The guy from main had 2 firewalls, spyware and antivirus software. Still 1 machine had a virus that killed it that the vendor was behind on, and the second had spyware that brought it down to its knees. I think as a (l)user he did a fairly good job and a huge effort compared to 90% of the internet users.
No offense, but I feel we aren't getting the whole story here. If he is running two firewalls (which I assume is 1 hardware and 1 software), is running anti-virus and ad-removal stuff, and STILL has crippling stuff on his machine - then this guy has encountered nastier spyware than I have ever seen.
You know, a good bit of it could be eliminated by deleting Outlook, and simply learning the rules of a true firewall.
It would not require months to make people "internet literate", just one day, two or three changes, and 80% of this stuff goes away.
My windows workstation has been running for 5 years, every day, 10 hours/day, without anti-virus software of any kind.
A month ago, I actually installed Norton on it, and run a full system scan. No viruses. I then installed and ran Ad-Aware. It found a few dicey cookies in the tmp folder, and the Eudora cache was flagged, but other than that.... nothing.
And did not take any kind of tech genius to achieve this. I simply never, ever ran outlook. never opened an executable or.zip file from Email, sat behind a NAT router, and disallowed anything from Tiny Personal Firewall that I did not recognize. Eudora does an EXCELLENT job of filtering spam after 1 month AI learning.
Really, it doesn't require a Doctorate in Computer Science. Those that are "abondoning" the internet just don't care enough to take a few small steps to reduce most of the problems.
Ergo, I don't think this is a problem. The absence of those running Oulook and running the 0-200 ports wide open is probably a good thing for the internet - so it's mutualy beneficial.
Not being elitist at all. It just depends on how much effort you wish to put into making the experience more enjoyable. If that effort is "zero", then how bad do you expect others to feel about it?
Everything worth anything requires *some* effort to be worthwhile, and some people just want it all pre-packaged, which nobody has been able to do with any real success.
The great thing about living in an apartment building in a dense urban area is that at any time you can see about 10 access points, 3 or 4 which are always wide open.
This provides a great backup solution for those times that your primary connection goes down.
I have "leeched" a few times when needed, but I have never run Kazaa or anything bandwidth intensive, never looked for open ports or file sharing on their network, and rotated to another open access after about an hour of use.
I doubt that they even knew I was there... or cared.
If everyone would just be semi-decent about wireless access points, and not abuse things, most major cities would have multiple redundancy redudancy and internet uptime darn close to 100%.
So, a friend of his at sears has a customer who wants to return a 36" sony WEGA tv, he said my dad could have it for $1000 (at the time sears was selling it for about $1600) but he didn't want to lose 2 inches of height for the 2" gain in width and passed it over.
FWIW, we've had three WEGA's, and they have all needed major repairs within 3 years.
Great picture quality, no doubt, but these aren't your father's 1970 Zenith which is probably still going strong.
One power source (intermittent shutting off), and two blown picture tubes in three years kind of turned us off to that series of TV... although it may be chalked up to unique experience.
This is probably the only product that I would recommend one of those Homer Simpon "extended warranty, how can I lose?" purchases on.
I'm sorry, but this post made my spit out my coffee onto my 21" LCD monitor while laughing. Kudos on the it. Where are my mod points when I need them?
On another note, I just recenlty bought a new TV. I looked at everything, and I mean EVERYTHING.
The best, sharpest pictures, are found in ~36" HDTV Widescreen, Flat CRT Televisions. Hands's down.
I ended up compromising and getting a 51" rear projection. It's is not as sharp, but it is perfectly acceptable.
I also have a 20" CRT in the bedroom.
When it comes to Television, the truth is, you get used to what you have very, very quickly - and few people sit around bemoaning the picture quality of their televisions.
I think the "price sweet spot" now sits in the 50"-60" rear-projection range, but for crystal clarity and sharpness, the big CRT's are hard to beat.
Plasma's heat up and burn out like a supernova, LCD manufacturers have frustrating "pixel policies" in which they expect you to leave with 6 burned out spots from a $3,000 Television.
I'd still go with somthing CRT based until the price/quality ratio really justifies that suerpflat's price premium - which at this point just isn't as dramatic as I had anticipated.
I have personally seen instances where DNA mutuation has caused people to begin shouting into their cellphone as if the sound waves will travel farther the louder they talk.
I've also seen evidence where the mutation effects the frontal lobe and diminishes the inhibitions of the person using the phone, so that they don't even care about notifying the 50 other people on the bus that they are currently on their period, and are experiencing that "not so fresh" feeling.
But what prevents spyware developers from "Digitally Signing" their spyware-containing content?
I mean, how do I acknowledge with confidence that I "trust" Acme, Inc's new browser companion?
There are thousands of software developers, and if I want to download their programs through IE, I have to state that I "trust" them. Trust them? I don't even know them. I just want to try the app.
Maybe this is a way for MS to keep people web to their apps (hey, we're a big multi-national corporation, you can trust us, so why not download OUR version of that program!)
I don't see how digitally signing something makes it more of less legitimate. I can digitally sign the most dubious piece of spyware ever known, and that doesn't make it any less dubious.
On a serious note, I've hear this before, and I think it is overblown.
Those of us who enjoy hot baths or jacuzzi's should have the same problem, as well as those of us who go to the beach in black bathing suits, etc, etc.
Unless one spends a REALLY, REALLY long time with the laptop literally burning their crotch, they will not have a problem.
That area of the body goes through heat/cool variations through a regular lifestyle.
I opine that the only people who would be effected by this "laptop effect", are people who already have fertility issues, and need to maintain an extreme optimal enivornment to increase their chances of conception.
I use flashblock as well as adblock. I'm not big on having talking flash advertisements sneaking up on me and when I want to view a flash I'll click on the flashplay button.
I agree, I don't know how many times I surf while listening to MP3's in my headphones, when all of a sudden BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH comes through at maximum volume and almost temporarily defens me.
It's hard to find the perfect balance of audio between music files and Flash files, and it can not only be annoying, but can cause physical distress or damage.
I have little sympathy for the "surprise" ads anymore. If I am interested in something, a simple targeted ad from a search will get me to click it.
Such a wonderful thing existed, the Ricochet (aka Metricom) mesh network. 230kbaud, several modem options (PCMCIA card, external with both serial AND USB).
Agreed, I used to have Ricochet and miss it.
However, I now have the Verizon PCMCIA card with broadband access. It works pretty well in Los Angeles. I happen to be using it right now from a hotel on the road in Las Vegas. 100% signal strength.
I just pinged a major website, and got between 200 and 300ms.
Downloaded Adobe Acrobat (19MB) earlier at an average download speed of roughly 1 Mbs.
It costs $80/month, but if you use wireless data fairly often, it really does beat searching for Wi-Fi.
I'm thinking of upgrading my Palm Tungsten T to a Treo 650 (or its successor), to get rid of my Motorola Startac. Can the Treo get my laptop online via Bluetooth and DUN?
Yes, the Treo 650 can do it. However, it is against the TOS of some service providers to use the phone as a modem unless you buy an expensive all-you-can eat data plan ~$80/mo... so caveat emptor.
They might threaten to cut you off, or just cut you off if they catch you - or they may do nothing.
I've heard of all of the above scenarious happening.
Now your unlisted number, that you went ahead and put on the do-not-call list to protect yourself from callers who just selected numbers randomly, will be given to the telemarketers as a number that is fair game for them to call. Your tax maney at work.
FWIW, I never put my number on the DNC list for the very reason that I knew it would eventually be misused.
In order to "opt-out", as the proposal says you will be able to do, I assume you will need to listen to each advertisement in it's entirety to hear the "opt-out" instructions. I don't see a limit on the length of the call, so you could be roped into a 5 minute pitch.
What a great way to make sure your ad is indeed, listened to.
If you hang up, you keep getting them because you didn't opt-out.
This is pretty ingenius on the part of the marketers, because to assert your opt-out rights, you have to listen to the whole ad at least once.
How does this catch Kazaa and other "freeware" that bundles the spyware within it?
I don't use Kazaa. I use Shareeza which, from what I can see, is spyware free. Your question is a good one, but one that I haven't had to deal with. And, I did not mean to imply that his method was fool-proof, only a necessary adjunct to spyware removal tools. I doubt any windows box is 100% spyware free, or ever will be. I am talking about limiting as much as possible.
How about the freeware that includes a firefox plug-in that downloads its popups from port 80?
You're not blocking firefox from accessing port 80, are you?
Well, of course not. But I am very selective about the plug-ins that I add. I don't have any that pull ads. At least not that i have been able to determine.
The only truly effective spyware detection tool is a firewall with "deny all" set at installation.
Then, as you start using the machine, you will know what ports need to be open, and which applications use them.
Then, after about a week, turn on the computer, turn logging on for all traffic, and let it sit idle for a day. See if the programs you allowed access to the internet do so while you are away from the computer, and if so lookup the IP addresses that they contact.
I love Ad-aware, etc, and use it every week.
However, I always do the "firewall inspection" test once every few months as well, and make access adjustments accordingly (for instance, my email program is ONLY allowed to access ports 25 & 110 on the IP address of my mail server.
Spyware removal tools are a good first line of defense, but should never take the place of iron-fisted, tedious, firewall administration.
Face it, if your going to give up after one problem, you don't belong in IT in any capacity. (Kinda like a sysadmin who kept allowing our W2K servers to get hacked because "service packs cause problems".) You'll be running SP2 within a few months or your doomed doofushood.
My friend, if the "one problem" is a complete loss of internet connect (the purpose of the machine), and the problem cannot be solved, then it makes perfect sense to revert back to the version of the OS that functioned well enough.
Sufficient firewalls and security measures are in place.
"Doofushood" is letting perfectly good machines sit idle while trying fruitlessly to solve a problem, which solution may or may not exist in a closed source operating system.
I shudder to think that your IT philosphy is simply to follow Microsoft's plan for you, but if your company is pleased with that, I tip my hat to you and wish you the best.
The thing is, the "one problem" was a complete loss of internet connection, rendering the machine an expensive paperweight. If it rendered a few icons incorrectly, then I would agree with you, but the machine was made useless for it's task. We look at that as more than "one problem".
And the problem could not be rectified within 2 hours. Uninstalling SP2 solved the problem. Would you expect us to SP2 install it on the rest of the office machines, all of which are connected wirelessly? Does that sound like a good use of company resources to you?
Call us crazy, but we really have better things to do with our time than Beta Test an "upgrade" which completely hoses the Wi-Fi connection. We'll rely on our firewalls and go back to the philosphy "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
And I will leave out the anecdotal problems we have heard from IT collegues as another factor in this decision.
This is why Linux ain't taking over anytime soon
I've no idea what this means. We have very few problems with out Linux boxes.
security center -> bottom of page -> 'firewall settings'
It's got all the goodies you want, including allowing full-access to specific processes and ports.
I don't know for sure, but if I were a betting man, I would say that all outbound traffic to Microsoft servers is back-doored, and unable to be blocked by it's own firewall.
Someone informed me that they thought they were successfully using the MS firewall, then installed a third party F/W just to make sure. Seems there were some outbound packets to MS addresses that the XP firewall didn't make a peep about.
Maybe he had Windows Update or something similar turned on, and XP recognizes this and allows it. It could have been 100% his own doing.
I remember reading about several companies lobbying ZoneAlarm to not be capable of blocking access to their programs or servers, and MS was *probably* one of them. ZoneAlarm refused to identify the companies who were pressuing them.
Any company that puts out a firewall is free to put in their own exemptions, and they probably do.
Much to do about nothing? Probably. But food for thought.
I installed in on a one machine in the office for a trial run. It immediatly lost the Wi-Fi connection (nothing, and I mean, nothing would bring it back). We spent two hours trying everything, removing the included windows firewall, tweaked the network settings, reinstalling the card, installing updated drivers, etc, etc. No connection.
We the uninstalled SP2 from the control panel. Reboot, Voila. Machine back on LAN.
We attempted no more SP2 installations, and never will.
I used Intel exclusively from the early 90's until 2002. Since then, all new machine purchases for both my home and business are AMD. I insist on AMD for any new machine. I am still shocked to find AMD's chips being consistently priced less than Intels (I have no idea how they do it).
I have nothing personal against Intel, as they did much for the PC industry and served me well for a long time. They still make excellent motherboard chipsets as well. I have come to realize, however, that AMD consistently puts out better engineered microprocessors, and at least apppear to put quality ahead of quantity.
Were it not for AMD, Intel would not even be thinking about 64 bit desktop chips, and especially not dual core chips. Instead, we'd be seeing every last Mhz squeezed out of every current chip. You are only going to get so much out of overclocking your current chip inventory.
AMD has earned my business in much the same way that Linux has. Giving me more for less.
I fear that the paradigm shift will be very difficult for AMD based on the "nobody ever got fired for buying Intel" mentality, but I really think every corporation and IT manager across the country should start taking 2nd and even 3rd looks at AMD's offerings before sending off the purchase orders.
It's hard to believe that AMD is stll the #2 chip maker, but, as with everything, marketing trumps quality 90% of the time. I've seen very few AMD commercials over the years, but I can't get those dancing Pentium 4 "Blue Men" out of my head. They still give me nightmares.
Slashdot Mirror
No offense, but I feel we aren't getting the whole story here. If he is running two firewalls (which I assume is 1 hardware and 1 software), is running anti-virus and ad-removal stuff, and STILL has crippling stuff on his machine - then this guy has encountered nastier spyware than I have ever seen.
You know who deserves a large chunk of the blame for SPAM in my honest opinion?
The 1% of the people who respond to it. For without them, there would be no spam at all.
It would not require months to make people "internet literate", just one day, two or three changes, and 80% of this stuff goes away.
My windows workstation has been running for 5 years, every day, 10 hours/day, without anti-virus software of any kind.
A month ago, I actually installed Norton on it, and run a full system scan. No viruses. I then installed and ran Ad-Aware. It found a few dicey cookies in the tmp folder, and the Eudora cache was flagged, but other than that .... nothing.
And did not take any kind of tech genius to achieve this. I simply never, ever ran outlook. never opened an executable or .zip file from Email, sat behind a NAT router, and disallowed anything from Tiny Personal Firewall that I did not recognize. Eudora does an EXCELLENT job of filtering spam after 1 month AI learning.
Really, it doesn't require a Doctorate in Computer Science. Those that are "abondoning" the internet just don't care enough to take a few small steps to reduce most of the problems.
Ergo, I don't think this is a problem. The absence of those running Oulook and running the 0-200 ports wide open is probably a good thing for the internet - so it's mutualy beneficial.
Not being elitist at all. It just depends on how much effort you wish to put into making the experience more enjoyable. If that effort is "zero", then how bad do you expect others to feel about it?
Everything worth anything requires *some* effort to be worthwhile, and some people just want it all pre-packaged, which nobody has been able to do with any real success.
This provides a great backup solution for those times that your primary connection goes down.
I have "leeched" a few times when needed, but I have never run Kazaa or anything bandwidth intensive, never looked for open ports or file sharing on their network, and rotated to another open access after about an hour of use.
I doubt that they even knew I was there ... or cared.
If everyone would just be semi-decent about wireless access points, and not abuse things, most major cities would have multiple redundancy redudancy and internet uptime darn close to 100%.
FWIW, we've had three WEGA's, and they have all needed major repairs within 3 years.
Great picture quality, no doubt, but these aren't your father's 1970 Zenith which is probably still going strong.
One power source (intermittent shutting off), and two blown picture tubes in three years kind of turned us off to that series of TV ... although it may be chalked up to unique experience.
This is probably the only product that I would recommend one of those Homer Simpon "extended warranty, how can I lose?" purchases on.
I'm sorry, but this post made my spit out my coffee onto my 21" LCD monitor while laughing. Kudos on the it. Where are my mod points when I need them?
On another note, I just recenlty bought a new TV. I looked at everything, and I mean EVERYTHING.
The best, sharpest pictures, are found in ~36" HDTV Widescreen, Flat CRT Televisions. Hands's down.
I ended up compromising and getting a 51" rear projection. It's is not as sharp, but it is perfectly acceptable.
I also have a 20" CRT in the bedroom.
When it comes to Television, the truth is, you get used to what you have very, very quickly - and few people sit around bemoaning the picture quality of their televisions.
I think the "price sweet spot" now sits in the 50"-60" rear-projection range, but for crystal clarity and sharpness, the big CRT's are hard to beat.
Plasma's heat up and burn out like a supernova, LCD manufacturers have frustrating "pixel policies" in which they expect you to leave with 6 burned out spots from a $3,000 Television.
I'd still go with somthing CRT based until the price/quality ratio really justifies that suerpflat's price premium - which at this point just isn't as dramatic as I had anticipated.
I have personally seen instances where DNA mutuation has caused people to begin shouting into their cellphone as if the sound waves will travel farther the louder they talk.
I've also seen evidence where the mutation effects the frontal lobe and diminishes the inhibitions of the person using the phone, so that they don't even care about notifying the 50 other people on the bus that they are currently on their period, and are experiencing that "not so fresh" feeling.
DNA mutation is the only explanation.
I mean, how do I acknowledge with confidence that I "trust" Acme, Inc's new browser companion?
There are thousands of software developers, and if I want to download their programs through IE, I have to state that I "trust" them. Trust them? I don't even know them. I just want to try the app.
Maybe this is a way for MS to keep people web to their apps (hey, we're a big multi-national corporation, you can trust us, so why not download OUR version of that program!)
I don't see how digitally signing something makes it more of less legitimate. I can digitally sign the most dubious piece of spyware ever known, and that doesn't make it any less dubious.
Those of us who enjoy hot baths or jacuzzi's should have the same problem, as well as those of us who go to the beach in black bathing suits, etc, etc.
Unless one spends a REALLY, REALLY long time with the laptop literally burning their crotch, they will not have a problem.
That area of the body goes through heat/cool variations through a regular lifestyle.
I opine that the only people who would be effected by this "laptop effect", are people who already have fertility issues, and need to maintain an extreme optimal enivornment to increase their chances of conception.
I have a good excuse to cancel that vasectomy.
I agree, I don't know how many times I surf while listening to MP3's in my headphones, when all of a sudden BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH comes through at maximum volume and almost temporarily defens me.
It's hard to find the perfect balance of audio between music files and Flash files, and it can not only be annoying, but can cause physical distress or damage.
I have little sympathy for the "surprise" ads anymore. If I am interested in something, a simple targeted ad from a search will get me to click it.
Agreed, I used to have Ricochet and miss it.
However, I now have the Verizon PCMCIA card with broadband access. It works pretty well in Los Angeles. I happen to be using it right now from a hotel on the road in Las Vegas. 100% signal strength.
I just pinged a major website, and got between 200 and 300ms.
Downloaded Adobe Acrobat (19MB) earlier at an average download speed of roughly 1 Mbs.
It costs $80/month, but if you use wireless data fairly often, it really does beat searching for Wi-Fi.
Yes, the Treo 650 can do it. However, it is against the TOS of some service providers to use the phone as a modem unless you buy an expensive all-you-can eat data plan ~$80/mo ... so caveat emptor.
They might threaten to cut you off, or just cut you off if they catch you - or they may do nothing.
I've heard of all of the above scenarious happening.
FWIW, I never put my number on the DNC list for the very reason that I knew it would eventually be misused.
People called me crazy, paranoid even.
I say they just haven't lived here long enough.
And i'm not even going to say I told you so ...
What a great way to make sure your ad is indeed, listened to.
If you hang up, you keep getting them because you didn't opt-out.
This is pretty ingenius on the part of the marketers, because to assert your opt-out rights, you have to listen to the whole ad at least once.
I don't use Kazaa. I use Shareeza which, from what I can see, is spyware free. Your question is a good one, but one that I haven't had to deal with. And, I did not mean to imply that his method was fool-proof, only a necessary adjunct to spyware removal tools. I doubt any windows box is 100% spyware free, or ever will be. I am talking about limiting as much as possible.
How about the freeware that includes a firefox plug-in that downloads its popups from port 80?
You're not blocking firefox from accessing port 80, are you?
Well, of course not. But I am very selective about the plug-ins that I add. I don't have any that pull ads. At least not that i have been able to determine.
Then, as you start using the machine, you will know what ports need to be open, and which applications use them.
Then, after about a week, turn on the computer, turn logging on for all traffic, and let it sit idle for a day. See if the programs you allowed access to the internet do so while you are away from the computer, and if so lookup the IP addresses that they contact.
I love Ad-aware, etc, and use it every week.
However, I always do the "firewall inspection" test once every few months as well, and make access adjustments accordingly (for instance, my email program is ONLY allowed to access ports 25 & 110 on the IP address of my mail server.
Spyware removal tools are a good first line of defense, but should never take the place of iron-fisted, tedious, firewall administration.
What do you have against Pfizer?
I kid you not.
It's a really, really cool product though. I'll probably pay for it.
It will be good for flight simulator terrain design.
My friend, if the "one problem" is a complete loss of internet connect (the purpose of the machine), and the problem cannot be solved, then it makes perfect sense to revert back to the version of the OS that functioned well enough.
Sufficient firewalls and security measures are in place.
"Doofushood" is letting perfectly good machines sit idle while trying fruitlessly to solve a problem, which solution may or may not exist in a closed source operating system.
I shudder to think that your IT philosphy is simply to follow Microsoft's plan for you, but if your company is pleased with that, I tip my hat to you and wish you the best.
The thing is, the "one problem" was a complete loss of internet connection, rendering the machine an expensive paperweight. If it rendered a few icons incorrectly, then I would agree with you, but the machine was made useless for it's task. We look at that as more than "one problem".
And the problem could not be rectified within 2 hours. Uninstalling SP2 solved the problem. Would you expect us to SP2 install it on the rest of the office machines, all of which are connected wirelessly? Does that sound like a good use of company resources to you?
Call us crazy, but we really have better things to do with our time than Beta Test an "upgrade" which completely hoses the Wi-Fi connection. We'll rely on our firewalls and go back to the philosphy "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
And I will leave out the anecdotal problems we have heard from IT collegues as another factor in this decision.
This is why Linux ain't taking over anytime soon
I've no idea what this means. We have very few problems with out Linux boxes.
It's got all the goodies you want, including allowing full-access to specific processes and ports.
I don't know for sure, but if I were a betting man, I would say that all outbound traffic to Microsoft servers is back-doored, and unable to be blocked by it's own firewall.
Someone informed me that they thought they were successfully using the MS firewall, then installed a third party F/W just to make sure. Seems there were some outbound packets to MS addresses that the XP firewall didn't make a peep about.
Maybe he had Windows Update or something similar turned on, and XP recognizes this and allows it. It could have been 100% his own doing.
I remember reading about several companies lobbying ZoneAlarm to not be capable of blocking access to their programs or servers, and MS was *probably* one of them. ZoneAlarm refused to identify the companies who were pressuing them.
Any company that puts out a firewall is free to put in their own exemptions, and they probably do.
Much to do about nothing? Probably. But food for thought.
We the uninstalled SP2 from the control panel. Reboot, Voila. Machine back on LAN.
We attempted no more SP2 installations, and never will.
I have nothing personal against Intel, as they did much for the PC industry and served me well for a long time. They still make excellent motherboard chipsets as well. I have come to realize, however, that AMD consistently puts out better engineered microprocessors, and at least apppear to put quality ahead of quantity.
Were it not for AMD, Intel would not even be thinking about 64 bit desktop chips, and especially not dual core chips. Instead, we'd be seeing every last Mhz squeezed out of every current chip. You are only going to get so much out of overclocking your current chip inventory.
AMD has earned my business in much the same way that Linux has. Giving me more for less.
I fear that the paradigm shift will be very difficult for AMD based on the "nobody ever got fired for buying Intel" mentality, but I really think every corporation and IT manager across the country should start taking 2nd and even 3rd looks at AMD's offerings before sending off the purchase orders.
It's hard to believe that AMD is stll the #2 chip maker, but, as with everything, marketing trumps quality 90% of the time. I've seen very few AMD commercials over the years, but I can't get those dancing Pentium 4 "Blue Men" out of my head. They still give me nightmares.
None of the images show up anywhere on Google Images. People often email me asking me why not.
*shrug*
Google does what Google does. People seem to like it.
I have to say that i've been finding it a little lacking lately ... searching for articles that I know exist often yield nothing.
But, hey, you really can't argue with $180/share.