how-to block ads
|
Comments on news posted 2005-01-14 11:28:50: The Los Angeles Times essentially copies a story we saw last month in the Chicago Tribune; both focus on people who are fleeing the web (and broadband) en-masse because of spyware, spam, and viruses. ..
| |
 
TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium
join:2000-11-08
Brooklyn NYC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Blame the victim!The CORE PROBLEM Is the false and deceptive Microsoft advertising. Note the "safe and easy to use" video, the "let the wizard do the work" video, the "data protection inside and out" video.... all under the rubric of "safe and easy to use"!
In contrast, If a consumer watches and reads the Microsoft marketing materials, buys XP, does everything he/she is told to do my Microsoft, both in their advertising and in their docs, that consumer will have their new computer hosed and made useless in a flash!
People here are so quick to blame the "stupid consumer", but I am sorry, it's the product not living up to it's advertising which is the problem, not the poor deceived consumer!
What ever happened to "truth in advertising" laws? Perhaps Elliot Spitzer is a solution to this mess!
Bob
--
Motor Vessel - Tamara B.
43' Long-Range Trawler
Cape Elizebeth ME.
See her Here. | |
| sago
join:2001-12-19
| debian solution Friend of mine called me up -- his family had a Windows 2000 machine - finally so clogged up with unsuccessful attempts to install 3rd party software to fix the problems that actually made the problems worse - the machine was really, really clogged up and slowed down. He had broadband.
We have this college here in town that gives out their used equipment, we got a used Dell and a monitor for not very much money, I installed Debian Linux on it for them, and his whole family (who aren't particulary computer literate at all) have been using the machine happily for almost two years now (probably like a year and a half).
When KDE 3.2 was incorporated into the Debian distribution (it was reported to be really fast on older hardware - and it is) I did an upgrade and since then there has been no looking back. The machine stays up for weeks, and everything (well, almost everything) they need to do with it they can do. Photo printers, digital cameras, no problems.
So my point is really two points. Linux can make your life easier because 1) it's more secure and 2) it's easy to use if someone else sets it up for you and keeps an eye on it. It's actually kind of a pet project of mine, keeping this thing running for their family. I don't spend more than a couple hours once very couple months to keep it upgraded, which is basically just babysitting the upgrade process and making sure nothing goes wrong - you can watch a movie or sit around and drink beers while it's doing its thing. I also shut down most if not all services because people were trying to break in, but no one succeeded. Now no one can even try. The Linux box sits directly on the broadband connection, no router, no firewall. For well over a year, before I disabled ALL unnecessary services, it was sitting there, probably not as secure as it could have been, but still no one got in (certainly not from lack of trying).
KDE on Linux is easy enough for their whole family to use, where Windows 2K became unusable in a very short period of time (sitting on the broadband connection with no firewall, no nothing).
So if you don't feel like dealing with it (actually, probably the easiest thing is to get a router and not download stuff from p2p networks) but if you really don't feel like dealing with it, have a friend who knows what they are doing set up a Linux box for you - it might not be able to do everything a Windows box will, but it will keep you connected, and it will make a computer that does 90%+ of everything you need a permanent fixture in your house.
All it proves to me is that you don't really have to be very computer literate to use Linux at all, provided someone else is helping you out with it from time to time. As a matter of fact, having someone set it up for you (or even trying to do it yourself) is the perfect solution to this problem. At this point, with KDE for instance, it's just SO easy to use it's exactly what this type of situation needs as a solution. | |
| 
David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs:
 ·DIRECTV
 ·magicjack.com
·AT&T Midwest
| My take With the wal-martization of the computer and the internet, I am shocked they have not came out with or got the most recent machines.. At one point in time I thought of buying some of these and selling these as "internet-only terminals"
• Virgin Webplayer with the Win98SE ROM flash..
• Older machines with limited hard disk capacity, or read only disks, possibly with knoppix, and no hard disk drive..
I guess the market for an "internet-broadband" dumb terminal capable of DHCP addressing and a NIC, video, USB, dial-up modem autoconfiguration software built in. Then lock it on the PROM, so if they do get a virus, how can it affect anything?? it cannot lock to a PROM.
Updates could be done with CDROM's or they could go to a compusa or equivalent, drop off the unit, and pick up a new one with new updates with minimal cost. Since most viruses have to stick to the PC to be beneficial there would be no bots because the bot would dissapear as soon as the computer was powered off.
--
If you have a topic I have not responded to in the direct forum please be sure to reply to me... I get an e-mail when you do that so I know you updated your thread... Thanks David.. | |
| 
PeteC2
Got Mouse?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
·AT&T Yahoo
| Dumb articles...fit for sheep.... If I had a nickel for every lame-brain derelict, who gets his/her computer "junked up" because they either A: Go to every "free" porno site that they can find (but seldom admit that this is the problem), or B: respond to every "free" offer, or "you may be a winner" come-on, I would be rich!
As for the tired, lame, sorry "M$ is full of holes, and you can't have a secure system..."
PLEASE! Put that dog to sleep! I run Windows XP, and even 98SE systems 24/7/365...'till they drop from old age...without a single issue. I do no more than basic, common-sense precautions: I'm on a properly configured router, and run up to date spyware/firewall/AV programs. Gee, how hard is that, Homer? I spend a very minimal amount of time on security. I have nothing against the Mac...no issues with Linux...no quibbles with Mozilla-based browsers...however there is absolutely no reason on earth that you cannot have a comfortably secure Windows XP system, complete with IE as browser, there just plain isn't!
--
Deeds, not words | |
| 
Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
·Qwest.net
1 edit | I am Legion
The inside of My Hard Drive |
SAVANNAH, Ga.-- Your computer may be possessed
by a demon, a leading minister warns.
"While the Computer Age has ushered in many advances, it has also opened yet another door through which Lucifer and his minions can enter and corrupt men's souls," said the Reverend Jim Peasboro, author of an upcoming book, The Devil in the Machine. Demons are able to possess anything with a brain, from a chicken to a human being. And today's
thinking machines have enough space on their hard drives to accommodate Satan or his pals. "Any PC built after 1985 has the storage capacity to house an evil spirit," the minister confirmed. The Savannah clergyman says he became aware of the problem from counseling churchgoers. "I learned that many members of my congregation became in touch with a dark force whenever they used their computers," he said. "Decent, happily married family men were drawn irresistibly to pornographic websites and forced to witness unspeakable abominations. "Housewives who had never expressed an impure thought were entering Internet chat rooms and found themselves spewing foul, debasing language they would never use normally.
"One woman wept as she confessed to me, 'I feel when I'm on the computer as if someone else on something else just takes over.'" The minister said he probed one such case, actually logging onto the parishioner's computer himself. To his surprise, an artificial intelligence program fired
up -- without him clicking it on. "The program began talking directly to me, openly mocked me," he recalls. "It typed out, 'Preacher, you are a weakling and your
God is a damn**** in what looked like gobbledygook. "I later had an expert in dead languages examine the
text," the minister said. "It turned out to be a stream of obscenities written in a 2,800-year-old Mesopotamian dialect!" Since, then, Rev. Peasboro has researched the
problem further and uncovered alarming facts. "I
learned most of the youths involved in school shootings like the tragedy at Columbine were computer buffs," he said. "I have no doubt that computer demons exerted an influence on them." he minister estimates that one in 10 computers in America now houses some type of evil spirit. Rev. Peasboro advises that if you suspect your computer
is possessed, you consult a clergyman or, if the computer is still under warranty, take it in for servicing. He says, "Technicians can replace the hard drive and reinstall the software, getting rid of the wicked spirit permanently."
P.S. To all of you techies I see yet another revenue stream for you. Exorcising evil demons from computers.
--
Real Men use Vacuum tubes, 25 pound filament transformers, and plate voltages no less then 2400 volts...BPL I'm coming to get you
| |
| 
tomkb
Premium
join:2000-11-15
Avon, OH
clubs: | I keep trying to tell you guys That the Internet is just a fad.
Kind of makes you wonder what people did before TV and Internet. | |
| |
Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
·Qwest.net
| Re: I keep trying to tell you guys said by tomkb  :That the Internet is just a fad. Kind of makes you wonder what people did before TV and Internet. Lots of hand cream.....:D
--
Real Men use Vacuum tubes, 25 pound filament transformers, and plate voltages no less then 2400 volts...BPL I'm coming to get you | |
| | | | SlashG42
join:2002-02-13
Metairie, LA
 ·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southeast
| What adware??? I make a lot of pocket change cleaning this junk out of people's Windows machines, but I own and primarily use Macs. I tell them Macs Don't catch virii, Don't get infested with spyware, and nearly never crash(nothing is crash-proof; try long enough and you will get a kernel panic.). I then tell them they can run M$ Office, access the internet and email, burn CD's, and, best of all lately, they work really well with that iPod you got for Christmas. The usual response is "I'll take two." | |
| 
GlobalMind
Domino Dude, POWER Systems Guy
Premium
join:2001-10-29
Hollywood, FL
| Evolution. . . These stories seem to pop up every now and again to help raise a bit of a stir in the media...so here we go again.
Back when I first encountered "the net" it was little else than mail, news and some random software FTP sites. This was late 1990.
I have seen the web from using Mosaic .96b all the way to now - and the root of all these spyware/malware etc deployments is the net itself.
The fact is that the internet's popularity is what has made it a vessel for corruption. Crooks are opportunists at their core. If the net wasn't going to reap them any reward they wouldn't bother.
When there were few web sites out there with little content to offer other than static material, there were viruses sure but you didn't have the pop-ups, unders or anywhere near the volume of other crap being distributed via mail, web, news etc as there is today. Again, popularity of a essentially open medium breeds opportunity.
There were stupid user tricks in 1990, there are stupid user tricks now. However, the stakes have gone up exponentially. It's easy to blame the user, but the truth is that it IS very difficult for the average user to keep up with technology.
It is very easy for myself, my colleagues etc to spout off about how dumb most people are, how they're just asking for it if they don't do x, y and z etc. It is also very easy to say "just don't do that" - but where does this end? What constitutes safe behavior is increasingly more difficult to determine. Yes, education can help - but that will also only go so far.
I don't want to see an operator license, I think that's dumber'n hell and won't do anything. Drive down here in South Florida and you see what having a license really does in most cases - NOTHING.
The overarching theme of the internet is not to hoard it amongst the technologists - it wants to be open, that's the point. Suggesting otherwise is simply elitist rhetoric.
The OS used can be an issue, but it's not a matter of how secure the OS is by default but how SECURABLE it is. Can the user protect themselves with the tools available? Or do they need to consult 5 other apps to get good protection?
In the end the solution becomes a matter of compromise. There must be user education, but there also must be securable apps. Microsoft's bent on their DRM, to work with the media industry but they continue to have USER security issues. I think the priorities are out of whack.
Linux is likely not a valid solution for the vast majority of users out there. I know the Linux zealots out there will get on me but hey, this is it (Good thing I am not posting this on /.). Your average user is not going to go home from a Windoze PC at the office to a Linux box at home - sorry but they just aren't.
In trying to close this up.....I get annoyed while browsing from time to time as well. Everyone does. I am annoyed at just how far we have to go watching our digital backs every minute. Facts are though that the world has changed and the net has changed. These are not the 1950s, or even the early 1990s. Unfortunately many folks will find it difficult to adapt - that's just how it is going to be. Not everyone "gets it" no matter how hard we try.
I would love it if some of the folks who enjoy lashing out at all the dumb users out there would actually sit down and help a few learn (I realise some folks do, and I applaud you).
Go after the scum writing the code, help the ones being hurt understand how to avoid it. That would be the most beneficial thing for this debate.
K.
--
TheGlobalMind.com
The agnostic dyslexic insomniac stays up all night wondering if there is a dog. | |
| 
cowardx
@206.228.x.x
| wow are we tense or what?!? jeebus! If something doesn't work for you just stop using it! Why oh why are we so whiny? Perhaps the concept of the mid-day nap should be established to settle everyone down. That or just legalize pot to chill everyone out (myself included)  | |
| 
keith2468
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-03
Winnipeg, MB
| Industry Fails Customers As an industry we are failing to meet customer needs.
So we are loosing customers.
Whose fault is that?
They need an internet they can safely use without special training. It is not our place to tell them that they need to spend 2 hours a week on reading up on computer security and updating their defensive software.
--
(Virus&Hijacking FAQ + Submit suspected malware + Backups FAQ + Security FAQ TOC) | |
|
aaasdfas
@attbi.com | What a shame What a shame that idiots are beginning to stop using the Internet. If this is a real trend (though I doubt it is, it's just some fluff piece for the Times), I can only hope for its continued acceleration. | |
| | | |
|
nice, just nice