Comments on: The antivirus paranoia culture

By: Seriously

Seriously — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:18:41 +0000

You need a bigger font god damn you. What the hell is the matter with you? Oh zoom in you say? WHY SHOULD I!!!

By: teddyhcraig

teddyhcraig — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:03:11 +0000

Ubuntu isn’t perfect by any means.
But it has Windows beat in two places.
First, it’s free to download/install/use.
Second, not many viruses are native to Linux!
For those reasons alone I will stick with it.

By: Nic Stevens

Nic Stevens — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:47:07 +0000

The argument that not running as administrator is safer is bogus. If malware attacks my computer it’s looking for *my* information not Windows’. If malware trashes just my files and not the OS how am I better off? I have a disc with Windows on it and another disk with drivers on it. If I don’t have backups of my data (how many people actually back their computers up?) then I am left with an intact OS and none of the pictures of Cousin Susie’s Wedding or my latest term paper.

Yes running as administrator is stupid without additional controls. I have commercial antimalware software and some trusted freeware that scans for specific malware, I dont use internet explorer unless I have to and I have noscript on. I don’t use p2p software for anything other than downloading things like Linux with bittorrent — and — if you’re getting viruses with p2p software chances are you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

By: Huggs

Huggs — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:00:47 +0000

Sounds like an advertisement for Vista…….
On the other hand, Microsoft appeared to acquiesce to the Mac users and idiot Windows users who believe them, that UAC is a bad thing as they were developing Windows 7. They were going to ship 7 with UAC turned down to the point where it was insecure. It seems that they have backed off of this bad course of action. Virtually *every* secure OS has this feature. You never run as root on a Unix system – that is what sudo is for. I think that dumb users get what they deserve. I just wish it didn’t affect all of the rest of us by their malware using up our network bandwidth. Behavior is perhaps the biggest contributor to susceptibility.

By: ubuntucat

ubuntucat — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:46:32 +0000

Welcome, Sheranki. Glad it resonated with you.

I just read another blog post that resonated with me (on this same topic):
http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/01/20/on-linux-security/

By: Sheranki

Sheranki — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:44:18 +0000

I could not have worded it better. I have been a computer technician for years, as well as many years in the field troubleshooting WAN’s, and I have to say that you are very close to the mark. I used to be the same way, but learned from going to hundreds of homes that you can tell what is wrong before even touching the computer. The more computer illiterate the user, you can almost bet, the more messed up the pc. Limited use is a GOOD thing, though it wouldn’t do much for my job security.

By: ubuntucat

ubuntucat — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:24:57 +0000

I don’t ask that everyone agree with me. In fact, I would guess most of my readers don’t agree with me. That’s cool. It’s all about reading and sharing and exposing ourselves to other perspectives. Thanks for reading.

By: unknownmosquito

unknownmosquito — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:37:08 +0000

Hey, I enjoyed your post and just wanted to say that your blog is quite the antithesis of mine… you’re a sister blog, if you will. I write about Linux and my personal political swingings which probably disagree with yours, judging by your tagline, except the racism thing.
But you get the point. I’ll probably be coming back; it’s interesting to see a blog like yours (very similar writing style if I do say so myself, also), even if I probably won’t always agree.
But I do on this point.

Also to the former poster: Debian uses a program called “IceWeasel” instead of Firefox. Firefox has copyrighted images, so Debian swaps out the images and rehosts it as IceWeasel.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:29:19 +0000

To install a new system isnt that big issue, aint? If it was infected, this is more easy, than searching and repairing. A backup CD (or DVD) with important datas, in a way stored (directories), so thats easy to copy again on harddisk – is it more than a day of working to install a new system?

Or is it, that i think in this way, because i used windows more then seven years?

At first, i got problems on my old pc using linux, many crashes, nothing worked at all and i couldnt use ubuntu or openSuse, with 192 mb ram. Now with a new PC i tried OpenSuse, and am just Fedora: Whats that with SELinux on fedora? I was having issues about updating or installing software and it was like a tilt. Okay, away with it. I am about to try ubuntu today. OpenSuse already works fine.

At the beginning: I recognized that limited user privileges and just typed in “chmod 777 / -R” once, and since then nothing worked on that linux system. Lol. It was something a question, why I, THE USER cant change easiest things on MY COMPUTER.
Then i got more familiar with sudo or sudo -s and to work from console. Okay, that works. I just dont need to change system, when the linux system (like opensuse, ubuntu etc.) works fine. Debian? Where is firefox? I was having problems to install firefox: It noticed, that theres a too old gtk+. Okay, debian out.
At all, this is unix. And so i can arrange and know, that i am on a safe site. Thats okay.
At windows? – i dont know, its like a condom with small holes, aint? Some surface, looks safe, but no deep convince.
It looks like a cheap copy of linux.

I know a guy, who uses antivirus on XP, but he s so paranoia awakened, that he also will never install software from specific sites, like mentioned in this article. So whats the reason to use antivirus for him? Lol.-

By: barney

barney — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:08:01 +0000

~~~~~
I’m not certain you know what you’re talking about.

1. Use a limited user account in Windows – If I’m a limited user, I can’t install things, so what good is that?
2. Take ten minutes to read up on social engineering and how not to be a victim of it – I don’t have time to read right now … I’m downloading my $50 OEM copy of Vista … I don’t have time to socialize, anyway.
3. Back up personal files regularly – I don’t see what good backing up can do … it just puts me farther away from the keyboard and makes it harder to type.
4. Use Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to image a working installation so a reinstall wouldn’t take so long – Look, I’m not interested in a seance (what does that have to do with computers, anyway?) and I don’t have time to start drawing stuff … I told you, I’m busy downloading my $50 OEM copy of Vista!
5. Install system security updates – Don’t you know that ‘update’ is when you ditch your girlfriend for her richer, prettier sister … and ,what does my social life have to do with my computer, anyway? (Uh, I’m too embarrassed to buy condoms … people stare at me.)
~~~~~
While that was kinda fun to write, it’s not that far off the mark for some of the support requests I’ve had in the past. Item 3, in particular, is an almost verbatim replay of more than one support call.

I’ve long maintained that if the Internet is an information highway, users should have to qualify for a driver’s license before they’re allowed to get access to it. And, perhaps, even before they’re allowed to buy a PC. Don’t expect it’ll ever happen, but I can dream, ya know?