" From: farna@xxxxxxx " " [] " I suspect a recent virus onslaught has been affecting the list server. " That's what I was told the last time the list went down. " [] " It sounded to me that their protection (for their own machines) was " a little weak. it wouldn't surprise me. most managers have to be poked in the eye with a pointed stick before they're willing to spend $$ to prevent attacks. we never saw this virus warning -before- the big crash... " Appearently their servers are MS based machines, mistake #1 imho. when i was casting about for an isp a few years ago, i found many who said their ms servers couldn't run one week without crashing. one scheduled twice-weekly preemptive reboots. that tells me they didn't even handle normal operation well. by comparison, my aged 170MHz workstation gets a semiannual patchfest/reboot, and runs 24/7 in between. " not UNIX flavored, which are much less susceptible to attack -- so " far. It's only a matter of time before malicious hackers figure out " the Internet is mostly run by UNIX/LINUX machines even though most " connected to it are MS based! true, but -- there are many flavors of unix/linux on many hardware platforms, and no one attack can hit even a fraction of them. they are also generally more robust and attack-hardenable than ms. there is only one ms, and over 90% of all computers run it. most people who run it have no awareness of security. until very recently, default settings were all convenience oriented, not security. and the coding was a mess [though i'll grant their consciousness has finally been raised]... what a target! the bulk of attacks are done by 'script kiddies' who download someone else's tools and push buttons. that is one reason why you see so many variants of some attacks. ________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay the genius nature internet rambler is to see what all have seen adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and think what none thought