On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Ted Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 16:23 -0500, Bubba cakes wrote: > > Hi, all, > > I hope this is the right list... > > > > I have some basic questions, and I wonder if this is the place to ask > > them. > > > Probably as good as any. :) > > I want to know about internet security, how to keep my computer from > > being infected with viruses, spamware, spyware, adware, > > whatever-ware... > > > > Is there a program that I can run to check all my files and drives for > > security problems? > > > > What about a firewall? > > > > Actually, I don't know what I need. I'm a construction guy, and need > > you computer guys to tell me what to do. > > > You don't need any of the above. > > Going through the list, there's no such thing as viruses, adware, > spyware, whatever, for GNU/Linux. This is for a combination of reasons > -- the system isn't a very alluring target for bot herders, but it's > also built much more securely than Windows, so it's much harder to > infect. > > By default, gNewSense doesn't have any network services active, meaning > there's no reason to use a firewall. > > If you really want to run security programs, I suggest chkrootkit and > rkhunter. They are programs that install themselves to run automatically > every so often and report on how vulnerable or 'hacked' the system > looks. They can have a lot of false positives though, so unless you want > to learn more about security, I wouldn't bother with them. > > > I would like to be able to browse the internet without being monitored > > by anyone. I would also like to send emails without receiving ten > > freakin advertisements based on words I just sent to someone. Is this > > possible? > > > In a sense. However, I don't think you're meaning exactly what you're > asking. > > You could set up Tor (there's a detailed guide on doing that on > <http://torproject.org>, follow the Ubuntu/Debian instructions) for > anonymous browsing, but if you just want to avoid ads, then just install > the Adblock extension for Firefox (I believe the package is called > adblock-plus, but if you just searched adblock in Add/Remove, you'd find > it). Additionally... > > > Is it possible to use the internet and email (Gmail) without somebody > > always reading/monitoring my activities? > > > Not really. Email is a clear-text protocol. Your email provider will be > able to read any emails you send via them, unless they are encrypted. > Setting up email encryption is a more complex task that would make this > a very long message, so I'll just refer you to the vast amount of guides > on google. Note that it isn't particularly hard, just complicated. > > In terms of ads directed at your email content, there's no way to stop > google from gathering data from you if you use their service, but you > can stop seeing them if you set up an email client like Thunderbird or > Evolution. > > Is Gmail email using a proxy server? (I think it is, but don't really > > know.) > > > No, definitely not. What do you mean by "proxy server", though? > > > _______________________________________________ > gNewSense-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users > > I couldn't say it any better.
-- Luis A. Guzmán García
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