Conspiricy Theory ..

[james]

Since we are sort-of on the subject of scary paranoid ideas about computers.....

Consider the fact that most of us carry around a very powerful computer with a camera, a microphone and a global positioning beacon and an attachment to our identity inside of it.

"They" know where we are and "They" can hear us and see us! Just because you aren't running any apps that use the mic, camera or positioning doesn't mean that "They" aren't!

Also consider the drive toward "Cloud Computing". Soon, it won't matter what device you have to use as a computer, all of your data and applications will be "out there", not "in here".

Computer security is truly meaningless!

The only protection any one of us has is the fact that there are so many of us that there will always be people of greater interest than us.

And then there is the lottery factor. It's really just a matter of luck that each of us avoids identity theft or some other terrible thing.

Oops. Sorry about all that.....

Have a great day!

James.

[steve-o]

Ok, since there are some gurus here right now, does anyone mind if I ask you all what brand of anti-junk* software that you use? Best recommendations?
.
*since there seems to be so may different terminologies for such a vast amount of crappynesses out there in cyberworld I'll just use the term "junk" to refer to trojans, worms, malware, spyware, dataminers, keyloggers, etc, etc, etc .. if you git my drift .. :]
-oops,- didn't see your post James.. 'till just now ..

[james]

I personally don't use anything that runs in the background all the time and monitors my system. I think that is a ridiculous waste of time and resources.

I also know how to avoid getting crap on my computer in the first place.

But as I mentioned, I fix computers for people quite often. I like to use Spybot Search & Destroy. I just use the scanner and the system utility that lets you see and edit the Windows start-up list. I also like to use Combofix.exe. It does a great job of finding and cleaning up all kinds of crap. Recently I found Wise PC Engineer. It lets me clean and defrag both the Windows system registry and the hard drive.

One thing you need to be very careful of is that there are BOGUS version of these utilities and many others.

The worst way to screw up a computer is to try to fix it! Seriously! Some of the most malicious crap you can get comes in the form of utilities advertised to fix your computer problems!

I always try the utilities I use on a clean install that I know I can wipe out with no loss. And I keep my list of utilities as small as possible. I also make sure I have clean copies of the installs and I know where to get new installs that are clean.

[masterpj]

Ever since i stopped with norton bullcrap long ago my pc is way more stable and i have never had problems with a free virus scanner.
Also your not the only one believing that virus scanner companies create viruses.

[steve-o]

It's really just a matter of luck that each of us avoids identity theft or some other terrible thing.

Oops. Sorry about all that.....

Have a great day!

James.

Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine, James (j/k)

Thanks for sharing your anti-baddy-attack techniques, guys.

Too bad we can't turn an attack program around and shove it down the throat of where it came

[james]

I wonder how much energy is spent every day moving Spam around on the Internet.

My partner and I have owned an Internet Service company since 1996. So we've seen all kinds of traffic that end users don't usually see. I've had the same email address all this time so I'm sure it's on every Spam list in the world. We've had customers join our services just so they could Spam. We've had our email server listed as the return address of Spam servers. You name it. It all sucks.

So much of it comes from the other side of the planet. You would think that the USA, being such a big part of the Internet, would do something on a global basis to throttle all the crap coming in to our IP space.

Like I said.... I wonder how many tons of coal is burned every day moving Viagra adds around. What a waste of technology.

James.

[Robin]

...does anyone mind if I ask you all what brand of anti-junk* software that you use? Best recommendations?

If you're running Windows, Malware Bytes is a great program. I also recommend the Noscript add on for firefox. It's a bit clunky at first, but being able to choose which domains you allow to execute javascript in your browser is a powerful form of prevention.

[steve-o]

Thanks everyone..
I like spybot s&d, used it many times.
Heard of combofix, never used it.Will give it a try.
Never heard of wise pc engineer. Will give it a try.
Will watch out for bogus programs. (I didn’t download av8, it just appeared on my harddrive from somewhere)
I don’t like Norton either, Mpj.
Lol at the Viagra waste of energy James :]
Just installed malwarebytes on the infected pc a few days ago. Worked very well!
Don’t have firefox, just use IE8 or whatever, and I am now getting that blank stare with the glazed-over eyes as you’re talking about “domains you allow to execute javascript in your browser” , Robin .. :/

[buffo]

The topic at hand is whether or not virus software is worthwhile. Saying that there aren't many viruses left doesn't really make sense in this conversation since virus software does more than detect "technically pure" viruses.

Good point. I agree that so-called "anti-virus" software does indeed protect against lots of different threats, and thus can be worthwhile under the right conditions.

I really don't think James was saying anything different. It seemed to me that he was simply clarifying that infectious programs that spread via the boot sector on a floppy disc are very rare when compared to trojans and worms, at least these days that is. (Albeit this was a minor point that was tangential to the topic at hand.)

to say that they are virtually extinct based on your feeling that not many people use floppies (well, you don't but there are a lot of floppies that still exist in the world) is speculative at best.

I don't think it's speculative. Based on my experience, very few people use floppy disks today. More importantly, most computers these days don't even have a floppy drive.

The last three computers I've purchased did not come with floppy drives, and they were all used computers that were at least 1 CPU generation removed from today's current models. I have also replaced close to a dozen PC's at work, and none of the new machines have floppy drives.

Look at the new machines on sale at Dell.com. They don't come standard with a floppy drive. Some offer a floppy as an add-on option, but not all models do. If you're running a stock (that is, not custom-configured) PC that came with Windows 7 installed on it, I think it is a very safe bet to say that your computer will not have a floppy drive.

More importantly, however, is the fact that even on older machines that do still have floppy drives, almost none of them are ever BOOTED from a floppy disk. Thus, the traditional infection vector for a classic "virus" has been virtually eliminated due to the nearly universal adoption of hard disk drive storage. (Note that this does not hamper the spread of trojans or worms.)

Remember, technically a PC is a machine built by IBM back in the 80s. But, times changes and so does terminolgy regardless of the original meaning.

I agree. It's all semantics. Most technical people understand that today the term "virus" has morphed to include worms and trojans, as well as adware, spyware, and other forms of malware. But I agree with James; originally a virus meant one thing, and a trojan meant something else. Not everyone remembers the roots of the concept.

I wonder how much energy is spent every day moving Spam around on the Internet.

I have read estimates that state between 50% and 90% of all e-mail traffic is due to SPAM. I've also heard numbers ranging from 4% to 10% of all Internet traffic consists of SPAM and Malware communication (though this would also include botnets and such).

So much of it comes from the other side of the planet.

Yup. In the early 1990's, many of the PC viruses (and worms and trojans ) were being written by unemployed technical folks in Romania. These days, it seems China is producing the lion's share of the stuff.

I wonder how many tons of coal is burned every day moving Viagra adds around.

It's probably just as well that we don't know exactly, because my guess is that it would be a large number. I think that would be a very depressing fact to know.

But yeah, it's a waste. Go figure.

Adam

[taggalucci]

ClamXAV for OSX. Community supported AV and malware detection and quarantining/removal app. Runs nicely in the background, has never consumed too many resources, and regularly detects and removes phishing emails and other email attached malware/virii/worms etc (all MS Windows ones). Email is currently my only major source of this shit as I've chosen not to use Spam Assassin and other filtering on my email server. I prefer to know what's coming through and deal with it at my end.