Organized crime has to be behind it all, the deal is too sweet for the repair shops, and too much of a drain on victims. It's like a revolving door, just make sure that the customer at Best Buy never hears of Spybot or Firefox, and you're certain to get another $90 within 2 weeks.
I agree, 95% of computer users today would end up like your clients, and my clients too. However, my point was that the reliance on AV products to protect a computer has been overhyped because education is far more effective [unless it was luck]. But 10 years of luck, 7 of which I had email?
Even you, an educated person in the area of computers place too much stock in Avast protecting you from email viruses. Them simply being received isn't much of a reason to get excited or predict that without an AV product they'd probably somehow magically leap out of your inbox or deleted box into your hard drive's nooks and crannies. If you're talking about a business handling very sensitive information maybe I'd be concerned too, and investigate if that certain virus coming in has the potential to exploit a flaw in the email client, but I assume you were talking about your home machine.
"There are a lot of people claiming to run uninfected naked machines for years. Invariably what it means it they don't run ANY Microsoft products that access the Net - no IE, no Outlook, no Outlook Express, no nothing. AND they patch everything anyway."
I'm one of those people making that claim, because it's the case with me. I started running with DOS and never got infected, nothing during Windows 95, nothing during Windows 98, nothing on Windows NT or 2000 at work, and it took 2 years into XP for me to accidentially infect my machine with Java Byte. There were several machines I worked on that had viruses, but with a bit of luck, and best practices I never transmitted them to my own computers.
I used Netscape 3 then 4, then IE 4, 5, then 6, and now Firefox and Mozilla Suite with IE occasionally. I had Command AV on my system for about a year with it stopping no viruses, and it was free - offered by my University. I currently have AVG and it has stopped no viruses including the Java Byte which I think I found with an online scanner like Housecall, but perhaps I forgot and AVG did find Byte in a scan so I could remove it.
"They also never indicate their volume of email, volume of Web site access, nature of Web site access (do you access sports sites, porn sites?), etc." Email volume would be about 50 a day for the past 8 years, considering the varrying levels of Hotmail spam, and multiple accounts. Several webpages a day, random sites, not all big names like eBay, and my bank, or CBC. Pleading the 5th on the last part of your question, but suffice to say IE was exposed to a lot of site variety possibly even sites advertising "Free" programs [which clearly I avoided].
"It's been demonstrated that XP will get infected in twenty minutes put on the Net without patches and security software."
I knew this, and took steps to patch it before running naked [on a campus LAN which isn't true Inet nudity perhaps?]. I'm still running SP1, since I'm behind a router, and I'm more concerned about breaking applications that I like and might not work with SP2, than I am with one day encountering something that can make it through my router and/or something I install myself my accident.
"I got TODAY THREE viruses downloaded from my SBC Yahoo email account via Thunderbird (detected and cleaned by Avast). Without Avast running on my system, I probably would have viruses all over my system." I wouldn't be as concerned as you were, and I wouldn't need Avast to protect me, unless there's a Thunderbird exploit I've not heard about. The human brain when properly trained is the world's most effective AV software - don't view bad emails and don't open attachments.
"I just got through yesterday cleaning a client's machine that WAS naked on the Net with no patches, no firewall and no AV. Hundreds of spyware, hundreds of trojans." I have no doubt about that. I do that cleanup for people too. That's WHY I can run a naked machine and be ok, I have experience they lack.
"It's bullshit to generalize that running naked is safer than having security software." Obviously it's not total BS, although for 95% of computer users, and it sounds like you included, you either need or think you need AV software to survive in the Wild West of the World Wide Web. My six shooter is my brain, and Delete key [and Windows patches and/or a router/firewall]. When you think about it, you have to count the number of vectors introduced by a product like McAffe and Zone Alarm, and then subtract the holes in Windows to get the true picture of which machine is more vulnerable. Does Zone Alarm take away more holes than it creates? Most likely, but it also introduces new means of attack clearly, and gives some users a false sense of security which I don't allow myself to be lulled into.
If you've read to this point, I congratulate you, I was rambling practically, but hopefully I've showed I'm not BS'ing you. Perhaps I've been using "extreme computing" to avoid viruses, but it's wor
As you can probably make out, it's a.pif file, from a virus that came out many days before October 30, 2003 as you can see the date in the corner. If you do a google for paris.pif I'm sure you'll find what day that particular virus was added to the McAfee definitions. I knew at the time, but nearly 2 years later that detail isn't at the front of my brain.
Hopefully you're joking, because if *I* couldn't notice that I was running 10,000 mass produced bad processes, then surely McAfee another mass produced piece of poop would not be able to notice them either. And if they were custom made viruses, they wouldn't be detectable to McAfee anyway unless perhaps their heuristic scanning has improved a great deal.
I've seen McAfee disable about a half a dozen computers from being able to boot, at least one time becuase it had failed to stop a virus from running, and the virus instead disabled the AV program!
Granted I could have had a custom made virus, one that was well designed and didn't draw attention to itself, but I know I didn't have any of the mass produced viruses as they are very easy to spot with even a minimum of training.
I agree completely. I often tell people that if you're paying for antivirus or antispyware software you're probably getting ripped off. McAfee and Norton are known to be disreputable, and I have photographic proof that for example Hotmail will let their McAfee definitions expire so that people can download some viruses that have been detectable for days [in an apparent agreement with McAfee to infect enough future customers to keep their business viable].
And the spyware scam is no more than organized crime. By paying for things like Stop Sign, or other spyware "Removal" products like it, you're paying protection money to the spyware author mob. I tell my customers that the only products for spyware they can trust right now are Adaware, Spybot, MS Antispyware, and possibly Pest Patrol[which I've not tried].
The irony is almost delicious, after me using my computer for years without any antivirus program installed on it and not having a single infection, managed to get my first virus through a website and a Java flaw after installing AVG antivirus.
Now Zone Alarm, Black Ice Defender, Symantec, and more have found serious flaws in their security products that actually make them VECTORS for infection by executing the viruses they are designed to detect and safely remove or block. It doesn't make me feel bad at all for using a naked computer all those years, as I may have had fewer unpatched/unknown vectors for infection than if I was running something like Zone Alarm all the time [although to be fair to them, the Windows hole count is far from over].
Pardon me for saying so, but "intimate" pictures are exactly why people should have printers at home, and a digital camera. Why subject other people to that kind of material when you can maintain your privacy, and leave the Walmart prudes alone?
I've seen the aftermath of a CD shattering in a CDROM drive. There were only tiny bits of it left, and the drive somehow still worked after it happened.
I like that tapes are on the decline, it makes it easy to snap up tape players and music tapes that would cost at least $1 on CD, for pennies at garage sales.
My blog is a little burned out, but I never got into it much in the first place. I post most of my writings on dynamic Boards, and my writings are generally lost and known only to a few. It's not really a "log" that way, only Web.
The bloggers who burn out though will be replaced by up and comers.
Please, when posting pictures to a story in Slashdot, take into account that a photo that's 50Kb is going to be loaded thousands of times, with many hundreds of hits a minute. If you don't have that kind of bandwidth, provide a mirror that can.
I had a 256MB IRiver MP3 player, with the FM tuner in it, and it works well although the software isn't as slick as I'd like it to be.
As soon as Evolution is ported to Windows, I'll be all over it. Until then I have to stay with my buggy and slow Mozilla Sunbird pre-release, which churns to a standstill whenever I maximize it, and doesn't have the smooth Outlook entry interface I'm used to at work.
How in the heck did that get moderated Insightful? Even if the climate changes this year aren't completely attributed to human produced pollutants in our atmosphere, the solar storms are NOT a reason to scale back efforts to clean up industries that have been way too dirty for way too long.
There are benefits to enacting immediate changes and regulations that do more than just ensure we aren't cooking our country with green house gasses. We can also reap economic benefits of saving energy, having fewer health problems, and reducing dependance on Saudi Oil [which is a major factor in thousands of American troops dying overseas these past years].
You're asuming that the replacements will be human. "That" implies that they will not be. Why replace humans, with other humans? They're NASA, they can build robot replacements.
Yes I've posted it before. I've only emailed my MP, but it looks like I'll have to write or phone, as he's ignored it for more than two months even though I requested a reply. I guess he too was too busy fighting against equal rights for homosexuals.
Please write your MP on this matter. Use my letter below if you don't want to write your own.
Send your letter for free (no postage necessary when parliament is in session), to your MP at the following address: [your MP's name] M.P. House of Commons Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Breitkreuz
To summarize the issues in this letter: 1. Internet Service Providers should not be required to keep extensive logs of private and legal online communications.
2. The government must not stop Canadian citizens from making personal-use copies of their legally purchased software, music, and movie media.
Here is the reasoning:
The purpose of the Copyright Act is to support creativity and innovation in the arts and culture. To design a new Act on the failed and draconian Digital Millenium Copyright Act of the United States of America, would be a disaster for Canadian culture, and innovation. Also our court system could become clogged with law abiding citizens who make personal use copies of their music, software, and movie collections for no personal financial gain. An implementation of the proposed changes to the Copyright Act would unleash another "Gun Registry boondoggle" onto the Canadian people - creating criminals out of law abiding citizens at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.
Internet Service Providers like Sasktel should not be made to keep extensive client usage logs for possible future prosecution by various copyright-based industries. I don't want to pay for that system to be put into effect, and I don't think most people do. The phone companies are not forced by the government to record the content of phone conversations, only police can do that with a proper warrant. ISP logs are going to be equivalent to phone-taps, and that's a violation of my privacy. It's doing the job of the police, and is for the sole benefit of an industry basing its profits on an outdated business model that is no longer realistic for the Canadian government to protect.
It is completely unfair to be paying a levy to artists organizations for purchasing blank CD media to make home-use private copies of legal CD music, and now to also be unable to legally copy the music I've paid for off of Digital Rights Managed CDs. If copying CD music is going to be illegal, why is the government collecting money from the product for an illegal activity? I'm satisfied that the current levy is helping to compensate artists from illegitimate copying, and no new law is required to prevent me and other people from making sensible backups of our legal music, software, and movie collections.
Your representation in the House of Commons on this matter is greatly appreciated by me, and other supporters of personal liberty and innovation in the arts. I look forward to hearing from you.
Slashdot Mirror
Organized crime has to be behind it all, the deal is too sweet for the repair shops, and too much of a drain on victims. It's like a revolving door, just make sure that the customer at Best Buy never hears of Spybot or Firefox, and you're certain to get another $90 within 2 weeks.
I agree, 95% of computer users today would end up like your clients, and my clients too. However, my point was that the reliance on AV products to protect a computer has been overhyped because education is far more effective [unless it was luck]. But 10 years of luck, 7 of which I had email?
Even you, an educated person in the area of computers place too much stock in Avast protecting you from email viruses. Them simply being received isn't much of a reason to get excited or predict that without an AV product they'd probably somehow magically leap out of your inbox or deleted box into your hard drive's nooks and crannies. If you're talking about a business handling very sensitive information maybe I'd be concerned too, and investigate if that certain virus coming in has the potential to exploit a flaw in the email client, but I assume you were talking about your home machine.
"There are a lot of people claiming to run uninfected naked machines for years.
Invariably what it means it they don't run ANY Microsoft products that access the Net - no IE, no Outlook, no Outlook Express, no nothing. AND they patch everything anyway."
I'm one of those people making that claim, because it's the case with me. I started running with DOS and never got infected, nothing during Windows 95, nothing during Windows 98, nothing on Windows NT or 2000 at work, and it took 2 years into XP for me to accidentially infect my machine with Java Byte. There were several machines I worked on that had viruses, but with a bit of luck, and best practices I never transmitted them to my own computers.
I used Netscape 3 then 4, then IE 4, 5, then 6, and now Firefox and Mozilla Suite with IE occasionally. I had Command AV on my system for about a year with it stopping no viruses, and it was free - offered by my University. I currently have AVG and it has stopped no viruses including the Java Byte which I think I found with an online scanner like Housecall, but perhaps I forgot and AVG did find Byte in a scan so I could remove it.
"They also never indicate their volume of email, volume of Web site access, nature of Web site access (do you access sports sites, porn sites?), etc."
Email volume would be about 50 a day for the past 8 years, considering the varrying levels of Hotmail spam, and multiple accounts.
Several webpages a day, random sites, not all big names like eBay, and my bank, or CBC. Pleading the 5th on the last part of your question, but suffice to say IE was exposed to a lot of site variety possibly even sites advertising "Free" programs [which clearly I avoided].
"It's been demonstrated that XP will get infected in twenty minutes put on the Net without patches and security software."
I knew this, and took steps to patch it before running naked [on a campus LAN which isn't true Inet nudity perhaps?]. I'm still running SP1, since I'm behind a router, and I'm more concerned about breaking applications that I like and might not work with SP2, than I am with one day encountering something that can make it through my router and/or something I install myself my accident.
"I got TODAY THREE viruses downloaded from my SBC Yahoo email account via Thunderbird (detected and cleaned by Avast). Without Avast running on my system, I probably would have viruses all over my system."
I wouldn't be as concerned as you were, and I wouldn't need Avast to protect me, unless there's a Thunderbird exploit I've not heard about. The human brain when properly trained is the world's most effective AV software - don't view bad emails and don't open attachments.
"I just got through yesterday cleaning a client's machine that WAS naked on the Net with no patches, no firewall and no AV. Hundreds of spyware, hundreds of trojans."
I have no doubt about that. I do that cleanup for people too. That's WHY I can run a naked machine and be ok, I have experience they lack.
"It's bullshit to generalize that running naked is safer than having security software."
Obviously it's not total BS, although for 95% of computer users, and it sounds like you included, you either need or think you need AV software to survive in the Wild West of the World Wide Web. My six shooter is my brain, and Delete key [and Windows patches and/or a router/firewall]. When you think about it, you have to count the number of vectors introduced by a product like McAffe and Zone Alarm, and then subtract the holes in Windows to get the true picture of which machine is more vulnerable. Does Zone Alarm take away more holes than it creates? Most likely, but it also introduces new means of attack clearly, and gives some users a false sense of security which I don't allow myself to be lulled into.
If you've read to this point, I congratulate you, I was rambling practically, but hopefully I've showed I'm not BS'ing you. Perhaps I've been using "extreme computing" to avoid viruses, but it's wor
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/saskboy/mca feesucks.jpg
.pif file, from a virus that came out many days before October 30, 2003 as you can see the date in the corner. If you do a google for paris.pif I'm sure you'll find what day that particular virus was added to the McAfee definitions. I knew at the time, but nearly 2 years later that detail isn't at the front of my brain.
As you can probably make out, it's a
Hopefully you're joking, because if *I* couldn't notice that I was running 10,000 mass produced bad processes, then surely McAfee another mass produced piece of poop would not be able to notice them either. And if they were custom made viruses, they wouldn't be detectable to McAfee anyway unless perhaps their heuristic scanning has improved a great deal.
I've seen McAfee disable about a half a dozen computers from being able to boot, at least one time becuase it had failed to stop a virus from running, and the virus instead disabled the AV program!
In Soviet Russia viruses scan for McAfee!
Granted I could have had a custom made virus, one that was well designed and didn't draw attention to itself, but I know I didn't have any of the mass produced viruses as they are very easy to spot with even a minimum of training.
I agree completely. I often tell people that if you're paying for antivirus or antispyware software you're probably getting ripped off. McAfee and Norton are known to be disreputable, and I have photographic proof that for example Hotmail will let their McAfee definitions expire so that people can download some viruses that have been detectable for days [in an apparent agreement with McAfee to infect enough future customers to keep their business viable].
And the spyware scam is no more than organized crime. By paying for things like Stop Sign, or other spyware "Removal" products like it, you're paying protection money to the spyware author mob. I tell my customers that the only products for spyware they can trust right now are Adaware, Spybot, MS Antispyware, and possibly Pest Patrol[which I've not tried].
The irony is almost delicious, after me using my computer for years without any antivirus program installed on it and not having a single infection, managed to get my first virus through a website and a Java flaw after installing AVG antivirus.
Now Zone Alarm, Black Ice Defender, Symantec, and more have found serious flaws in their security products that actually make them VECTORS for infection by executing the viruses they are designed to detect and safely remove or block. It doesn't make me feel bad at all for using a naked computer all those years, as I may have had fewer unpatched/unknown vectors for infection than if I was running something like Zone Alarm all the time [although to be fair to them, the Windows hole count is far from over].
If Google keeps up this expanding there will be a new phrase in our lexicon:
There are two sure things in life - death, and google.
Pardon me for saying so, but "intimate" pictures are exactly why people should have printers at home, and a digital camera. Why subject other people to that kind of material when you can maintain your privacy, and leave the Walmart prudes alone?
I've seen the aftermath of a CD shattering in a CDROM drive. There were only tiny bits of it left, and the drive somehow still worked after it happened.
I like that tapes are on the decline, it makes it easy to snap up tape players and music tapes that would cost at least $1 on CD, for pennies at garage sales.
My blog is a little burned out, but I never got into it much in the first place. I post most of my writings on dynamic Boards, and my writings are generally lost and known only to a few. It's not really a "log" that way, only Web.
The bloggers who burn out though will be replaced by up and comers.
I'd agree with you, but I've found a way to profit from the differences in measurements. See my signature link for details ;-)
Not anymore there aren't.
Please, when posting pictures to a story in Slashdot, take into account that a photo that's 50Kb is going to be loaded thousands of times, with many hundreds of hits a minute. If you don't have that kind of bandwidth, provide a mirror that can.
I had a 256MB IRiver MP3 player, with the FM tuner in it, and it works well although the software isn't as slick as I'd like it to be.
As soon as Evolution is ported to Windows, I'll be all over it. Until then I have to stay with my buggy and slow Mozilla Sunbird pre-release, which churns to a standstill whenever I maximize it, and doesn't have the smooth Outlook entry interface I'm used to at work.
How in the heck did that get moderated Insightful?
Even if the climate changes this year aren't completely attributed to human produced pollutants in our atmosphere, the solar storms are NOT a reason to scale back efforts to clean up industries that have been way too dirty for way too long.
There are benefits to enacting immediate changes and regulations that do more than just ensure we aren't cooking our country with green house gasses. We can also reap economic benefits of saving energy, having fewer health problems, and reducing dependance on Saudi Oil [which is a major factor in thousands of American troops dying overseas these past years].
It's not surprising. Organized crime benefits from people having larger penises. At least it stands to reason since they employ big dicks.
It's poor form to FP my own article, so I let you do it ;-)
And Al Gore didn't do this no. Unless he invented protons, or the Sun.
"know when to use " who" in place of ", that.""
You're asuming that the replacements will be human. "That" implies that they will not be. Why replace humans, with other humans? They're NASA, they can build robot replacements.
"in a first purge that can see as many as 50 loose their positions"
I hear they are looking for replacements, that know the difference between the word "loose" and "lose".
The new, "tighter" jobs are said to pay much less, however.
I was thinking you were including some library with the bad code, and the rest was just a smokescreen.
Does this mean that the default games for the PS3 will include Tux Racer, and Penguin Hunt?
Yes I've posted it before. I've only emailed my MP, but it looks like I'll have to write or phone, as he's ignored it for more than two months even though I requested a reply. I guess he too was too busy fighting against equal rights for homosexuals.
Please write your MP to stop this bad new law.
u se/PostalCode.asp?lang=E
/ statement_e.cfm
DMCA for Canada
Please write your MP on this matter. Use my letter below if you don't want to write your own.
Send your letter for free (no postage necessary when parliament is in session), to your MP at the following address:
[your MP's name] M.P.
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Find their email address, but write by paper mail too. http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/ho
Dear Mr. Breitkreuz
To summarize the issues in this letter:
1. Internet Service Providers should not be required to keep extensive logs of private and legal online communications.
2. The government must not stop Canadian citizens from making personal-use copies of their legally purchased software, music, and movie media.
Background:
http://pch.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/progs/pda-cpb/reform
Here is the reasoning:
The purpose of the Copyright Act is to support creativity and innovation in the arts and culture. To design a new Act on the failed and draconian Digital Millenium Copyright Act of the United States of America, would be a disaster for Canadian culture, and innovation. Also our court system could become clogged with law abiding citizens who make personal use copies of their music, software, and movie collections for no personal financial gain. An implementation of the proposed changes to the Copyright Act would unleash another "Gun Registry boondoggle" onto the Canadian people - creating criminals out of law abiding citizens at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.
Internet Service Providers like Sasktel should not be made to keep extensive client usage logs for possible future prosecution by various copyright-based industries. I don't want to pay for that system to be put into effect, and I don't think most people do. The phone companies are not forced by the government to record the content of phone conversations, only police can do that with a proper warrant. ISP logs are going to be equivalent to phone-taps, and that's a violation of my privacy. It's doing the job of the police, and is for the sole benefit of an industry basing its profits on an outdated business model that is no longer realistic for the Canadian government to protect.
It is completely unfair to be paying a levy to artists organizations for purchasing blank CD media to make home-use private copies of legal CD music, and now to also be unable to legally copy the music I've paid for off of Digital Rights Managed CDs. If copying CD music is going to be illegal, why is the government collecting money from the product for an illegal activity? I'm satisfied that the current levy is helping to compensate artists from illegitimate copying, and no new law is required to prevent me and other people from making sensible backups of our legal music, software, and movie collections.
Your representation in the House of Commons on this matter is greatly appreciated by me, and other supporters of personal liberty and innovation in the arts. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
my name
"
When? June 11th ~ 8pm
Where? The Bat Cave
"
Oh shucks. My bat cave attire is at the cleaners that day.