This is a problem I faced about a year ago while making my will. As others have mentioned the obvious answer was to put my passwords in with the will, but since I change them every 6 months that wasn't very practical. The best solution I've come up with is a three-fold approach. 1. My computer at work isn't a problem since it's accessable to more than one person. 2. The passwords to my home computers are kept written down seperately with instructions on how to find them in my will. 3. Everything else that is encrypted but would be of no use to anyone else will simply die with me.
It's good to see someone is still working on 98. I still have one machine left running Win98, but as it's hardly ever used I've never seen the point in shelling out for a more recent version. Depending on what I hear from others who've tried the patch I might install it.
It's been done to some extent with the Welchi worm that fixed the hole exploited by Blaster. But ultimately the responsibility is on the OS producer to prevent / patch vulnerabilities and on the user to keep up to date with the patches and use a computer safely.
In principle the idea of a "good" virus seems like a good idea. But in addition to opening up a can of worms on legal and ethical issues I can't see a "catch all" solution being feasible. Though perhaps others might follow the lead of Welchi and release solutions to individual worms and viri on a case by case basis.
As much as I'd like to blame Microsoft for creating the security holes in the first place, no ammount of patches can make up for a user who won't keep his machine secure. I don't think he'd be so complacent if one day he found someone had deleted his files, erased his hard drive etc.
What will Microsoft's definition of a virus be? How long before we see messages along the lines of 'Warning, a non Microsoft product has been detected on this computer whichwill now automatically be removed'? This could just be a mandate for them to flag any rival products as being insecure. Do they actually enjoy antitrust cases?
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This is a problem I faced about a year ago while making my will. As others have mentioned the obvious answer was to put my passwords in with the will, but since I change them every 6 months that wasn't very practical. The best solution I've come up with is a three-fold approach.
1. My computer at work isn't a problem since it's accessable to more than one person.
2. The passwords to my home computers are kept written down seperately with instructions on how to find them in my will.
3. Everything else that is encrypted but would be of no use to anyone else will simply die with me.
It's good to see someone is still working on 98. I still have one machine left running Win98, but as it's hardly ever used I've never seen the point in shelling out for a more recent version.
Depending on what I hear from others who've tried the patch I might install it.
It's been done to some extent with the Welchi worm that fixed the hole exploited by Blaster. But ultimately the responsibility is on the OS producer to prevent / patch vulnerabilities and on the user to keep up to date with the patches and use a computer safely.
In principle the idea of a "good" virus seems like a good idea. But in addition to opening up a can of worms on legal and ethical issues I can't see a "catch all" solution being feasible. Though perhaps others might follow the lead of Welchi and release solutions to individual worms and viri on a case by case basis.
As much as I'd like to blame Microsoft for creating the security holes in the first place, no ammount of patches can make up for a user who won't keep his machine secure. I don't think he'd be so complacent if one day he found someone had deleted his files, erased his hard drive etc.
In no particular order
M S
P layer
Linux:
Opera
Lopster
K3B
Mplayer
Grip
Gkrellm
XM
KMail
KNode
OpenOffice
Windows (Not counting the 10,000 security updates):
WinAmp
WinZip
DigiGuide
Opera
Real
PowerDVD
WinRAR
Then again its been a long time since I've had to install Windows, still have 98 on my dual boot machine.
What will Microsoft's definition of a virus be? How long before we see messages along the lines of 'Warning, a non Microsoft product has been detected on this computer whichwill now automatically be removed'? This could just be a mandate for them to flag any rival products as being insecure. Do they actually enjoy antitrust cases?