Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:14:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Spam filtering (was Re: Capclave)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

I agree with Steve and Mike.

It means one thing to view a text file on the screen.  It means
something quite different to listen to music on the speaker.  It means
something different yet again to view a picture on the screen.  And
none of these are the same as treating a file as a program and running
it.  Or as emailing the file to someone.

By conflating all of these actions under the anti-concept "open a
file," Microsoft has created confusion, and led to the spread of vast
numbers of viruses, worms, and (indirectly) spam.

Concepts are supposed to group similar things, to improve
understanding and efficiency.  Anti-concepts group dissimilar things,
and cause misunderstanding and inefficiency.

A better user interface would require the user to say what he wants
done with the file.  The computer can help by saying what kind of file
it is, and what can be done with it.  But just going ahead and *doing*
it, without permission, is *not* helpful.

Simply looking at an email should always be completely harmless.
It is the way I do it.  No matter how clever a virus writer is, all
he can do to me is cause a different pattern of characters to be
displayed on my screen when I view his email.  This has nothing to
do with how common the OS I use is.