Antivirus

[Michael "TheZorch" Haney]

Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> I'm not saying it's bad that it does this. I'm just saying, "Don't let 
> the frequent updates lull you into a false sense of security."
>   
Oh, I"m not.  On both machines I manually download and run the MS 
Malicious Software Removal Tool which is updated often and I do keep 
adware scanners which I use from time to time.  So far I've been clean 
for 2 years.
> It's great you've not had trouble and had good experiences with Avast. 
> But if you think about it, if you rely on it to find malware, and 
> there's malware on the computer that it doesn't find, how would you know 
> there isn't something bad on it?
>   
I don't, which is why I don't rely completely on it.
> And while Avast may be good in the sea of options, it still may not have 
> a perfect record.
>
> No attack meant...I'm trying to point something out to you and other 
> readers.
>   
Its a good point, there is no one "Jack Of All Trades and Master of Them 
All" solution out there.nor is there anything out there that could be 
considered the perfect AV program.
> It (Ubuntu) is asking for the password when it would normally take Sudo 
> privileges (root privs) to alter something. I wouldn't be surprised if 
> it were using sudo behind the scenes half the time.
>
> It makes sense once you're familiar with how Linux works (well, Ubuntu) 
> and how it relies on Sudo.
>   
Exactly, which is how UAC should have worked, but NO Microsoft had to go 
and come up with a brilliant (sarcasm) idea to try and get software 
makers to build better software.  How?  By annoying the hell out of 
users, what else.  Yeah, punish your users for the frack ups of software 
developers, yeah that makes a lot of sense (more sarcasm).
> Oh, you know what I mean by gamers. I'm referring to the gamers that lay 
> out the dough for the game systems that you fry bacon on unless they're 
> liquid-cooled.
>   
Oh yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.  A friend of mine 
built one of those systems about a year ago using cutting-edge parts.  
It wasn't liquid cooled but the fracking heat sink on the AMD Athlon64 
x2 processor was bigger than a grapefruit.  I mean this thing was HUGE, 
and the fan assembly had copper pipes on it and everything.  The mobo 
chipset heat sink looked like a standard CPU heat sink.  The Nvidia 
cards he used, two of them in SLI configuration, were double-wide with 
huge blowers on each.  Oh, but it was fast, he installed Elder Scrolls 
IV: Oblivion on it and maxed out the graphics settings, and that rig ran 
the game without any frame rate loss and the visual were darn near close 
to photo realistic.
> If I had something other than an iPod, I'd probably use Banshee. Not 
> caring how much flak I'll get here, I like how the iPod integrates with 
> the Mac, and since I don't have a personal Mac, I use an old Windows 
> computer to run iTunes.
>   
I'll need to give Banshee a try.  That friend of mine who built the 
gaming rig also owns and practically lives out of two Apple MacBook Pro 
laptops, one is the first Intel based model and the other is one of the 
latest configurations Apple released a few months ago.  They are very 
nice.  He uses Boot Camp to switch between Mac OS X and Windows for 
games.  The latest configuration MBP can run Unreal Tournament III with 
its graphics settings nearly maxed out at 30 fps.
> Technically, it's Windows and the architecture behind it. It's not 
> designed for failure, so failing in one area causes it all to topple 
> over like a deck of cards.
>
> I would need to review it, but I think
> http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/Richard-Feynman-Challenger-Disaster-Software-Engineering
> was one of the reference links I used to illustrate the point.
>   
Microsoft could very easily switch to a whole new OS architecture for 
the next Windows, or get away from the Windows name and call it 
something else since the name Windows has now picked up such a bad rap 
lately due to Vista.  A completely new OS from Microsoft could be built 
to be faster and leaner.  Backward compatibility would come from 
virtualization similar to Mac OS X's Rosetta, the component for running 
older Apple System 9 software.
> Ouch. Pavilions.
>
> Ironically, it's a refit pavilion saved from the scrapheap I'm using for 
>   iTunes.
>   
Yes, they weren't exactly perfect computers.  Those machines had a lot 
of issues.  Most of my support calls required field service technicians 
to come out and replace parts because HP used substandard crap and they 
tended to fail frequently.  Interestingly enough, it was an HP Pavilion 
which was the first commercial PC with high-grade 3D acceleration 
installed on it.  One of the models sold had the first 3dfx Voodoo 
graphics daughter boards.  This was back in the day when 3D graphics for 
games were in add-on cards rather than being built into the same 2D 
graphics cards which Windows used to draw the desktop.
> It's a second free tool from their site.
>   
Oh, I thought it was a part of AVG.
> Yeah, but that caveat goes for just about everything.
>   
Very true.
> It's an architecture problem. A product evolution problem. And a 
> marketing problem.
>   
This is true too and I agree.  Also, Microsoft dug their own hole with 
their aggressive marketing and clandestine sales methods.  I've seen MS 
sales people at work in big companies, they are ruthless and the things 
they tell you are borderline lies.
> If backwards compatibility wasn't (ironically) a priority with MS, a lot 
> of the security concerns would have been partially stamped out.
>   
Again, MS could do something about that.  They could make a brand new OS 
with backward compatibility using a feature similar to Mac OS X's Rosetta.
> Yes, but this (WINE) could also act as a vehicle to execute Windows 
> trojans/worms/etc. on Linux...
This is sad but true, but how much can they effect a Linux system which 
has a very different security architecture from Windows.  Windows uses a 
security overlay for NTFS while the security on Linux/Unix/BSD goes all 
the way to the EXT3 (is Ubuntu using EXT3?) file system.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
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