Does wine open ubuntu up to M$ vulnerabilities?

[querent]

What up. I'm wondering if the use of wine opens gnu/linux up to microsoft style vulnerabilities. backdoors? viruses, trojans, worms, etc.? the later group seems more dubious to me, based on the little I know, but backdoors are scary. opensource i trust as clean. should i worry? are the purists operating on a practical or philosophical level? (not that the two are mutually exclusive.)

q

[querent]

I just found this in a book entitled 'Beginning Ubuntu':

"Aside from being a subdirectory within it, the dummy C:\ drive is entirely separate from
your main file system, which is to say that no Windows programs will ever be installed outside
this subdirectory. This should give you some peace of mind when it comes to threats from
viruses and worms. In theory at least, only the files in this directory will be affected should you
pick up an infection. (The Wine developers have theorized that a Windows virus running under
Wine could infect your main system, but it would have to be created with knowledge that it
might be running under Wine, and no such viruses have yet been found.)"

If anyone would care to comment, affirm, or deny...

q

ps: that'd be one sick *******.

[tuxxy]

windows viruses even if you diretly ran one using WINE at the worst could only result in a reinstall of WINE.

You could open a virus in WINE but your ubuntu will be safe

[signifer123]

If there's a virus that targets wine maybe, as I know my wine maps a drive to /.
Havn't heard of any though.

here's an article where someone tested viruses on wine.
http://www.linux.com/feature/42031

[Vorian Grey]

The worse it could do is affect your home directory.

[querent]

That article was incredible. What's even funnier is how seriously the straight world (read: microsoft) takes the MyDoom virus. The tone of the google hits did not seem commensurate with the weak twitching the thing did on a linux box. You have my thanks.

q