FireWall and Virus

[Sylviane et Perry White]

On Friday 04 January 2008 13:55, Donn wrote:
> Hey Clark,
>
> > I have discovered (according to the adverts on line) that even Linux is
> > prone to problems on line.  
>
> Sure, any O/S is vulnerable to crack attempts - that's attempts to login to
> your machine from outside so that bad things can be done.

John Meyer on <kde-linux at kde.org> said yesterday:
Just another reminder, Security Exists Between the Keyboard and the Chair.


Some people get caught by pfishing and even give out their bank account and 
password;
 but how is one to react when he is trying to see a video on internet and have 
a requester pop up asking him to install the newest version of 
FleshMediaPlayer and type his sudoer password?  (just an example ;O))	)

Being scared of opening an Oo document or a HTML message is a pain.

The 'thing' between your computer and your Internet connection - 
(a router of some kind) is probably a good protection against any attack that 
does not need your "collaboration" but of little or no value against the 
other type of attack.

I'm not even sure *any* virus scanners could effectively protect me against 
myself. (I still have to dig deeper into that)

I have been in the way of creating a "victim" user as you suggest, with 
nothing "sensible" (i.e. secret) on his home, and nothing "important" (i.e. 
that I don't want destroyed), that does not have a copy elswhere.

*Addendum*: the only "scary" thing that happened to me was being warned that 
my computer (or was it my mail account or my internet connexion?) was being 
used to send spam, that was a long time ago (~1yr?) and I never had a proof 
of it, those warning happened only 2 or 3 times and then I had no more.
(I could search my old mails to find that again...time consuming)
Still I bet ohter people got mail from spwhite at ... that I didn't write because 
I got some myself.

I'm glad this topic about security issues appears on this list.
Perry

-- 
BOFH excuse #215: High nuclear activity in your area