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Always Use Protection
Dan Appleman knows how to talk to teenagers. He's made the presentation very logical, he keeps the chapters a reasonable length so a teenager won't feel overwhelmed, and he had a crew of teenagers review this book before it was published so that he knew they would understand it. Those adults who aren't technically adept will find it an easy read, too.
Always Use Protection is broken up into three main parts: Protecting Your Machine, Protecting Your Privacy, and Protecting Yourself. There is a fourth part with useful appendixes, also.
Protecting Your Machine goes through all of the gremlins that can bother your computer, how to get rid of them and how to prevent them from coming back. Viruses, Trojan horse programs, and worms are covered clearly. Not too much depth involved, but not too little either. Dan covers the ins and outs of the three main preventive measures: anti-virus programs, firewalls, and system configuration and updates. He makes sure that his discussions relate to the types of programs that teenagers are likely to run: P2P software, online games, Instant Message clients, e-mail programs, and web browsers. He's careful to include other avenues of attack besides the Internet, such as infected floppies and CDs cut by well-meaning friends.
Always Use Protection explains how to determine which type of anti-virus programs are available and how to run them (using McAfee's VirusScan as an example), but puts the responsibility for deciding which one to use squarely in the reader's lap. Dan has made sure that he's not pushing any particular product over another. In fact, there were one or two places where I wished he'd just come right out and say I'd recommend blah-blah software, but he always said the reader should check the pros and cons of the possibilities and make their own decision.
Firewalls are discussed in detail, as well as their possibly unintended consequences (an online game refuses to run because a critical port is being blocked by the firewall, for example). He does state that if you're on a network behind a router, you may not need a firewall. This is my only disagreement with Dan. I believe a personal firewall should be on each and every machine, regardless of how it connects. It will protect not only the machine itself, but make it harder for the machine to attack others.
Software updates are probably one of the most under-utilized options in the home. News items in papers and on the web speak frequently about how such-and-such a virus got into machines mainly because security updates available from the manufacturer for months were simply not installed. Dan makes sure that the reader understands how shortsighted that approach really is. The updates are usually free, and just take a little time to download and install. Always Use Protection explains exactly how to do that and why it's a good thing.
The configuration chapter describes many little tweaks available to harden your browser and e-mail reader. Many people are not aware of the number of 'dials' they can play with (and if they were, they'd probably be overwhelmed), but this chapter zeroes in on the most important ones.
If this book was only chapter 9 - What to Do When You've Been Hit - it would still be worth the cover price. In this chapter, Dan gives a careful, step-by-step menu of what you can and should do to recover as much as you possibly can, eradicate the malware that is causing the problem, and get your system back to a usable state. It's the one chapter he says you shouldn't read front-to-back, but follow the links (if you see this, go to this section) like one of those make-your-own-ending books. I have this one bookmarked for future reference.
The next four chapters form Part II - Protecting Your Privacy. In here, Dan explains the various ways your personal information can be gleaned, mostly from a user innocently filling in a form supplied by a con artist. He talks about identity theft and what it means to a teenager. The need for good passwords is clearly discussed, but he acknowledges that most people won't use strong enough ones. Therefore, he promotes a simple plan with three passwords (high, medium, and low-security) that will work in most cases. He ends off this part with a good treatise on cookies of all forms, and how to turn off the worst ones.
Finally, he talks about protecting yourself in chat rooms and from common scams. While there is a lot of press about teenagers being lured by scoundrels in chat rooms, Dan notices that the actual statistics are very low. Regardless of the statistics, he gives extremely good advice about how to use a chat room safely (mostly involving lying about almost any bit of personal information you might be asked for).
The appendixes have good summary information for teens and adults, and have a special appendix just for the parents. It give good advice to make sure your teenager is willing to come to you for question without worrying about losing online privileges.
All in all, Always Use Protection should be read by every parent and, hopefully, by their kids. I'm going to try to get my 15- and 13-year old to read it (Good luck to me! You should have seen the arguments to get them to finish their summer reading!) I liked the approach, the content, and the presentation so well, I had to rate this a 10.
You can purchase Always use Protection: A Teen's Guide to Safe Computing from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
it feels so much better without!
oh yeah, first post.
amazing in how they foul up thier computer, then go upstairs and foul up mine, and break the ibooks given them by the school, I will say this book is long overdue
http://www.geocities.com/sethseekstruth/great_out
You almost had me there, for a second.
But, alas, no. Slashdot is not going all touchy-feely, as I had feared.
Most teenagers are more interested in a)how they are going to get laid, b)how they are going to get drunk. Those who care about computer security are almost certainly way above this book. It's trying to sell to a market that just isn't there. It looks like it's just another wannabe security book, offering very little in terms of actual understanding. This makes it to Slashdot???
Unfortunately, this advice comes a few years too late for people like Libby Hoeler...
Protection doesn't work.... we must preach abstinence to our children...
:)
Just stay off the internet until you're 18, kids... (and you have your own damn computer/network to infect)
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
Teaching your kid how to avoid breaking windows.
I'd like to see some clear and concise documentation for using open source operating systems.
Yankel
I'm sorry, but I read this review and instantly thought of the imfamous "Is your son a computer hacker?" thing that we all know and love.
That's not to say that it's a bad book or the review is flawed, though some of the comments would tend to tell me that the reviewer isn't as "computer savvy" as I might like in a person reviewing a book. A properly configured border firewall, for example, will protect systems behind it. That says nothing of the duties of many of those "personal firewall" applications that are actually much more than firewalls (spam filters, scumware/spyware/adware scanner/filters, etc).
I just found it amusing that the adequacy.org article was the first thing I thought of when reading this review...
Ya wouldn't have teenagers
why can't my computer take the pill???
where are all the comments? Then I saw the article...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Can I just cover my computer with a rubber sheet? I could even use cherry flavored.
Is there a reason that this information is being aimed specifically at teenagers? I know an awful lot of adults that could use a good straighforward explaination of this material.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
90% of slashdotters immediately think of firewalls?
There should be a chapter in every computer book made all about backups.
People don't bother to backup data..
People forget to back up data.
People need to verify backups..
SyOps symlink backup data directories and cause $40,000 losses due to data not being backed up.
That is one of the best ways to "protect yourself"..
"jesus saves" and all that..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
I'm sorry but regardless of how good the book is and how relevant it is, it will never achieve its intended goal. A kid is never going to read anything like this. You wouldnt expect a kid to read a book about the perils of not eating their vegetables, so why this? Especially as stubborn as kids are nowadays, I think this author might have a case of bad timing. :-/
Protecting Your Machine
Why, yes, it is a machine. Thank you.
The coolest voice ever.
Wow. Next thing you know, words like rapscallion and lollygag will come back into common practice.
Oh, the brave new world of this still-young millenium!
Does it really matter if junior infects the PC with malware? Reformat and move on. Breaking things is part of learning.
The best way to protect your children and your PC is to spend quality time with them, teaching them the basics of PC protection and chat room safety.
IMHO, these things are better taught in person than with a book. The reviewer did not mention actually spending any time with your kids. I hope the book does, because too many people are using books and products like these as a substitute for teaching thier kids in person about computer safety.
Aiming a book like this at teens sounds like a gimmick to me. I remember when I was 13 priding myself on needing no more documentation than a terse man page to change the world. Maybe it's the youth of today - not so tech savvy, fnarr, fnarr.
my dad got me this product called "The Keyboard Condom" and said "son, always remember -- No Glove, No Love".
What no comments on abstinence?
Or condoms?
El Presidente Bush will be muchly displeased!
Is it really that useful given that I run Linux, don't use chatrooms, don't use P2P software, don't play games and have no friends who both run Linux and give me floppies or CDs (when it comes to it, none of my friends do either)?
I think that the net would be a lot better place if we all talked to our parents about safe computing.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
The year was 1994 -- I had a 14.4 fax/modem, and was the only person in the house who knew how to use commands in MS-DOS, much less use the net, do some mild hacking, etc.
I learned more about computer security by trial and error on a piece of crap 486SX than I think I could learn from a book. Why don't more of these parents spend $100 on a crappy old machine than $100 on the best in virus protection and let the kids go nuts? They'd probably learn a whole lot more...
A little unnecessary for the Slashdot crew huh? Hands can't get pregnant! :)
But also that Trojans are bad...?
Yeah, and so are viruses and worms... the *ahem* internet just isn't safe anymore.
is that it uses the assumption that teenagers - a group that have grown with modern technology - do not understand the basic concepts of computing, privacy etc. I would argue this isn't actually true.
/.-reading PC geek in their class. And, we can assume, any responsible parent who knows about scams, clichéd chatroom use, P2P virii etc would educate their children about this stuff anyway. It's not exactly complicated to explain to people who have grown up with this stuff.
A better audience for a similar book would be the average parent PC user who doesn't understand why their PC is giving him those stupid Messenger messages, why they should run Windows Update or the average 419 scam to make them better equipt for the world. In my admittedly limited travels, it's been a lot easier to explain technical stuff to the teenage generation, and I'm sure each teenager has a
I also assume the book includes a degree of uninformed scaremongering. Firewalls are not required - indeed, you can safely use the internet without a software firewall simply because they can be easily bypassed by anyone caring enough to bypass them - ie trojan writes. Viruschecking software is not essential if you are smart enough to know what you're running and don't run the average VBS file or P2P fraud (PHOTOSHOP 7.0.REAL.EXE). 4 years with yearly virus checks confirms this.
And I'm sure that parents treat children like idiots regarding the average "chatroom" use. No doubt the fools who previously gave their names and telephone numbers to random people on the 'net must have got the message by now, and that assumes that there are large amounts of people gullible to be taken in by it.
Has anybody ever gotten a virus from an infected CD?
Have you read my blog lately?
A geek at a computer would have to read a 'pamphlet' on 'using protection'.
Seriously though, most of what it takes to protect your computer should be common sense by now to most people. Don't open strange attachments, don't download warez infested with virii, and run a firewall (hardware or software or both) and an antivirus package of your choice. Oh, and don't give out personal info all over the web.
If you follow these rules, you'll mostly be ok. But kudos to anyone who trys to help the uninformed of the world. Surely, there will come a day when the majority are safe users instead of the other way around. This will benefit us all.
The best way to protect your children and your PC is to spend quality time with them, teaching them the basics of PC protection and chat room safety.
Insofar as buffer exploits, virii, trojans, etc. etc ad nauseum, are concerned, the best protection is simply not to use the most insecure, bug laden operating system on the planet. Ditch it and get Linux or a Mac. Simply put, the biggest security threat to modern computing systems also happens to be the OS that is most widely used: Windows. And it AIN'T cuz there are more Windows isntalls out there. It's because Microsoft seems institutionally incapable of making secure software.
The reviewer did not mention actually spending any time with your kids.
Yeah, specifically spending time with your kids and showing them Gnome or OS X's Finder or something.
First we are encouraged to use Trojan's for protection...
Now people are telling us to protect ourselves from Trojans!
I agree on the whole abstinence thing... My life would be so much easier if my friends didn't call every time their computer gets screwed up...
Lets force everyone to know DOS commands before using a computer. That way, they would know enough to maintain their own system.
One of the BBSs that I used to use, would allow us to drop into an MPM shell, but you would have to answer a questions, "what is the name of the debugger?"
Fight Spammers!
I actually do use P2P software, play games, use chatrooms and IM -- but I do it all on Linux. Furthermore, all people ever send me are images, music, and such -- and all my friends have broadband, so I never get CDs from them. In fact, one has a mac, two use Firefox, and one isn't even allowed to install software.
Unless a root exploit is discovered in mplayer, I figure I'm pretty safe.
Should I write a book about how to _really_ protect yourself?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
We can all put our tin foils hats back on!
As a 15 year old, I resent the implication that teenagers aren't knowlegable. Even as I sit here, dist-upgrading my server farm through a dancer's shell, I can feel the network shuddering as spam is relayed through my parents two computers, out onto the internet. It would take me less than 30 seconds to find a windows box at school that is thoroughly compromised, and spamming / DDoS'ing something. It's not like we write the code that gets exploited..
If a person is willing to pick up a book about a computer and go through it, doing what it says, then they will probably be alright when in comes to security. The problem is that people don't generally care about security. They think that it will happen to someone else. When something does happen to them, they wonder why, but only until someone fixes their problem. In the end, as long as someone gets them back and running they still don't care. The answer is not a book, no matter how good it is. I don't pretend to know the answer to the problem of security, but what I think is that first people have to care enough about it to put their time into it. Right now, I don't think people in general care that much.
Nuttles
Saved by Grace
Protection doesn't work.... we must preach abstinence to our children...
Just stay off the internet until you're 18, kids... (and you have your own damn computer/network to infect)
The /. I knew and loved is no more.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
I am a teenager, and it's *my* job to secure the network, install Firefox and an anti-virus on computers used by my family, and basically be the IT department around here, because nobody else knows how.
It should be the other way around. If my parents and sisters read such a book, maybe I'd get less tech support requests.
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
Somebody rewrite it in the same ouvre that Caroll O'Connor used so effectively in "All In The Family"
"Awww geeeez! Don't open that email you meathead!"
They invented the stuff, let us use it.
(I'm just pissed that they will always be able to hold that "saved the world from hitler" thing over us for eternity.)
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
Funny, my 16 year-old stepson is using the Mandrake Linux installation I set up for him -- he can boot to Windows 98 to play games, but that's a vanilla installation, and not configured for networking. My LAN is protected by a dynamite router by NetGear -- the only port that responds is 22, and that goes to my Linux box. So really the only part of this book that's relevant is the part about identity theft.
If your kid is using a computer, you are responsible for not only making sure they stay away from bad content, but also that they know the basics of how a computer works and what to do in every possible situation. Once again my idea of requiring licenses to use computers comes into effect.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
In a related topic freestyles one of the worlds largest condom manfature recently placed a bid to buy out Symantec.
Is this really a perfect technical book? or is the reviewer a close friend of the author? Nothing is dated, nothing is misunderstood?
I've never read a technical book I'd rate 10/10 ... 9/10 is reserved for the greats like Tannenbaum on networking, K&R on C - and books only get that rating in retrospect. (Usually when I buy the second copy, either because I wore one out or to have one at home and one at work.)
don't download warez infested with virii, ...don't try to make up psuedo-Latin plurals that don't make any sense...
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
It's comments like yours that makes slashdot worth reading.. Why bother comming up with something intelligent, when you can repeat someone elses boring joke?
...it's the parents who need this book, not the kids. The older the user, the more likely that user is to be completely and utterly clueless.
When I was teaching kids computers, aside from the occasional porn background image (like farts, it never seems to get old to teenage boys) they weren't the ones I had to worry about. It was the teachers and administrative staff that continually fucked up the system.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Firewalls are discussed in detail, as well as their possibly unintended consequences (an online game refuses to run because a critical port is being blocked by the firewall, for example)
This reminded me of a recent disturbing incidedent at a LAN party I was hosting. We were playing Halo, behind my router, configured with a firewall and NAT; DMZ was off, one of my guests was hosting the server so no unintentional rule in the firewall would've been forwarding him traffic from the outside (he was also DHCPed, further reducing the likelyhood, AND I checked the rules later), we had set up no additional firewall rules to allow people on the internet to connect to the Halo server, to our surprize and my chagrin, people outside my router were able to connect to the server apparently being run inside my LAN, somehow bypassing my firewall. Everyone at my LAN party has a good bit of network and computer experience, but this left us scratching our heads. We had always assumed Halo did the standard client-server thing and waited for clients to connect to it on some port. To this day I'm still not quite sure how it happens; my best guess is Halo connects to some master server which instructs to connect to the client machines, or (more likely) clients connect to the master server and data flows through it on its way to the game server. Anyone know for sure how Halo's doing this?
A free iPod? More like a scam, or more specifically, a pyramid scheme.
I suggest you read this site to learn more about them...
I think P.T. Barnum had something to say about this...
No no, help me find my car keys and we'll drive out of here!
OK, I'll agree the average /.er knows. But the average parent is at least as clueless about these things as the neophyte teen.
I think in some cases, a good answer is the parent reading the book, then discussing things with their teen. In others, just read the book, then have your teen read it. Maybe quiz them as part of their test before getting their "internet license" (giving them access).
Gheez, Back in my day, the only hazard of using computers was getting your tie caught in the chain printer.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That's why I only chat with my new friends who want to give me $10,000,000, as long as I give them my banking information.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
master server which instructs to connect to the client machines,
should say "master server which instructs the game server to connect to the client machines (SYN packet outbound rather than inbound),"
"Dan gives a careful, step-by-step menu of what you can and should do to recover as much as you possibly can, eradicate the malware that is causing the problem, and get your system back to a usable state"
The only way to a secure system after being hit is recovering your data, formatting the drive and reinstalling. If your machine has been compromised, there can *always* be other malware installed through the backdoors it opened. If the chapter is only about the above, without the reinstall part, it's not doing the readers much good.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Audioscrobbler
... don't you think it's time to take her to the vet?
o/~ All God's children shall be free in Pirates of the Caribbean, when we reach that Magic Kingdom in the sky... o/~
First the virtual girlfriend and now this? Next thing you'll be telling me is that it's normal not to be living in ones parent's basement.
alright..tell me if my gaurdian internet angel has been watching me...no firewall..no viruses..cable internet..windows xp home (and some linux)......and no windows security updates besides sp1....i've downloaded gigs of stuff including executables, and all this for 6-7 years. hmm, im starting to believe that viruses dont exist....oh yeah, and i use NO antivirus software whatsoever!
Yes, I would be embarressed to have a sig like that. It is like spam. It is crapflooding. It is like those people who use their personal website name as their user name, and as their contact address and they put a link to it in their sig. You'd think that they would be ashamed or something.
Using DOS Commands teaches people a certain amount of stuff, but doesn't do much to help kids learn about avoiding the crap of the Internet. It is true that someone who has a working knowledge of DOS (or Linux CLI or whatever other unfriendly interface) is more likely to better respect the machine he/she is using, but that still doesn't help a person to know what is dangerous on the Internet and how to avoid it. I grew up on an Apple II+, moved on to DOS, then Windows 3.0 and up from there, but some of the stuff I was blindly downloading off the Internet 5 years ago would totally hose my computer if I was downloading it today. Most of the reason I learned to be more careful was working computer support at a university, where I saw other people screw up their computers. The best teacher is either going to be watching other people screw up, or screwing up yourself. The next best teacher is probably a book like this, if people will actually sit down and read it, and if the information in it is up to date and accurate.
"I will be a responsible parent and teach my kids about safe computing, let me just open this party-pics.exe attachment from this unspecified sender first."
Last I heard it was the kids that were spanking the adults with the trojan horses.
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
Let's be a little more sensible and teach them BASH commands, far more useful.
Back in my day we didn't have to worry about getting no viruses. We were just worried about getting the vacuum tubes pregnant.
They don't. No person the age of 11-18 cares about computer security...yet they come to me when their PCs "don't work right".
I'm 13. I know how these people work. I've seen cases that belong on Computer Stupidities, like attempting to reconnect a mouse+keyboard and electrocuting themselves (bent pins). They have no idea about keeping their computers free of spy/adware. ("viruses"...) They expect their computers to work perfectly, or assume everything included in Windows XP will keep them free of virii/spyware/adware. I look at my classmates' home computers and they are destroyed to the point where a format/reinstall would be a quicker fix. These people don't think they are going to encounter the things discussed in the book and therefore don't bother with anything.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Kerio Personal Firewall
It still does the flash up thing if it detects an app it doesn't like, but I belive you can turn that off. In any case, it hasn't crashed a single full screen game for me--like ZA regularly did. It will either minimize the game, or pop a little window up infront of the game, and prompt you.
It will also alert you if a known good program has been replaced. In all, it's tons less intrusive than Zone Alarm, and MUCH less bloated, and you can create your own rulesets pretty intuitively...
disclaimer: I have no fiancial incentive for pointing you to this link, etc. etc.
For some reason, teachers and admin automatically assume that they need at least local admin rights if not network admin rights. And half of them shouldn't go near the control panel in the first place. The only good thing is that most academic boxes are Windows... the thought of one of that lot with root access... *shudder*
" install Firefox and an anti-virus on computers used by my family"
yeah, your a fucking genius to do that.
Noody else is interested in it. Thats it. If anybodu else was interested, they could do it regardless of age.
Teenagers are more likly to do stupid stuff with there computer. For the same reason teenagers are more likly to get into car accidents.
You staement may have had some credibility 20 years ago, but now the demographic for people doing stupid stuff to there computer is everybody.
Remember your sisters and parents are the typical user, not you.
If you're not protecting yourself against Trojans, for God's sake please watch out for backdoors....
----
WWJD...For a Klondike Bar?
Please, tell me YHBT means something to you. Damn younguns, wouldn't know how to fend off a troll to save their life.
Photos.
Teen's don't care... Many don't. But they, like home users in general are have huge problems with regards to security. So what do we do? Just give up? We (and this includes all the knowledgeable teens) have to do what we can to improve the situation. This book is my contribution to the effort.
Better taught in person than from a book... I agree, but many parents don't know enough to teach security - their kids know more than they do. In those cases I actually suggest flipping it around: teens, teach your parents! I've met a number of teens who have thier security act together - more who just think they do:-)
Parents and grandparents are a better audience for the book... I've gotten some very nice emails from adults and seniors who find it very readable.
The title is a gimmick... Sure, but you'll remember it, right? Actually, the title was the idea of a group of teens. I never would have come up with it on my own.
For more info including the book's introductions visit http://www.alwaysuseprotection.com/
I used to break my computers all the time. "Lobotomized", the local hacker would call it. I continued breakin' 'em till my dad told me to take it to him, and watch what he does to fix it.
So, short story long, I went to his shop, sat in a really smoky room, listened to Vietnam sniper stories, some really whacked out songs, lude jokes, looked at more porno than I could have imagine existed at the time (hanging on the walls), and otherwise stumbled around a room stuffed with archaic crap (back when 386s were tried and true)....
Well, what was my point? Eh... Well, I took up sneaking sigarettes and coffee, BBSing (he was also a BBS op) till odd hours of the night, looking at CGA porno, (WOOHOO!), and otherwise doing stuff that by all accounts that I shouldn't have been doing at that tender age.
Be glad your kids aren't h4x0rs.
Actually, trojan condoms are known to have a high breakage rate, and those "in the know" eschew them in favor of higher-quality brands. See also: Condomania. One well-known brand which is of high quality is the ever-popular "gold coin" condom, but beware of the possibility of gouging the edge of the rubber with the metal foil wrapper. Japanese brands are generally quite good but they do tend to run to smaller sizes, this is not a joke. Of course, those smaller condoms will fit most Americans just fine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
... as expecting kids to stay off cigarettes till they're 18, alcohol till they're 21, and drugs till the afterlife :)
Dan Appleman is on the second half of this show, and talks about his book, among other things. http://www.franklins.net/fnetdotnetrocks/dotnetroc ks.aspx?showid=49
Are the Tanenbaum books really that great?
Sure, they can often be very good; but they also seem incomplete in some respects- their problem is that they're sometimes like well-written and expanded course notes, in that they cover certain topics in good depth, but omit other stuff that you would expect to find in a generalised introductory text. (*Any* university course will have biases and omissions, but a textbook should not be that specific).
The Distributed Computing one in particular seemed to lack a lot of what I would consider general stuff (which I needed for my course), but went into depth on specific topics. Although I 'used' it quite a few times, I can count on two or three fingers the number of times I found it genuinely useful, and even then I could have found the material elsewhere.
As I said, they're well-writted "pseudo-courses"; which is good if *your* course follows the text closely. However, in terms of all round introductions, I find them patchier.
K&R, OTOH, is brilliant. I love that book.
Does it come with a Knoppix CD in the back ? How about a Knoppix DVD ?
Weird title for someone who just found out he has strong swimmers ... and no, thats not a good thing :|
Always Use Protection should be read by every parent
I have a better advice: Always Use Protection in order not to become a parent. So you need not to bother with teenagers later.
There you are, staring at me again.
No no, help me find my car keys and we'll drive out of here!
LOL!!!
A classic! I haven't heard that one in over 20 years...
you'd be amazed how much the check out girl will flirt with you if you're buying "Large" of "Magnum" size condoms.
Don't teenagers usually know how to use computers BETTER than their parents? They absorb and figure it out quickly; its always the old people that are computer-phobic and -illiterate :-). They need to target these books at the 30+ age group.
The standard user can't use a firewall. They will end up screwing things up; I've seen it many times. They inevitably create a bad policy that breaks something, and I've seen instances where this bluescreened the machine. The firewall needs to be at central node and run by someone qualified, not on workstations. Unfortunately for the instances in which there is no central node (i.e. plugging a workstation right into a broadband connection) then I still say screw the firewall: Just stay on top of updates, and hope for the best. It's how we run our department and the hacks are few, far between, very rarely on a workstation, and always because the system is out of date. Well that's my $.02 anyway.
Ignorance kills, complacency kills, hatred kills, but usually not the ones guilty of them.
I always tell Windows users who access the Internet...No glove, no love!!
A security expert was lecturing a room full of sysadmins, myself included. He asked us two interesting questions.
"Raise your hand if you have been hacked."
A few sheepish looks from 20% of the attendees who raised their hands, knowing smiles from the rest.
"All right, raise your hand if you DON'T KNOW you have been hacked."
Everyone laughed, because they understood that detection is not 100% reliable. Even crusty BOFH admins can get hoodwinked. It's just easier to hack, and get away with it, when the mark isn't security conscious.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind.
Teenagers can still be taught. They're still impressionable, as it is normally phrased. They can learn the proper way to use a computer. Sure, they'll be more irresponsible for a while, but the training will stay with them and they can build habits on it; for adults, it just won't stick as well if they're not used to thinking of their computer as a dangerous object.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Those hapless users who mess things up on their computers keep all those thousands of support staff in good jobs! So let them mess things up (unless they happen to be in my immediate family...)
From the review, seems like the book goes a long way to giving a good introduction for keeping yourself secure, but does it really leave out keeping communications secure?
It wouldn't take more then a few pages to discuss the need for being able to sign or encrypt things and a short tour of PGP/GPG and how they can use it in their everyday life.
Let's face it, most kids couldn't give a Rat's Arse about how to protect them selves online - especially from virisus and such. I can see that there would be an interest in identifying the numerous predators that inhabit chat rooms, but beyonf that...nothing else much. Like it or not, most people, and most kids, especially, view the PC as a common appliance - to be used with the minimum amount of effort. And...this is actually quite logical. For most people, other than the extremely computer literate, would be wasting thier time getting too in depth: time they could beter spend on other pursuits with thier precious time. Hopefully - one day - we'll get PC's to the "Appliance Level, but, until then, I guess we'll just have to suffer allthe virus infections, etc. that now are a part of the game. Oh well....
... break their iBooks.....?
The mistake of giving a kid administrator access is probably the reasen the iBooks got messed up. If you have any Mac running OSX, DON'T give admin privs to anyone you think might not be trustworthy or know what he/she is doing. Mac malware is extremly rare, essentially non-existent, but no computer is perfect. If there is no admin access, system wide access is denied and most programs will not install. If some malware does manage to execute, it cannot access any area other than the user's own account. Also there is a warning given to the user when a program wants to run for the very first time, at which point the user can deny the program to start if there is a doubt about it.
All theory is gray
If it won't get you any pussy or booze, it should at least teach you enough interesting stuff to make you forget about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll for a minute. If it can't do that, why bother?
I claim, that while middle-aged housewifes won't understand what the mouse is for, almost any teenager, including those that claim not to understand anything about computers, are capable of learning stuff on need-to-know basis. The problem is that most simply won't care a shit.
"You should use a firewall and virus scanner on that." "Why?" "Because otherwise hackers, worms and other malware/troublemakers can use your computer to do things like send spam, track you, spread futher and such. In worst case, even to use your computer for serious hacking. Besides, even otherwise harmless malware can cause your computer to work very badly." "Why would they [virus writers, spammers, hackers, whatever] want my computer?" "They just want any computers they can get." "Oh, well, if they want it so badly, let them have it. There isn't important data on it." "What if they made it look like it was you?" "Me? Well, nobody would believe I could do something like that, and besides I'm under-aged anyway." ...
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
Back in the 1980s, there was an incident on the Apple Macintosh platform with an infected CD-ROM. The disc was the "QLTech MEGA ROM" disc (Volume 1, October 1988.) The producer of the disc, Quantum Leap Technologies Inc., made a replacement disc to replace the infected one. More details here.
Viruses on mass-produced CD-ROMs are extremely rare. Homemade data CDs made on a CD burner are a different matter.
Honestly, I see people's computers all messed up all the time. I fix them. But truly, I have no idea how they get that way, since I generally know what many of these people do with them. In the last...oh, year and a half, at least, I have never had any problems with viruses. I have multiple scanners running and neither ever even intercepts anything. I have never had any spyware that I noticed ill effects from, though there have been a few possible-data-miner-types. Basically, the biggest issue I've ever had with XP is a little error about IDE controllers since I replaced the motherboard without reinstalling Windows (better than I'd expected...), which just means I have to hit 'enter' when I start up to get the window to go away. (I'd deal with this now, but I'll be getting a new video card in several days and I'd prefer to just do it then.) I'm not a particularly careful user. I click on things I know I probably shouldn't. I have no firewall running, software or otherwise. And still, I get nothing.
What the hell is wrong with these people?!
He responded with a filthy e-mail calling us all sorts of names, complaining that we were making it too f@#king hard to return his God@@mned processor.
Again we explained that he needed to fill out the RMA form and that we would be happy to accept his return, but there were certain reasonable procedures that he needed to follow. Again more profanity. Another civilized response, and the pattern continued.
At this point, after a few weeks, he was outside our warranty period. Since he contacted us within the warranty period but didn't fill out the form, we can usually bend the rules and help a customer out, but this guy was such a douchebag that the RMA Department decided not to.
Then we get an e-mail from his mom, complaining that her little boy's RMA request had been ignored. (This was the first time we realized that we were dealing with a thirteen year old instead of a really immature adult.) So we sent her an e-mail of all the correspondence we'd had with the kid, which included him calling us c@@ksucking motherf@@kers and hoping we'd all "get bent."
My friend then performed the coup de gras with a snarky comment about how this could serve as a learning experience about how to deal with people and influence others instead of cursing like a sailor. I can only imagine the ass-whoopin' this kid must have gotten.
OEM CPU: $80. UPS Ground shipping: $4.90. Finding out your thirteen year old has a vocabulary that would make Richard Pryor blush: Priceless.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
I have a firewall, and I watch what I do (I am the virus hunter, I can tell a virus from pico'ing the attachment) The firewall is a freebee, and I just run ad-aware because unfortunatly getting rid of explorer seems to cause fatal system errors (don't worry, it's not actually running). And in all reality I haven't had a spyware issue yet, just cookies. Does this mean that I am one of those fortunate few who understood IBM DOS, and APPLE DOS, PRODOS, FORTRAN, and all of the other stuff that I learned and thought I had forgotten, but somehow it inadvertantly helps me?
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
I agree that it would be nice if everyone were better at using computers so they could all do what we can do, but that is unrealistic. When I was in support, i made it my motto that it was not my job to teach everyone how to use their computer better, it was my job to make the computer do what they needed it to do.
First, I think everyone should have a *basic* understanding of the parts of a car and what they do. Not every part, but at least the general systems. Same with a basic grasp of electical systems and electronics (What is a fuse anyway?) so that they don't get burned later....
We have a couple issues specifically with computers though. Our parents and grandparents are less capable of learning the computer than we are because we communicate with it using a certain predefined language, and languages get harder to learn as we get older. It is not like teaching a 60-year old to be a mechanic. It is more like teaching a 60-year old to speak German if his native language is English.
So what can we do? We can build more transparent systems so that one can more readily figure out what is going on without being completley fluent in the language (Linux excels here). My parents use Linux and hence are becomming better computer users than most even though they still have very common questions about how to make something work.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Number my 15 year old brother has downloaded: 1
Number my father has downloaded: 2
Number my mother has downloaded 5
Number of times I have disenfeceted the computer: 8 Number of times my brother has: 0 Number of times my mother has: 0 Number of times my father has: 0
--A witty sig proves nothing.--