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Open Letter to a Digital World
jg21 writes "Exasperated after spending 5 hours removing spyware and trojans from his wife's Windows PC, sysadmin Chris Spencer has written an impassioned Open Letter to a Digital World. In the letter he reviews the 'elephants in the closet' - i.e. unfixed bugs and glaring security vulnerabilities - that Microsoft in his view hopes ordinary users will ignore, including some discussed in previous Slashdot stories."
Not only that, I bet his wife belongs to the administrator group aswell. There are far too many people who have the wrong user rights.
He has a CS degree, runs Linux himself and still let his wife surfing the web with IE?
Yeah, it's almost as if she has a mind of her own.
"You sir, are obviously not married."
/. - he can't even get a date!
Not married?
This is
Date? He hasn't even been apprised of the fact that there are two sexes!
Oh, wait, yes he has - vi and emacs...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Why didn't he setup a non-root account for his wife on the windows box? Why didn't he install THE browser, Firefox, on his wife computer? Why didn't he enable excessive auditing so he could track down which app installed what and when?
Oh, that's too hard? If that's too hard, you're not a sysadmin.
True, spyware can be almost viral these days, but there is one factor which enables it in the first place: the user. "Oh, this nice free tool from www.[the tool's name].com is so handy!", should ring a bell, a lot of bells, alarmbells to be exact. NO search bar comes for free, unless it's open source, to name an example.
First I thought, hmm could be a great article, but after a few paragraphs it was clear this article is not great, it's the frustration of a person who doesn't WANT to understand windows and blames the consequences of that to the OS. I mean, blaming IE and not having firefox installed should be enough to categorize this article as "ordinairy propaganda".
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I don't run anti-virus. I don't have a firewall. I don't run spyware-removals under normal circumstances. If I feel the computer is feeling odd I download and run F-Prot's free DOS version followed by running Adaware 6. On some single occasion I've run Norton Anti-virus just to be on the safe side
I'm not alone in using this computer, my not quite so computer-literate girlfriend does too. I often download shareware games and freeware programes, not to mention warez every now and then.
Despite all this - I have never (*knock on wood*) been virus-infected. I have never gotten any spyware.
So I have to ask myself, what to do all these people do to get their computers so messed up? Why isn't it happening to me, when I run the same Windows without any protection? Is it really Windows fault?
Telling all the stories you like about how your (or your mothers/wives/SO's) machine has never had a virus/spyware attack even though you never run anti-virus software nor a spyware detection suite isn't going to mnean a lot.
The simple fact is that many of the people on this board have to work with windows (from 95 to 2003) everyday and can tell you horror stories about machines that have been secured, reside behind a natting firewall, etc etc but still they get slapped down by the newest virus which has snuck in through a vulnerability which was patched three months ago.
The other area you seem to be missing is the inate ability of users to fuck things up, no matter how secure you make it. All it takes is one innocent click on a link and all of a sudden you have spyware coming out your nose.
My wife has a mind of her own.
As does mine, thankfully.
Let me tell you this: if she runs IE, it's not my fault. It's her computer. If I don't realize what she's doing, it's my fault for not invading her privacy and that's where that ends.
Hunh? I discuss these things with my bride. Such a trivial thing should not ba a matter of privacy. My wife knows why Firefox is a better browser, why I removed WebShots and why the computer is mostly booted into Linux. She realises I'm the sysadmin, an expert in my field, and is willing to trust my judgement, seeing as we're married and all.
I respectfully submit that if you can't relate such a simple thing to your life partner, there's something of a communications issue there.
Thank $DEITY I have no such problems.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Yeah, it's almost as if she has a mind of her own.
:) but also increasingly when it comes to posting/modding.
:) saying "I see more xp ignorance in here than Linux ignorance in an AOL room" really is true, or if we just let it appear that way - so that facts don't mess up our world view, or something.
Not only a foreign concept for many Slahsdotters when it comes to women apparently
I've been lurking here a long time, and still wonder when exactly this fundamentalist turn happened. Suddenly everything is either black or white. Only One Way. And bias and fud (the thing we used to be against) is more important than facts. Bullshit (and I don't mean opinions but facts) are rated +5 informative just because it is pro-Linux and/or anti-MS, while facts correcting this are modded down.
I've been using both Linux and Windows for a long time, and both have strength and weaknesses. I can see a lot of reasons for choosing one or the other, that varies with situation, needs and what people want (yes, they can prioritize different than You without making them Wrong, or Joe Schmoes or whatever the popular derogative is for people daring to think and choose different than You...)
Sometimes I wonder if that sig someone had (no, not me
I guess for the young and righteous, this sounds like old people yapping about "the youth today" or "everything was better before". But I miss when it really was more News for nerds, and less religion for nerds.
After securing my brother-in-law's household by setting up a specific administrator account for software installs, removing IE links where-ever I could find them and replacing them with Firefox, installing SP2, installing AdAware, installing a decent firewall and several other things, they are now constantly calling because such and such doesn't work properly.
The call is usually one of the following:
1) Such and such program that worked before you did the SP2 upgrade doesn't work anymore. Could you come over and figure out a way to fix it? I need to run it.
2) I can't use such and such website because it needs IE. (And no, the UserAgentSwitcher extension isn't working in this case). Please give me access to IE so I can circumvent all the security you've installed.
3) I really want to install known spyware/adware containing program, but I can't unless I get into the administrative account.
4) Why can't I just run as administrator? Aren't you a bit paranoid for putting all this security on our computer? Now I have to actually switch users in order to install stuff and the extra two or three clicks is really annoying.
Just for fun, I've given them an extra computer running KDE 3.3.0 on top of Linux with all the latest scanning, printing, image processing, instant messenging, browsing, cd-burning, dvd-watching software...but they won't use it because:
1) It looks different. They're deeply uncomfortable with that fact.
2) They try to download and install Windows programs, and of course, it doesn't work. This despite being given a compatibility list and where to get compiled binaries. (and an invitation for me to install things if they're really uncomfortable with nice GUI installer)
3) They want to buy software at Best Buy and install it on the computer and it won't run. Again, they tend to ignore the compatibility list.
4) Did I mention that it looks different than Windows?
The point is that you can educate users, but most simply don't want to be educated. They have gotten comfortable in their current paradigm (usually some mixture of the "freedom" of Windows 95/98 with the performance and "security" of windows XP) and don't want to change/learn anything different. Not only that, but remember that when it comes to family and friends, you can't set a policy like you can in a company. Telling the wife - NO - you cannot run that program that you love and have been using for ages because it is insecure is, in general a bad move.
In short, I've been where this guy has, and I'm totally sympathetic. Let's not take cheap shots and call the guy an idiot because he didn't go the next step and use a root kit.
I agree with the parent poster.
My wife Was using Win98 and IE6.1 SP whatever up until six months ago. Her IE installation got so corrupted with spyware that it wouldn't even launch, so I installed Firefox and Thunderbird with my favorite extensions (AdBlock, TTLO, User Agent Switcher, etc.) and it took her all of 3 days to fall in love with it.
I then picked up a cut-price generic Athlon box, that was some 12 times as fast as her old machine at Fry's for about $200.00, installed Fedora Core 2 on it and gave it to her. To make her feel like she had a safety belt, I also got her "Linux for Non-Geeks" which she has barely opened. Her first question when the box booted up after the install was "where's Firefox?"
She now snipes at Windows almost as much as the most zealous penguinista at your local Junior High. She will occasionally run into content on the 'net that won't load, but when she asks me about it, it's usually something designed to exploit Windows' poor security model (like ActiveX controls and browser hijacks).
She's happy with her newer, faster machine and is learning to love the penguin, but I would NEVER have done it if she wasn't: 1) willing to learn, and 2) pre-conditioned by a few months' favorable experience with Firefox and Thunderbird.
utter rubbish
Don't know how things work in your home but in my home, I have a computer (Mandrake) and my wife has a computer (XP home). I don't 'let' her do anything with her pc, she does what she damn well wants thank you very much and god help me if I start screwing with her setup and make something burp... and yes, I do have to clean up the mess when things go bad.
the good news is that her system is well patched, runs zone alarm, avg, mozilla, and I just switched her from aim to gaim. Step by step the migration to FLOSS goes forward.
Keep in mind that 'her' computer is for more than home and has to work at her place of employ (Windows and apple shop) so some of the 'hands off' has to do with not screwing up use of the system at work.
Anyway - bottom line, at home you are NOT a sys admin, you're a spouse with special skills.
dogu