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by 80211 3257 days ago
Right. The Mac Zealots will say "These aren't viruses! They're unwanted programs purposefully installed by the user who thought he was updating Acrobat." But it's like a 2nd amendment advocate trying to win an argument by pointing out that word "Assault Rifle" is meaningless. It may be true, but it's not a way to argue.
1 comments
SomeStupidPoint 3256 days ago
I'm pretty sure "assault rifle" [0] is a reasonably well-defined term and you mean "assault weapon" [1] in your post.

Pointing out that "assault weapon" is meaningless is trying to combat emotive, irrational legislation based on conflating "assault weapon" with "assault rifle" because most people don't understand the difference (and one of the terms was chosen to be intentionally confusing).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon

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80211 3256 days ago
You completely misunderstand my point. I'm a card-carrying NRA member, but I wince when I hear someone notice that a anti-2nd-amendment zealot mixes up terms like "magazine" and "cartridge" and thinks "Aha! I've won this argument because you don't know what these basic terms mean." It really doesn't help convince people on the other side to consider another point of view.

In fact, your zealous answer proves my point.

Now back to viruses and PUPs.

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SomeStupidPoint 3256 days ago
I think you misunderstood mine: it's unlike the case of "virus" in the sense that it acquired a general meaning and then was retrofitted with a technical one to co-opt feelings for political goals.

It would be like if people had used "virus" as a generic without it ever having a technical definition (by analogy to infections), then Congress proposed to ban encryption to stop "viruses", because hey, lots of viruses use encryption.

Pointing out that co-opting from the informal "infectious software" to "software that uses encryption" is a meaningful point.

I think you're correct that the usage of virus for unwanted software is fine; I think you're wrong about the evolution of language there matching what happened with "assault weapon". Specifically, one change is going from the technical to the generic, while the other is going from the generic to technical.

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