breadinator: McAfee is the only big-name competition to Norton

Wow, you need to get out more. No, really.

darklordseth

Windows is pretty awesome and secure; with some decent work it can measure up to many other OSes. However, it's just that 99% of all Windows users are complete farking retards that shouldn't even be allowed near a computer. Likewise, an idiot with Unix can still create a huge mess.

Dont blame Windows for the ignorance of the masses.

Not really. Windows is MUCH better than it used to be, but it cannot measure up to a hardened unix/bsd system, it loses immediately because damn near EVERYTHING still has to run at kernel level. Even if the machines are patched and firewalled and IDS'd etc... you have two machines which are as far as you know totally safe from attack at the moment. Which still means that there is potentially an attack you don't know about, or there is no attack but there will be sometime in the future.

Even assuming that the liklihood of a new exploit for either system being released is equal (unlikely), there is still the near guarantee that the exploit for windows will happen at kernel level while the exploit for *nix will probably happen at user level.

Your risk level is inherently higher without privelege separation.

Dont blame Windows for the ignorance of the masses.

This is true, windows can be much more secure than it is on the typical home user system.

swiftfoxlit

and have 1 firewall a friend of mine wrote

Ya, good thinking. Unless your friends name is Daniel Hartmeier or Rusty Russell then I would suggest that that is a really dumb move.

Help! My computer is infected and it's making my slashies progress in reverse.

///slashies
//no really
/not really

*snicker*

I use sygate anti firewall, windows spyware, ad aware, and the Trend-Micro free Online scan (only problem is if you're badly infected and can't get online! Ooops) and I have had no problems. All of this is free.

Also not acting like an idiot online helps. Except when I'm on Fark of course.

Umm thats sygate firewall and windows anti spyware


/dyslexic not swear I.

Seriously, someone should help me with Sysprotect. Everytime it opens a pop up of adult friend finder my girlfriend looks at me suspiciously. I'm too dumb to randomly start getting rid of stuff using Hijack This.

For people who can't get NAV off their computers: SymNRT (pops)

Larva Lump:

"Best of all, this way Mom didn't have to pack me a lunch!"

/Calvin and Hobbes

I'm in favour of serious jail time upside-down crucifixion for virus writers.

Fixed it fer ya.

back when i used windows, i loved hijack this... of course why do all that work when you can just use a mac?

Elpepe55 - Because some people like to drive Honda's when we like to drive BMW's.

Forsythe P. Jones: Oh,and hand over all your Lupins.


The devil take your stereo and your record passwords and pr0no collection

The way you look you'll qualify for next year's old age pension!

Twitch OSX

Elpepe55 - Because some people like to drive Honda's when we like to drive BMW's.

Good example, mac is flashy and unreliable.

Wake me up once there's a virus or spyware for Macs, mmmkay, Cpl.D>?

third. Passed!

Reminds me of my inbox:



Dear Friend,

I am wife of sacked deputy President of South Africa Jacob zuma.

It is out of desperation i am sending you this email. My husband and i
need your help to front for us as owners of funds that are his which
might come under investigation if the funds ownership is not changed soonest.

As my husband's finances are increasingly becoming the source of
investigation by our detractors.The source of this funds which my
husband's earnings would not validate will further sink him into the
cesspool dug by our enemies.It is because of the dire situation we find
ourselves that we resolve to reach you and ask for your assistance in
this matter.

It is only customary in Africa when one occupies such high position like
my husband did, to enjoy the privilege of being presented with
gratifications sometimes through the award of contracts. Especially by
companies that came into operation during his tenure. But due to the
recent plot by our detractors towards my husband, hence we immediately
wish to move some funds away that his income cannot account for and
which came in form of gratification while he was in office.

We are averse to letting those we know here into this transaction
because we are no longer sure who our friends are.You will be handsomely
rewarded if you choose to help us in partnership in this deal.If you are
willing to assist us, please do reply me through this e-mail address
(mr­smand­i­s­a_zu­m­aetic­xe­c­o­m)

I will be expecting to hear from you as soon as possible, and will
disclose further details to you upon your response. Do well not to
disclose the content of this mail to anyone.

Best Regards
Mrs. Mandisa Zuma





/What should I do now?

WayToBlue

I'm not talking about reliability. We all know Honda's go forever. In that regard, a Mac is more like a Honda. I'm referring to overall quality of the vehicle (computer) and the premium you pay for that quality. Of course, Macs now days have the same types of parts that regular Dell's have.. its just better quality parts and the box's are built much better. Dont ask me why my old G3 300 from 1997 still runs flawlessly. Would be hard pressed to find a Dell from 1997 that runs perfectly that had any amount of actual work done to / with it. Sure you can probably find Dell's that nobody touched the inside and did email / web browsing only but even then.. its probably still got massive problems. We have a PC at work that was built for us around December and its already got problems and I dont do much with it.

jjorsett

By your reasoning, Apache would be more hacked than IIS. Sometimes non-Microsoft software really is better. If you can't see three obvious reasons why OS X and Linux are much harder to infect than Windows then we've all failed you.

and how do you get rid of this? My girlfriend got this on her computer, and there seems to be no way to get rid of it. Not a single anti-spyware program picks up on it. I really hope I don't have to reformat.

I ran into a machine infected with this a few weeks ago. A combination of Ad-Aware, Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Ewido Anti-Malware and manual deletion of target files (do a search on the name of the malware program for a list of files) apparently did the trick. Whoever wrote SpySheriff/etc deserves to be brutally and horribly killed.

/runs as User rather than Administrator and doesn't get infected, because he's not a dumbass.

All the Apple people made me think of this:


But much love, y'all, your computers ARE very pretty. I might have one myself if I wasn't a broke-ass student.

Vandal2000 - Seriously, can someone should, help me with Sysprotec?

Check this thread at PC Pitstop

Why do we bother spending this amount of money, time and trouble when we should just hunt the creators down, drag them into the street and shoot them in the face, leaving their bodies for whom ever cares for the scum. Yep that outha do it. No trials, no appeals, just the evidence.

Knoppix is the best way to clean up a windows infection.
NO need for safe mode or hijackware like WGA, Nortons or Symantec.
If you must use windows, use firefox, thunderbird and a virus scanner...

Multiple toolbars, MSN and 'search assistants' can be as bad as virii in dragging a computer down.
Norton's also utilizes a rootkit like method to hide files that I do not care for.

Jesus, bridger54 it's only $10.99.

Macs have their advantages. It's just that my PC more than makes up for it.

Twitch OSX: Imagine the props you would get if you were a hacker that COULD create an actual virus for OSX.

---

It's been done. Ever heard of "proof of concept"? Because that's what it had to be since there isn't a large enough Mac userbase to get anything going.

If you need to do standard stuff, use Windows and spend the thirty minutes it take to secure it.

If you need maximum security and stability, use Linux.

If you're gay (and there's nothing wrong with that), use a Mac.

Twitch OSX: Would be hard pressed to find a Dell from 1997 that runs perfectly that had any amount of actual work done to / with it.

---

Wrong. I have three that I used the crap out of (the oldest is 14 years old), and they all work perfectly except for the whole "obsolete" thing. I sure WISH they'd broken down by now, because then I'd have a good excuse to trash 'em.

In fact, the only computer I've ever owned that doesn't work anymore is an Apple IIc, which crapped out when it was about 8 years old. But I'm not going to hold that against today's Macs, obviously.

I work software support for my university--we service both faculty and students so we're quite busy. By far the most common viruses we see are AIM viruses. It use to be that a quick run of AIMFix will fix them, but it seems a majority of AIM viruses come with downloader trojans these days, which only go on to download more shiatware.

Regardless, AdAware, Spybot, Ewido (www.ewido.com) and Dr. Web (www.drweb.com) combined will get rid of 97% of infections. The other 2% require specific removal tools (Vundo/virtumod and its equivalents are huge right now), and the final 1% utilize newer rootkits and generally requirer manual removal.

Twitch OSX If you know what you're doing almost any machine will run for a long time. I've got a 66Mhz IBM from 94 and a 466 Mhz NEC from 99 and both boot up and run just fine. They were both abused pretty badly by IE over the years as well.

SlowTimedRapid

"Best of all, this way Mom didn't have to pack me a lunch!"

Yes and no. (There's another "bug butter" reference?)

"Ever since the weather got warm I've been swatting flies and saving them in a jar. Finally I got enough bugs to mash them into a gooey paste with a spoon."

After reading that in this thread's context I'm thinking this is the way many uncautious Windows users treat their computers. I knew someone who ran '95 for two years without ever defraging his hard drive. AOL user, too.

What really scares me is the idiots dumb enough to fall for these scams.

I have 2 windows desktops running SP2, and two laptops both running XP... All 4 of these computers do not have virus scanners, they do not have firewalls or any other obscure "protection" software.

Every once in a while I'll run a spy-ware tool, or drop a virus scanner in for the hell of it and not once has anything come back as infected.

Step 1) Dump IE, Get Firefox... No ActiveX, and Firefox does not allow the execution of executables automatically.

Step 2) Dump Outlook Express, Get Thunderbird... See above

Step 3) Don't download shiat from the Interweb thingy unless its from a reliable source. If your a end user, you should probably follow links from sites like Tucows, download.com, or others which generally are trusted

Step 4) If you visit those lovely porn sites, dont fall for the scams "We need to download this plugin to let you watch your porn"

Step 5) If your running XP, pick up a book. Find out what system services you DO NOT need. Such as the Windows Messege Service (Not Windows Messenger). Turning off a crap load of services helps to protect you against vulnerabilities in them.


Problems with computers are not the fault of the hacker or the virus writer. Its the fault of the end-user who was dumb enough to fall for these scams.

Now if you are one of those end-users who are dumb enough to fall for that shiat you will need an arsenal to protect you.

1) McAfee, not Norton... Norton = Crashing, buggy, slow.
2) Adaware from Lavasoft
3) Get a hardware firewall, even a NAT or Router. As long as its a physical device between you and your connection.
4) For the love of god user Firefox.

This may sound anal, or mean or whatever you want to believe, but if the dumb end users weren't using the internet it would be a much better place.
-No Emoticons
-No Viruses
-No Spyware


//End Rant

Yeah, the article forgot to mention Windows only, as usual. Funny how they do that, must be the deep state of denial that Windows users are in.

/smart windows user

Oxymoron of the day!

Look at me! I'm wearing a pink shirt and have a picture of a pony on my Mac desktop. Please, look at me!

Dumb linux users are just as vunerable as dumb windows users. We used to have kids give us root on their boxen to try to help fix them after they screwed them up.

I regularly run AdAware & Spybot Search & Destroy, plus I have a personal firewall (Sygate) & use Mozilla. Also, I rarely, if ever download anything.

That being said, I can't imagine that I would have any files that would be of interest to others.

This is about as " New " as popup ads and spyware. Love how the media considers something " new " based on the fact that tehy have not heard of it before.

Oh and all you windows sucks change to another os people .. I am waitin ggleefully for the day that the broken source community starts to make software that is on the same level. After the 5th time openoffice vomited on me my boss caved in and gave me a PC with office on it. It's nice to be able to get work done. Strangely enough my productivity went up to the point where I was outperforming most of the people in my office. Oh and I'm not stupid, so I dont get infected, I dont get pop ups, I dont get viruses. " oooh click here for a free ( computer/ipod/blowjob )... yeah right.

I would be using OS-X, but my boss is too cheap to buy mac hardware.

Wake up and smell the starbucks. If you need to run a service such as a web server, web radio server, ftp server ( as I do ) , you use linux. If you are too stupid to safely operate windows ( oooh! click the birdie and get a free ipod/laptop/blowjob! ... yeah bypass the firewall and let the super secret file confirming my winnning banner number in ! ) then get os-x. If you can walk upright without dragging your knuckles on the ground and pronouce nuclear properly, enjoy using windows.

Yes, windows has problems, but if you know what you are doing you can negate those problems. Just because ma and pa kettle bought their boy slappy a $400 windows box at wal-mart and he got infected surfing porn does not mean the OS is to blame.

Larva Lump: You're right. The one about Mom not having to pack lunch is re: only the bugs Calvin collected from the windowsill. No mention of "bug butter."

Captain Conflation strikes again...

/books are back at my parents' house

Look at me! I'm wearing a pink shirt and have a picture of a pony on my Mac desktop. Please, look at me!

Holy crap! How can you see in my office!

bridger54
"Why do we bother spending this amount of money, time and trouble when we should just hunt the creators down, drag them into the street and shoot them in the face, leaving their bodies for whom ever cares for the scum. Yep that outha do it. No trials, no appeals, just the evidence."

NO NO NO! You have to have finesse...

Baseball bat (nice solid oak, no aluminum, thank you). Break both kneecaps. Several times. Each. Jelly consistency will do nicely, I think. Then, since the problem is with their HANDS (used for typing all that code, you know) continue on with each hand. Same treatment. All bones should be, well, mush. Hmmmm.... they COULD type with their toes... OK, same treatment for the feet. And - just to prevent them from using voice recognition s/w, something needs to be done with the tongue.....

That's all. No need for extreme measures......

Oh, and then ask them if they are feeling annoyed at your silly prank........ ;-)

2006-04-29 03:02:04 PM Vandal7000
"I'm too dumb to randomly start getting rid of stuff using Hijack This."

Go here and post your hijack this log. It will tell you more or less what to get rid of... but don't blame me if your printer stops working; Read the name of the file/path first and if you don't recognize it, fix it.

Vandal7000

I think it's a variant of Look2Me. Visit the following site and download the utility from one of the links in the middle. Extract the files to their own folder and run the executable. Click the green start button and watch the rest. If it is what I think it is, this should get rid of it. It would be wise to run through Ad-Aware, Spybot and Housecall to pick up anything else.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Look2Me_Remover_d4856.html

/way too late for HTML

On the same note as clown-penis.fart I farked the HTML in my last post. The address to throw in your HiJackthis log is: www.hijackthis.de

ElMariachi, Mike and Jerry use Macs now ;)

Viruses don't kill people, files do!

mac suck

and this story is two years


TWO YEARS.... TWO.... TWOYEARS... TWOOOO YHAEEEEERRRRSSS old