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Truecrypt was a community project as is its successor. Not to mention Linux and the like. There is no question this model works at this point.

Well actually there is: if the model works then after all this time why is there no competitive product? The answer is that the model is really really slow at making progress and even the most widely used projects are woefully under resourced.

At the point that you ask who specifically will do it the answer is always "somebody will" or "the community will", but ultimately this is wrong. The ability to audit and verify is fantastic but unless the right people actually do it there is little benefit. What project is verified secure?

We need something similar for anti-virus/general security software for non technical-people.

We already have such things, they just aren't that good.

Let the community have an option that we can rely on as being non-backdoored

Who are you begging to let the community have it? If you want it then go for it, start it yourself or pay somebody to do it, that's the open source model. Not just beg somebody else to do it for you.

Seems like the Open AV project needs step up it's progress (or become active again?).

"Yet the IT world strolls along day to day, without much really actively happening to prevent serious down-the-road problems."

You say this as though there is some dereliction of duty among the IT folks. There are people (http://www.antiphishing.org/, http://www.openantivirus.org/) working on these things. In their spare time too--right? It's quite apparent that your gripe is with M$ and the the general population that has bought into the monopoly, but there's only so much you can do with 6 billion Elvis fans, and the greedy bastards that want to exploit them. I'm sure that most geeks would like to blow them off the planet, but like you, there's no "real" solution among them. I don't think that they (the IT world) should take the hit for an insurmountable task.

You've equated the catastrophies iminent to the internet with global warming. I can see the correlation, however the internet is fairly new compared to the first time we put CO into the atmosphere. Man's presence on Earth is undergoing a huge learning curve, as are man's dealings with the internet. It wasn't long ago that huge corporations were destroying the planet in the name of profit, and the good of human life, but eventually the people that saw the wrong of it came out of the woodwork, and protested. It's still not right, but it's headed in the right direction--I hope. Now, the ones that see the wrong of the "inter-connected" world, and all of the bad that it can inflict are starting to come out of the woodwork. Exponentially so, as is the pace of technology.

The doctor's kids are always sick, the mechanic's car is always broke. Does this mean we are doomed to be ill (bird-flu notwithstanding :-)), or that our cars won't work? No, we are just living the human life, and sometimes--cough...9/11--it takes a catastophy to put things to work....

BTW I'm not an IT guy, I'm just an aerospace weenie that is just as scared of the status-quo as you are. Yet I do have a little faith in the fact that, while most people need a little nudging, a lot of people are paying attention (like me--I carry my own disk with FireFox, AdAware, and OpenOffice--and spread it to anyone that listens).

ClamAV
http://www.clamav.net/

OpenAntiVirus Project
http://www.openantivirus.org/

Actualy I have an Email server setup wit Postfix + AmavisNEW + SA + ClamAV, and I'm yet to see a virus that passed undetected.

Check our virus detection statistics here:
http://integracao.saude.rio.rj.gov.br/amavis-stats /

We're behind the main corporate server, so our department depends on it to send or receive email. They use a NortonAV server, but more than once an infected email passed trough, and it were stoped by our Server.

So I now wonder how ClamAV would perform against the proprietary alternatives...

I really want to try it, but our "corporate policy" states that every email traffic must pass trough the "homologated" AV solution. We're actally the only department that is really using Linux for real, and the rest of the company still has this strong Microsoft culture and don't quite trust Open Source...

There are plenty alternatives like those listed in the unix-linux antivirus mini-faq http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/openantiviru s/mini-faq/av-unix_e.txt?rev=1.40&view=markup Kindly compiled by the OpenAntivirus Project http://www.openantivirus.org/

Well, nowadays, everyone can get their open source browser, instant messenger, mail client, office software...

If an OSS Virus checker caught on and became popular, ( On Going or This) I wonder how much of these zombies would be decreased.

There's also a GUI frontend available for Clam antivirus. However, Clam is not very popular in the various antivirus forums.
http://www.clamwin.org/
There's an open antivirus project:
http://www.openantivirus.org/
Several free antivirus programs exist like AVG, Avast, a-squared, and F-Prot.

That's why there's been so little progress with Open anti virus but you can bet your life that if/when viruses do start to strike, people will be willing to dedicate their time and a FOSS anti virus solution will be available.

Install

OpenOffice.Org

Mozilla

VideoLAN

7-Zip

WinGimp

Open AntiVirus

Then see if the users can use them and get used to them. Then maybe when you do switch to Linux, they will be using the same apps, but under Linux. With maybe the exception of 7-Zip, no Linux port yet?

ClamAV.

Picked up some of the momentum behind the failed? stalled? Open AntiVirus.

ClamAV is pretty much Linux command line only, designed for scanning e-mail. It also cannot remove viruses from executables, only detect them. However, it's Free, and that's a Good Thing.

Clam Antivirus is probably what you're looking for. Its viral signatures come from a database maintained by the OpenAntivirus project. Note that Clam aims at protecting Mail Servers by filtering mails content rather than protecting Desktops.

You know the old saying: when life throws you a curve ball, make lemonade. Or something like that.

I think we all agree that we like multi-platform virus scanning. This just goes to show the biggest advantage of free software: no one can ever take it away from you.

If Microsoft decides to, they can terminate all versions of this product but the Windows versions. If we can get a really effective free alternative, that can never happen. (The very worst thing that can happen is slow updates to the virus definitions.)

I have always thought that anti-virus software was an ideal candidate for free software. Non-coders can easily contribute: whenever they find a virus that the scanner doesn't know, just send it in. (They can find the virus either by using a payware virus scanner, such as Norton Antivirus, or they can find it the hard way by getting it. However they find it, they can send it in.)

Heck, I'd be willing to keep one machine with Windows on it, running Norton, and also run the free scanner on it, just to help out the community.

So, is there a free virus scanner? Yes. Two, actually.

First came OpenAntiVirus. But that project's virus database was last modified in October 2002. The better alternative is ClamAV.

ClamAV is available for a whole bunch of platforms, including Linux and FreeBSD. It can be set up to scan mail on servers. There is a library you can use to add antivirus scanning to your own applications (maybe OpenOffice should do that?).

I hope that lots of people will start running ClamAV, even just as a test project. Remember that you can put ClamAV on as many computers as you want, for free, but you can still buy a few payware virus scanners to hedge your bets if you want to.

If lots of people run ClamAV, and send in viruses that it misses, it should be able to find all the viruses that the payware can find.

steveha

1) The author cited as fact that the age of the operating system is directly related to its security, without any kind of proof. This makes sense at first glance, but it ultimatly glosses over the fact that both OSes are in constant development. New features are added every day. This might make sense if, after developing the system, all the time after that was spent patching and debugging, but this isn't the case.

2) The author has no concept of service vs. system. Most vulnerabilites are in sevices, not at the kernel level. All Linux is just a kernel. Packages are added to make a usable Linux distro.

3) The author cites number of bugtraq entries as a way of gauging relative security, without considering the severity. Also, bugs, like those reported to Security Focus aren't the only vectors of compromise

4) Open source software, by virtue of being free, allows an administrator to install much more security software for his dollar. Firewalls, IDSes, advanced cryptographic file systems, HIDS, and virus scanners can all be downloaded for free.

See Clam AntiVirus and OpenAntiVirus.

try http://www.openantivirus.org .. It's free.. it's open source.. it's in java.. Stick it on the cd with a (windows/linux/mac) jvm.. and you're set to go. I have openantivirus running on my mail server right now... catches almost everything.. I believe there's a "C" version called clamscan out there.... not sure if it'll compile under anything but linux.. but you can always try. ChiefArcher

AmaVis: Antivirus filtering daemon; packaged by most linux distros; multi-threaded (recognized multiple CPU's); sends out email alerts; very configurable; supports many antivirus scanners; works well with postfix; written in Perl; GPL

Clam Antivirus (clamav): virus scanner; written in C; fast; virus definition update tool included; uses virus definitions from the Open Antivirus project; (does not disinfect, just identifies); GPL

SpamAssassin: Perl-based Spam filter; use with Procmail; client-server architecture (one daemon); Perl Artistic License

Our application of the above software seems to work quite well. We server about a thousand users (about 100 "heavy users"), and the average server load rarely gets above 0.21 with a Dual AMD 1500+ MP that provides SMTP, IMAP, and POP all w/SSL enabled.

I use mailscanner with sendmail to scan mail for viruses . It has a number of nice features such as the ability to block certain types of attachments (e.g. exe's) - this can be configured to block/ allow any attachment based on regular expressions. It relies on third party virus engines - I use Sophos at work and f-prot on my home network, but others work too. It also integrates well with spamassassin to effectively tag spam.

If you have a mixed network with samba shares you might also like to have a look at Rainer Link's samba-vscan VFS module for samba at the openantivirus site.

• MimeDefang
• OpenAntiVirus
• Spam Assasin
• Sendmail

Hi!

I would suggest using OpenAntivirus.org, a GPL virus scanner.

Kurt