we like to think we're above all that, right? ;) ]