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Is Obsolescence Good Computer Security?
caesar-auf-nihil asks: "I was recently considering a switch from dial-up to something faster (either cable or DSL) but my friend recommended against it since he said I was more secure staying with Dial-Up. His argument was that my connection's slowness and 'not always on' connection gave me better security since I was less of a target for many security threats. Now, I have never gotten infected, nor do I believe my machine is infested with spyware and/or controlling programs as it runs fine, but I wonder if the obsolescence argument is really good or not. Does Dial-Up really protect you or is this a false sense of security and I should just go ahead and pick a faster service and make sure my firewall is a good one and my virus definitions are always up to date?"
It sounds like your friend is advocating a type of security through obscurity to me. Being on dial-up won't protect you. You should be using a firewall and have up to date virus definitions regardless of your type of connection to the internet.
Not connecting to the Internet at all is even safer than dial up, and not even having a computer practically guarantees that you won't get spyware and malware. And what good is that? Your friend's advice is ludicrous. Use proper security. Don't cruise the net as root, or the admin user on a windows box. If you have to use Windows as your OS get a real firewall product, hardware even better than software, don't run unnecessary services, don't use IE unless its for the MS site itself. Don't use Outlook. Keep your system patched. Avoid sites like the free game and pr0n sites that are forever infesting computers. Get a useful book on security. Keep proper backups so that you can recover if all else fails, then relax and enjoy the experience. The time you'll save will pay for most of your outlays.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Being on the internet by itself is not a security hazard. Doing something stupid or using an insecure operating system/browser (cue IE/Windows jokes here) is insecure.
I use my router on my broadband connection as a firewall - works great. Even in Windows I have no problems.
That's equivalent to saying if you never leave your house you won't get mugged. Sure, its probably true, but if you take the proper cautions, you will probably avoid getting mugged, and, more importantly, you don't let fear control your life.
DYWYPI?
Do you know for a fact that you don't have spyware? I have seen many dialup connected computer with spyware and they didn't even know it. Broadband is better. Everyone can be secure if they just follow a few simple rules to surfing the web.
1) Don't download things unless you know what they do.
2) Get rid of IE
3) have a good virus scanner/spyware scanner
Staying on dialup is like saying that a bike is more reliable and therefore better than a car. Cars might break down every once in a while but if you need to get somewhere they're much better than bikes.
Let's take the question seriously for a moment, for fun.
:)
Is there an argument for this? No.
You can simply unplug your net cable at night. So why be stuck with an expensive slow connection?
I think this ask slashdot question was a trolling experiment.
Broadband + OS X = Problem Solved. Oh NO, someone will mod my post DOWN and it will hurt my KARMA! Oh dear! Now I'll need to sleep with a nightlight.
Music - www.richardmac.com
I agree with everyone else here. That may be technically true, but it's stupid. All you need is a firewall and a little common sense and you are practically invulnerable to most of the attacks out there.
Get broadband. Get a firewall. Enjoy.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I fully agree with all the above advice and my 2p's (uk) worth is that at times you can be safer on broadband instead of dial-up. For example if you have a cable modem (dont know how it works on adsl so keeping quiet)then you have NO risk of some dodgy dialler software getting in and changing your dial-up number to a premium rate number because it's not connected to the phone line at all !!!
Enjoy the speed and "almost" always on. broadband
Ok, I'm sick of seeing crappy advice confusing newcomers and normies. Here are some stupid tips to avoid taking seriously. I'll start it with this one.
1 - dumb. Use dial-up instead of Cable or DSL because being connected to the internet all the time is a security risk.
1 - smart. Go get Cable or DSL, your life will improve (barring bad service). If you want to nullify the increased threat from being constantly online, buy a router that does NAT for you. Now you aren't always connected, your router is, and it's providing statefull firewalling for you.
2 - dumb. Never run anything you want secure on Windows. Use Linux, or even better OpenBSD.
2 - smart. OpenBSD rocks on security, but if you have no bloody idea how to use it you'll do something dumb that will compromise security or, more likely, uptime. Use the OS you know how to configure, and learn how to configure is securely and properly. You can research new OSs from your now-secure platform.
Please, kind readers, add to this list.
You do have a risk that none of us on broadband have: Dial-up Hijacking. Malware on your computer changes your dial-up settings in Windows, and you end up dialing to a pay number in another country, and VERY expensive. Many people don't notice it, until you get your phone bill. You don't hear about dialers as much now, but they're still out there. Am I just showing my age? http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/articles2/modem-h ijacking.htm
That's like saying that if you don't drive a car, you won't have as many accidents as you would if you just ride a horse-drawn wagon and stay off of any road where cars might be. It's true that you're much less likely to be hurt that way, but you miss out on the benefits that make having a car (or some form of faster transportation) worthwhile. In the same way, you might not be "always on" to be attacked through your broadband connection, but you lose all of the benefits that come with having a high-speed connection. So unless you do nothing except text e-mail, the benefits of broadband should outweigh the risks, especially if you're smart enough to take simple precautions. Just nothing except my Mac's built-in firewall, I've never had any issues, and I've been on broadband for years.
David
This is sound advice, yes you increase your value to hackers by purchasing a high speed connection (valueable to them for the same reasons as to you) do some homework on computer security and you will be fine.
but your friend would download viruses and their ilk from the websites you are sending him to. virus corrupts the floppy and you install a trojan when you access the disk. this doesn't care what kind of connection you have, it contacts the creator who installs all you can eat malware.
I'm fighting The War on Drugs!
Why do people rob banks and not homeless people? Because there is money in the bank, but the homeless person is likely broke.
A dial up connections obviously can't put out the same load that a broad band connection can. So it would stand to reason that a zombie net creater would be less interested in the computer. But most zombie net creater's are trying to get a huge number of PCs over a wide region, so while your PC isn't is sweet as a Win 98 box on a 5 meg DSL line, it is still another zombie. and it would likely be harder for the creators to make a filter to ignore your machine.
Same for spy/adware. Your machine isn't the best, but it is another machine.
so this is not obscurity he was preaching, it was desirablility he was preaching, albeit incorrectly.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Remember Spindizzy, that isometric 3D game with all the different screens to explore? The whole map fit in 11 kiB.
They don't make them like they used to.
You could either switch to linux, or hibernate/shut down the computer whenever you're going to be gone for a while. The slow connection won't help much, if at all, since I think most viruses are relatively small.
What happened to that good old technique I like to call "turning your computer off when not in use" (TM)? It surprising has some side benefits, like lowering your energy bill!!!
To do list for Windows
What kind of idiot thinks connection type has anything to do with infectability? A virus doesn't give a crap if it's traveling over fiber, dsl, cable, or phone lines. With broadband you can get 10 or 15 spyware programs and viruses and not see much of a dent in your overall speed. With dialup, just one or two infections will bring you down completely. If anything you'll be more likely to get infected since dialers can't affect broadband, only dialup. A nice $2,000 phone bill should be enough to convince anyone that dialup is not safer.
Maybe he thinks using dialup will protect him from cookies too.
It's more difficult to get a hardware NAT router/firewall for your connection.
You're less likely to download the large security updates because of time it takes.
'Always on' isn't a requirement. You can turn off the router or modem just like you can disconnect on dialup. I know people who do this.
Most exploits are quite small, and won't take long at all to install on your machine, even on dialup.
I've had 3 machines on cable behind a $25 belkin NAT firewall/router for over 5 years. I run zone alarm on the machines while I'm web surfing. I use mozilla because they seem to be more responsive to security issues than microsoft. I'm pretty lazy about patching, and I still haven't gotten any viruses, worms or trojans.
Hope your friend is not your dial-up vendor too. If malware connections attempt to connect to your machine, your dial-up might be saturated with the crap being downloaded, while personal info is being uploaded. Dial-up does not make you secure simply because on the network level, its just machines with IPs out there, regardless of connection. I havent heard of a virus that depends on layer 1 or 2 vulnerabilities.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
If you drive a car, instead of walking, the chance of getting into a major road accident increases, and you'll never get carjacked when walking.
Basically, his advice is simply to stay behind, because these new-fangled new technologies require you to actually increase your realm of understanding to use properly. If you are on a high-speed line, you actually have to care a little bit more about security, oh my! By by that same token, if you just stuck with a manual typewriter, you could avoid the threat of viruses altogether.
Ok, lots of people said this is a stupid ideea, that a net connection is a net connection and so on. Fact is, I worked at an ISP for about half of last year, and what happened to me happened to most ou out new clients: soon after getting connected, we were hit by baf stuff. Really hard. Why? Several reasons, as far as I can tell. First, the dial-up ISP usually tends to do a lot of firewalling on your behalf. Second, the connection (especially local one) beeing a lot faster, hits came a lot sooner and more often. And third there is a lot of bad stuff on the local ethernet connection which cannot be firewalled in any way by the ISP (us), even if they wanted to.
Point is, I agree with what most people said: beeing on dial-up is not safe. However, getting a broadband connection is likely going to make things interesting in a very short time