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Windows Security and On-line Training Courses?
eggegick writes "My wife has taken a number of college courses over the last three years and many of the classes used on-line materials rather than books. The problem was these required IE along with Java, Active X and/or various plug-ins (the names of which escapes me), and occasionally I'd have to tweak our firewall to allow these apps to run. I don't think any of these training apps would work with Firefox. All of this made me cringe from a security point of view.
Myself, I use Firefox, No-Script, our external firewall and common sense when using the web. I have a very old Windows 2000 machine that I keep up to date. To my knowledge, I've never had a virus or malware problem.
Her computer is a relatively new XP machine, and at this point she feels her computer has something wrong. But now she prefers to use my old machine instead of hers since it seems to be more responsive. We plan to run the recovery disk on hers.
Assuming the college course work applications were part of the cause, what recommendations do any of you have for running this kind of software? Is there a VMware solution that would work — that is, have a Windows image that is used temporarily for the course work and then discarded at the end of the semester (and how do you create such an image, and what does it cost?)."
Have her take her courses from a school with a clue.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Exactly. make known good snapshots and you're covered.
It's the best way to run windows nowdays.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
...and this is the worst askslashdot ever.
that is all.
This UID is 7651 digits too high to subjectively infer IQ from.
Vmware Player is free. Vmware Workstation is not. But I doubt that for online courses that the extra funtionality in the workstation edition are needed.
Just get some sandboxing software (i.e. "sandboxie", which I've only heard good stuff about) and run internet explorer from within such a sandboxed environment.
Just like a VM it will keep IE (or anything spawned by IE) from messing with the rest of the system, but with the advantage that it is much more lightweight than a typical VM.
Completely terrible analogy to make.
And yes, you can enable scripting per site. Or rather, on IE you have "zones". And you can set different security levels for each zone. You have your "Internet" Zone, "Trusted Sites", and even "Restricted Sites".
You can add sites and change security settings for each one of these. Trusted sites typically have less security requirements because you trust them. And that would be the proper solution to this question.
Security is only a problem with nefarious things are intended
That's not correct at all. While in this case it might be possible to open up only the features needed for this software to run, it's highly likely it will only work if you open up the gates for other malware to enter as well. Adding the site to the trusted zone may only resolve some of the problems (did you read the firewall bit?). Software that isn't designed with security in mind (read: most software) is often so sloppy that finding all of the inappropriate liberties it wants to take requires several rounds of troubleshooting. It seems that the virtualization suggestions in this discussion are well warranted.
Her computer is a relatively new XP machine, and this point she feels here computer has something wrong. But now she prefers to use my old machine instead of hers since it seems to be more responsive. We plan to run the recovery disk on hers. Assuming the college course work applications were part of the cause, what recommendations do any of you have when having to run this kind of software?
What the hell kind of "recommendations" is he looking for? If your school needs ActiveX plugins (I know, I know, the schools needs to get a clue, etc.), you use IE and run them. I guess we could recommend that he doesn't, but that kind of defeats the purpose. ActiveX isn't an automagic virus.
She feels her computer has something wrong? So what? What the hell does that have to do with his question? What the hell does "planning on running a recovery disk" have to do with his question? What the hell is his goddam question, anyway?
Plus, he's asking how to create a virtual machine in VMWare and how much it costs?!? Apparently this genius hasn't discovered www.google.com yet.
Easily the dumbest Ask Slashdot I've seen.
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"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
First off. Windows 2000? That you keep up to date? I haven't seen Windows 2000 updates since.... 2005. Security? WTF?
For the love of dog, use something like VirtualBox or VMWare. Now!
Second, as a techie who has returned to college I deal with this a lot. Firefox has been hit or miss. Sometimes, I have HAD TO use IE. It's a bitch, cause I use Ubuntu. Nothing sucks more then having to keep a dual boot system (I used previously) or a VM around just for that one class that requires that you submit files via IE.
That said, I have had professors are usually very understanding of using browsers other than IE. For instance my Macroeconomics professor posted my short go by for playing his videos which seemed to only play in IE. I don't know why but they only played in IE, and I forced them to play with Firefox, Greasemonkey and FlashFix.
Other than that, I have seen problems with Blackboard and Etudes. It's usually hit or miss. Depends on the professor. My best luck has been with Moodle. I haven't had one class that has been problematic on Moodle.
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
Although VMWare and the like are free, you still have the compromised windows virtual machine sitting right behind your firewall able to attack other machines in the LAN.
You would need a sandbox system, that is located outside of the firewall as well.