18 days of reckless computing

[TheAnimus]

the same way i'd punch someone for insinuating i've got aids, the irony is i could have, how do i know?

Virus scanners take up CPU cycles every time a module loads.... big whoop, i don't know about you but me and most enthusiats i know have a rather large amount of cpu cycles ram and HDD bandwidth. Giving some of that too virus is probably more worhtwhile than giving it to a "skin". Thats just my 10pence.

Software firewalls i think are a royal waste of time.... i still use them thou, even thou i know how easy they are to get round, i still run it for the 99% that aren't clever.

common sense is required, but can you honestly say you've never made a mistake? for instance i acidentally dismounted a server half way through a backup once, mainly because it was 4am, and i'd come back from town and wanted to turn that whiney thing off, hit up a few times followed by enter.. oops!

I've only ever been with one girl who i felt i needed to use a condom with, yet i always will use one, its just safer. The great thing about virus scanners is they don't feal all latexy.

but seriously i don't know if its this summer heat but my balls are really itchy now i think about it.

[dangel]

but seriously i don't know if its this summer heat but my balls are really itchy now i think about it.

...must be the heat mine itch like hell too

[Clunk]

but seriously i don't know if its this summer heat but my balls are really itchy now i think about it.

grab a tub of Norton Anti-Crab

[5lab]

these questions go out to the "common sense" crowd: 5lab, TiMeZeRo, chicken, BEANFro Elite

"do you know what a botnet is? and have you ever used a condom?"

no, and not normally

[directhex]

no, and not normally

Virus makers, in this day & age, have a purpose other than wanton destruction - they seek the almighty dollar. There are a number of ways of achieving this - the recent "ransomware" virus was very "in your face", but equally valuable are your bandwidth and your clock cycles.

Now, a modern virus actually does a very good job of hiding itself. It inserts itself onto your PC through secret means - viewing images in MSIE, clicking URLs in chat conversations, running any code you didn't write yourself, or even just being connected to the net without a decent firewall in place, all open your machine up to infection. You don't get a "your machine is infected" popup, it just happens, and the virus hides itself away.

Next, the virus will try and phone home. The most common method, by FAR, is to connect to a pre-determined IRC server and channel, using a built-in IRC client. Thousands of machines congregate in there. Waiting. And waiting...

Until the virus author decides to hit the go button. Usually, there's a pure financial reason here - they can use your machine to send spam email (and get paid per-message); they can use your machine to run DDoS attacks (with typical mafia-style promises to stop in return for cash); they can simply start logging keystrokes, in hope of finding credit card numbers and the like. It's all easily done, and above all, it's all *hidden*. Recently, there was a case where you coudl kick hundreds of people out of chatrooms by saying "startkeylogger", as Symantec firewall would assume an unknown botnet was in operation, and your credit card numbers being stolen.

Spyware is in your face. Viruses are not. You're essentially giving your PC away for free to run spam servers and attacks on third parties, to the Russian mob. If you think viruses do nothing but give annoying popups, you're stuck in the early 1990s.

As for the condoms thing, the same applies. You can use "common sense", sure. But are you 100% certain that every partner of every partner of every partner of every partner you've had was 100% clean? Got a GUM clinic report from each and every person in the tangled web? Including largely non-obvious ailments (in men) like Chlamydia? You can apply "common sense", and *THINK* you know the whole story, but isn't it far simpler for all involved to just make it a moot point? Same for running antivirus.

[Whiternoise]

Nice post hex, tis definitely true. Surely the whole better safe than sorry is fairly obvious.. and i agree, common sense. The only time my pc really feels the lag of an AV prog is when i'm actually scanning or the time when i installed it (and my pc isn't great).

[5lab]

no, not using a jonny isnt the safest option, and netihers running a pc without a virus checker, but i'm not the safest bloke in the world. i drive too fast according to some people, i've broken 10 bones in seperate ways (mostly biking), i go down hills at up to 30mph on my skateboard - i just love taking risks - its part of what defines who i am..

i'm aware that *some* exploits make it through internet explorer etc, but i'm behind a router and so far that's protected me completely against anything visious coming off the net into a back door. i dont run stuff thats from a dodgy location, i dont open stuff i dont know.. i've everything important backed up (more for protection against drive failure than anything else) so if my pc did get munched, i'd have everything i need anyway

statistically, 1 in 9 people have, at some point in their life, contracted an STD at some point in their life. lets say (for sake of argument) that the average person is sexually 'active' (ie with more than one person) for 20 years and the average std lasts 6 months. that gives a less-than-1-in-350 chance that the person your sleeping with has an std. i pays my money (well, thats another story) and takes me choice. if you dont know what you're doing then yeah, virus check is probably a good idea (theres one on the pc at my folks place) but i'm a carefree bloke, and the 2 points in question are, i guess, just more of a reflection of that, and the lifestyle choices that means than anything else..

[TheAnimus]

question is, using the sex paradigm, have you ever had a test for STDs "just to be sure" i sure as hell have, i was, well can hardly called it raped but woken up by a girl well you know, after i'd had sex with her but i always used a condom, i pretty much dumped her on the spot because for me, that crossed the line, and then booked myself straight in for a test (but was told to wait a fortnight or so, which i did). That does not mean i'm free of STDs but put my mind at rest.

Same is with virus scanners, its just another line of defense, and the cost is a bit of cpu time + tiny bit of money. Why on earth not use one? Granted its no panacia, but its still virtuous none the less.

[5lab]

i guess its just the 'cost' of peace of mind..

i really dont have a 'need' for peace of mind, most stuff doesnt worry me, so having a virus checker winding me up or the annoyance or the lesser fun that comes from using a jonny isnt, for me worth what it gives me (note, i'd never question using one if asked to, i can understand the desire, i just dont have it myself)..

i guess virus checking software is worth the £30 if it stops you worrying - i've never been much of a worrier, so cant tell you what its like.. but i'd not say its worth that money just to stop the actual viruses, if you know how to be sensible. its a bit like the marketing of price creams - theres an argument that, if a woman spends £30, and thinks that she looks younger, surely that is worth £30 (as it adds to her happyness) even thou the actual effect of the cream is minimal..

hope i explained that ok

[TheAnimus]

you see its quite strange how now i feal like i'm overaly parinoid all thanks to the condom analagy. Basically the same way even someone i'm "making sweet love to down by the fire" i don't really trust them to be 'clean'.

same is with the computer, i plug in a friends memory stick, to print some pictures (i have a rather economical printing system a CIS) i also will run files friends send to me to help them debug their problems.

question is 5lab do you run a software firewall? You shouldn't need a firewall, the software should be secure enough as it is.

[chicken]

If you're using the internet for things that remind you of using a condom then it's no wonder you need antivirus!

Seriously though, I check my processes often enough to see what's running, check my startups, Menu and Registry and just generally poke around Windows all the time anyway, so I have a fairly good idea if my system is clean or not. Also still harping on about the "I've only had 1 virus EVER" thing, I have, and hence see a lot of this as scaremongering to sell software rather than educate people to think before they click.

Going back to the comparisons, would that make a Firewall somewhat like a Chastity Belt?



Edit: Quick thing on the Heuristics, I may be wrong but I seem to remember they didn't prove to be effective in the case of MS Blast?

[TheAnimus]

heuristics have been getting a lot better lately!

But chicken, do you take hashes of the proccess and compare them for changes, also do you take a look at the "int 0x2e" table (the IDT)? How do you know you haven't got a sony drm rootkit that is hiding malicous proccesses from you?

[dangel]

Yup, it's perfectly possible (and all too common) to hide processes from task manager for example..

My background is one of 17+ years in software/hardware development and the one thing i'll not tell you is to read up on virus/trojan threats and hope that 'educating' yourself will majically and mystically protect you from both known and unknown threats alone. Sure, the AV companies over-promote the protection they offer (hey, you would too if it paid your salary) but it's exactly the attitude of 'i know better' that leaves so many computers open to infection as much as complete ignorance does (althought one could argue they're one in the same!). I've yet to hear a valid arguement for NOT using an AV solution - they have very little real-world effect on performance on my systems at work or home. Avoid the fat bloatware AVs and all is well.

But each to his own. Fingers crossed us pessimists are wrong eh?

[5lab]

question is 5lab do you run a software firewall? You shouldn't need a firewall, the software should be secure enough as it is.

the only protective layer on my pc is the router, which stops blaster worms etc.

my pc doesnt have anything important on it - and i dont 'need' it like a lot of folk here. if it went down for a week or 2, i'd just do my emailing/webbing from work - no hassle

when it comes down to it, i guess i'd just rather spend my time+money on beer

[TheAnimus]

when it comes down to it, i guess i'd just rather spend my time+money on beer

me too but your still posting on a geek forum, how much money/time would it cost if your pc got infected via something that a free virus scanner could of stopped?

My advice would be to run as much as dosen't get in the way of using your PC.

Virus scanners only have any real performance inpact on a windows system when a call is made to "loadlibrary" style APIs. This performance hit tends to be mild thou.

[5lab]

me too but your still posting on a geek forum, how much money/time would it cost if your pc got infected via something that a free virus scanner could of stopped?

i'm at work. and no idea, because its never happened to me