18 days of reckless computing

[XA04]

http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/start.html?pg=6





I did a similar thing a few years ago with a crap old computer... tried to infect it with as much stuff as possible until it couldn't boot up.

[midzt]

lol- "it kept beeping so much he had to turn it off"

[teachmech]

Just goes to show what can happen if you don't look after your system. Let that be a lesson to all you who say "Do I need an antivirus". Hell yea!

[5lab]

you dont need antivirus, i've not, in over 10 years of being on the net, ever had antivirus on my pc, and in that time the only 'virus' i picked up was that msn bug in 2002 that allowed a webpage to send messages to your mates on messenger, which antivirus wouldnt have picked up. you just need common sence

[XA04]

Yes it's true you just need common sense, but I use AV for a sense of security, you never know with Windows when something could go wrong


Better safe than sorry.

[FatalSaviour]

Here we go again....

[dave87]

heh classic

[Workaholic]

Only 18 days to get all that malware etc, I could do it in less but I'd rather not!

[EvilWeevil]

AV is less essential than a firewall, but still generally a good idea

Great article btw.

[Funkstar]

My parents system managed to get infected by a Win2K exploit within a couple of minutes of installing ADSL. It wa the one that would display a message and then shut the PC down, can't remember the name. Really i should have set everything up and run Windows Update from my place from behind a router (not the best security, but better than nothing) but didn't think of that at the time.

The only virus i've had myself was from downloading stuff from a friends FTP site (ie. his PC) that was on a univerity network. There was about half a dozen of us using his server across JANET (we used to have races to see who could fill our Zip disks first) and we all got it.

[TiMeZeRo]

i dont use anti virus i dont use firewalls all i ahve in M$ anti spyware or defender as it is now called and im behind a router than doesnt forward anything but my gamin ports to me and im been running pc for about a year now with no viruses wat so ever o yeah and i dont click the stupid popups lol

[dave87]

My parents system managed to get infected by a Win2K exploit within a couple of minutes of installing ADSL. It wa the one that would display a message and then shut the PC down, can't remember the name. Really i should have set everything up and run Windows Update from my place from behind a router (not the best security, but better than nothing) but didn't think of that at the time.

The only virus i've had myself was from downloading stuff from a friends FTP site (ie. his PC) that was on a univerity network. There was about half a dozen of us using his server across JANET (we used to have races to see who could fill our Zip disks first) and we all got it.

that would be blaster worm I had a dell which managed to get that, even though it had up to date firewalls/av etc. It wouldn't shutdown if it wasnt connected to the net, but in order to get the fix you had to be connected frustrating, but easily enough removed

[mcmiller]

i like the bit when he says, I receive an email in Portuguese from the Brazilian government announcing that it has rejected an email from me because it contained W32.Netsky.Q@mm. Score! No perceptible impact on my system, but apparently networks in São Paulo have been brought to a standstill.
lol!

[chicken]

Haha, some people have too much time! I like the bit where his mum starts sending him dodgy spam!

Just to add to the discussion on AV: I don't use Anti Virus or a Firewall, I'm behind a router, I use Firefox, not IE and I use a different address to sign up for things that could generate spam to the one I give to friends.

The only virus I've ever had in 10 years of nettage, (6 on broadband) was MS Blast as I wasn't behind a router at the time. There was no fix for it until later that day, so AV software would have been useless against it.

[Clunk]

i cant help wondering, but all these people that say they dont use any antivirus and havent had any viruses, how do you know?

[badass]

i dont use anti virus i dont use firewalls all i ahve in M$ anti spyware or defender as it is now called and im behind a router than doesnt forward anything but my gamin ports to me and im been running pc for about a year now with no viruses wat so ever o yeah and i dont click the stupid popups lol

You're wrong as your computer appears to be infected with a virus that removes all punctuation from your posts along with disabling your G key