Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Monday 08 September 2003 10:23 am, HaywireMac wrote: On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:44:01 + crak600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: well, currently all my mail is saved onto my /home partition, but every other document/file/picture/whatever i get e-mailed to me that i want to save, i save it to my other hard drive, which is all FAT32. i actually do want to figure out how to make KMail save all my e-mail on one of those FAT32 partitions, so if i have to wipe out MDK for whatever reason (or screw it up and wipe it all out) if/when you ever had to reinstall Mandrake, you don't have to format your /home partition, in fact there's no reason to at all. also, saving your mail to a fat32 partition defeats the whole purpose of using Linux, ie. you are potentially saving mail that may contain malicious code that the Windows partition, once booted into that horrible OS, will do exactly what it is programmed to do, whereas on a Linux partition it will just sit there, harmless. ok, i understand that the /home partition doesn't need to be formatted out, just the / when doing a re-install or whatever. but i did that once already to solve some problems and i lost everything in kmail. that was a lot to lose, i was not happy. i don't want to have it happen again. i do, however, know how to go in and make partitions using diskdrake, and i could make myself another journalized fs3 partition specifically for storing mail, but after that, i don't know how to move everything over to it and keep it all there so i don't lose it again. hard drive space is not an issue for me. i've got ms-win and mdk on a 20gb hard drive (with / and /home both recieving 7gb space each) and i've got a 100gb hard drive for storage of anything and everything, and it's partitioned 6 ways currently, so carving out another partition speficially for e-mail, no problem. i prefer to do things this way anyway, as it can save a lot of data in the event of bad things happening. so can anyone help me walk through this so i don't lose all my stuff? it looks like i'm going to format out / within the next few days and start all over again. i've screwed it up pretty good. i can't even do updates. i really don't want to have to go through all this again, i've got just bout all my settings where i really like them, but hey, it's more practice on setting up the system, as i've only done it maybe 3-4 times. yeah, it's the easy way out, but i'm running on a full schedule between kids and school, so sometimes i gotta opt for the easiest quickest way to fix something. Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Tuesday 09 September 2003 10:55 pm, rikona wrote: Hello robin, Sunday, September 7, 2003, 12:34:19 PM, you wrote: Isn't it true that if you are fully patched (as painful as that is) that these virus's don't get you? r It can be very painful indeed. When I went home this summer, the r first thing I did was to go to Microsoft Update and set it to r download and install all security patches since the last time I r was over (a year previously). When I rebooted, Windows was r completely buggered. Reinstalling didn't work - I had to reformat r the whole partition and start from scratch This happened to me too. I was so upset I called M$ PAID support. Their ONLY solution was to reformat, and this cost me $$$ for that lousy advice! I was really pi***d. I explained that I had about 10+ Gigs of data files on that machine. They did not give a s**t about that data, at all - didn't even apologize that it would be lost. Their attitude really is the s**ts! Reminds me of the old Lilly Tomlin character: We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:44:01 + crak600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: well, currently all my mail is saved onto my /home partition, but every other document/file/picture/whatever i get e-mailed to me that i want to save, i save it to my other hard drive, which is all FAT32. i actually do want to figure out how to make KMail save all my e-mail on one of those FAT32 partitions, so if i have to wipe out MDK for whatever reason (or screw it up and wipe it all out) if/when you ever had to reinstall Mandrake, you don't have to format your /home partition, in fact there's no reason to at all. also, saving your mail to a fat32 partition defeats the whole purpose of using Linux, ie. you are potentially saving mail that may contain malicious code that the Windows partition, once booted into that horrible OS, will do exactly what it is programmed to do, whereas on a Linux partition it will just sit there, harmless. -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ There are no winners in life, only survivors. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 08:39:39 +0100 Margot [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: Growl gently please Mac ;-) Something about that is oddly arousing... :-D Some people don't have a choice - they may be working for unenlightened employers and using the list from work, or maybe (like me last year) they are using the list from an old (M$) PC while trying to get the internet connection working on Mandrake. I know, I know, that's why I'm growling. No one should even *feel* like they have to use that shite, I wish I could just make it go away, but sadly I was never granted the godlike powers that I so need. Oh, well, baby steps, right? -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. -- Paul Valery Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Monday 08 Sep 2003 11:23 am, HaywireMac wrote: On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:44:01 + crak600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: well, currently all my mail is saved onto my /home partition, but every other document/file/picture/whatever i get e-mailed to me that i want to save, i save it to my other hard drive, which is all FAT32. i actually do want to figure out how to make KMail save all my e-mail on one of those FAT32 partitions, so if i have to wipe out MDK for whatever reason (or screw it up and wipe it all out) if/when you ever had to reinstall Mandrake, you don't have to format your /home partition, in fact there's no reason to at all. Problem is that the default installation puts everything in one big partition. I'd like that changed, with a separate /home partition being the default. I think there's a wish list for 9.3 somewhere - I wonder where? Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Monday 08 September 2003 07:39 am, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 08 Sep 2003 11:23 am, HaywireMac wrote: On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:44:01 + crak600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: well, currently all my mail is saved onto my /home partition, but every other document/file/picture/whatever i get e-mailed to me that i want to save, i save it to my other hard drive, which is all FAT32. i actually do want to figure out how to make KMail save all my e-mail on one of those FAT32 partitions, so if i have to wipe out MDK for whatever reason (or screw it up and wipe it all out) if/when you ever had to reinstall Mandrake, you don't have to format your /home partition, in fact there's no reason to at all. Problem is that the default installation puts everything in one big partition. I'd like that changed, with a separate /home partition being the default. I think there's a wish list for 9.3 somewhere - I wonder where? Not so if the partitions are already created. If you already have separate /var /root /home /usr, etc partitions, it defaults to reusing the ones you have. So, on a reinstall, it would not wipe the existing partitions but would simply reuse the ones you already have in place, formatting only / and /usr by default. /var /home and other partitions will not be formatted unless you choose to do so. I have reinstalled several times and that is what happens everytime I do it. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Monday 08 Sep 2003 1:29 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: On Monday 08 September 2003 07:39 am, Anne Wilson wrote: if/when you ever had to reinstall Mandrake, you don't have to format your /home partition, in fact there's no reason to at all. Problem is that the default installation puts everything in one big partition. I'd like that changed, with a separate /home partition being the default. I think there's a wish list for 9.3 somewhere - I wonder where? Not so if the partitions are already created. If you already have separate /var /root /home /usr, etc partitions, it defaults to reusing the ones you have. So, on a reinstall, it would not wipe the existing partitions but would simply reuse the ones you already have in place, formatting only / and /usr by default. /var /home and other partitions will not be formatted unless you choose to do so. I have reinstalled several times and that is what happens everytime I do it. It works well if you know that you need to do it, but if you're there for the first time you don't find out until it's too late. I made that mistake the first time installed, learned my lesson g Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Monday 08 September 2003 08:50 am, Anne Wilson wrote: It works well if you know that you need to do it, but if you're there for the first time you don't find out until it's too late. I made that mistake the first time installed, learned my lesson g As much as I like the idea of the installer divvying up the disk into several partitions for functionality, I can't blame Mandrake for not doing that by default. Deciding how big to make each different partition is as much an art as a science and highly dependent on the person, risk aversion and what function the system will be used for. For Desktop linux, I don't see the big deal about using two big partitions, most people on the desktop don't really need to worry about separating partitions as much and it does offer greater flexibility when it comes to using a wide variety of different sizes for different partitions like /var, /usr, etc. With everything on one big partition, they can all use as much space as they need from the primary partition. Once you start doing server functions, of course, that all changes but Mandrake was aiming at desktop users, not servers, IIRC. Automated splits would be much harder and would invariable be wrong for a sizeable portion of people leading to the same type of complaints about the installer. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Monday 08 Sep 2003 3:07 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: On Monday 08 September 2003 08:50 am, Anne Wilson wrote: It works well if you know that you need to do it, but if you're there for the first time you don't find out until it's too late. I made that mistake the first time installed, learned my lesson g As much as I like the idea of the installer divvying up the disk into several partitions for functionality, I can't blame Mandrake for not doing that by default. Deciding how big to make each different partition is as much an art as a science and highly dependent on the person, risk aversion and what function the system will be used for. For Desktop linux, I don't see the big deal about using two big partitions, most people on the desktop don't really need to worry about separating partitions as much and it does offer greater flexibility when it comes to using a wide variety of different sizes for different partitions like /var, /usr, etc. With everything on one big partition, they can all use as much space as they need from the primary partition. Once you start doing server functions, of course, that all changes but Mandrake was aiming at desktop users, not servers, IIRC. Automated splits would be much harder and would invariable be wrong for a sizeable portion of people leading to the same type of complaints about the installer. Yes - I think the big thing is the difference in use patterns, so automating it would be a pain. Perhaps a half-way to expert partitioning step would solve it, asking something like 'Do you want a separate /home partition' with a help that gives an idea of why. There will have to be some guesswork by the user re size, but that's not so bad, not compared with losing everything when you screw up your first-time install. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
HaywireMac wrote: On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 03:40:12 + crak600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: so lemme get this straight, a ms-win virus could be picked up in linux, but then wouldn't do anything until you booted the computer back into windows, right? nope. you cannot pick up a virus in Linux. It would be on a different partition, one the Windows system cannot access. what is happening is that people on this list (some, gr) still use MS Outhouse to post to the list and receive from the list. Growl gently please Mac ;-) Some people don't have a choice - they may be working for unenlightened employers and using the list from work, or maybe (like me last year) they are using the list from an old (M$) PC while trying to get the internet connection working on Mandrake. Margot Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
RE: [newbie] Viruses..........
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Marc Sent: Sunday, 7 September 2003 12:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Viruses.. Wrong. Rebooting into windoze would only cause a problem if you then open the virus in a windoze email client or somehow transfered the virus to your windoze partition from everything i read about that sobig virus, it didn't touch win98 machines, i did updates anyway just in case. makes me glad i didn't go and buy winXP. it was the fact that i was completely sick of win98 that i started using mandrake :) Mike You guys are wrong.. Win98 can get sobig, its blaster that doesn't effect win9x. (blaster uses RPC that win98 doesn't have, only NT, 2000, XP, 2003 OS's.) rgds Franki Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sunday 07 September 2003 12:25 am, Marc wrote: Wrong. Rebooting into windoze would only cause a problem if you then open the virus in a windoze email client or somehow transfered the virus to your windoze partition Heck Marc, anytime you boot into Windoze its a problem! :-) -- /\ DarkLord \/ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
One last point, the two e-mail addresses you mentioned, are most likely spoofed (since sobig.F spoofs the from address). Take a look at http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[EMAIL PROTECTED] sometime. Michael -- Michael Viron Core Systems Group Simple End User Linux At 06:32 PM 9/6/2003 -0700, you wrote: Message hbtype=st ?bgcolor=#DEE7EF hmark=hotbar_element hb_focus_attach=true Dear List, I received two viruses (both sobig) from the newbie list..from [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] I would suggest getting a good antivirus program. I am using a combination of Norton, Trend Micro, AVG and Benign. AVG can be gotten for free, though I use the registered version. Benign is a wonderful program that just came out that neutralizes any suspicious mail. It can be secured from www.firetrust.com. There is a 15 day trial on it and then you have to buy the program. McAfee has a good program. I am using XP at the moment, but also have Lindows installed. I have the Mandrake 9.0 as well, but it is not installed at the moment. Having gotten a number of viruses from the Newbie list, I am surprised because I thought Linux was pretty much impervious to viruses. I don't know which of the above programs can be used with Linux. Eric S. Dye, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.167 / Virus Database: 259.11.7 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sun, 2003-09-07 at 23:32, ed tharp wrote: Hell, I go for a much more subtle approach. How have you guys been standing up to Sobig and MSBlaster this week?... got any idea of what it's cost you? I sure am glad I don't have to worry about that, if you ever want to try out Linux, let me know, I have a set of CDs in the truck, I can give you if you want,,, you know these virus only attack MS products. This is how I've been ending up pitching linux servers for prospective clients - there is now a waiting list - my schedule is looking rather full for the next few weeks (or more)...along with three physicians offices... stephen kuhn - owner == illawarra computer services a kuhn media australia company http://kma.0catch.com -- * This message was composed on a 100% Microsoft free computer * We expressly refuse to utilise Microsoft DRM encoded documents -- The ultimate game show will be the one where somebody gets killed at the end. -- Chuck Barris, creator of The Gong Show Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
Hell, I go for a much more subtle approach. How have you guys been standing up to Sobig and MSBlaster this week?... got any idea of what it's cost you? I sure am glad I don't have to worry about that, if you ever want to try out Linux, let me know, I have a set of CDs in the truck, I can give you if you want,,, you know these virus only attack MS products. Isn't it true that if you are fully patched (as painful as that is) that these virus's don't get you? I'm not trying to stick up for windows in any way, but at work, our sys is windows, and we haven't had a problem. Our IT guy and i talk about it, and he thinks his next small company will use linux, but in the meantime, he keeps the system up to date and we have had no sobig problem. Don't get me wrong: using microsoft programs every day sucks. I feel handicapped at work now that i have linux at home. I just want to make sure i understand this. eric -- Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Join the content organization discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/NewIndex Join the General Wiki Development discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/DevelopingTheMandrakeCommunity#Discussion Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
RE: [newbie] Viruses..........
a patched system will not proof you if someone on your system runs the executable.. If I send you a bat file in an email that says deltree windows and someone runs it, no matter how patched your system is, it will still clag up. patching a system only helps against works like blaster that do a remote infection.. if someone double clicks an attachemnt, all bets are off in windows. rgds Franki Mandrake Gamers mailing list: htmlfixit.com/mailman/listinfo/mandrake-games HTML Perl PHP n stuff.. htmlfixit.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Eric Huff Sent: Monday, 8 September 2003 12:19 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Viruses.. Hell, I go for a much more subtle approach. How have you guys been standing up to Sobig and MSBlaster this week?... got any idea of what it's cost you? I sure am glad I don't have to worry about that, if you ever want to try out Linux, let me know, I have a set of CDs in the truck, I can give you if you want,,, you know these virus only attack MS products. Isn't it true that if you are fully patched (as painful as that is) that these virus's don't get you? I'm not trying to stick up for windows in any way, but at work, our sys is windows, and we haven't had a problem. Our IT guy and i talk about it, and he thinks his next small company will use linux, but in the meantime, he keeps the system up to date and we have had no sobig problem. Don't get me wrong: using microsoft programs every day sucks. I feel handicapped at work now that i have linux at home. I just want to make sure i understand this. eric -- Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Join the content organization discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/NewIndex Join the General Wiki Development discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/DevelopingTheMandrakeComm unity#Discussion Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sunday 07 September 2003 04:25 am, Marc wrote: Wrong. Rebooting into windoze would only cause a problem if you then open the virus in a windoze email client or somehow transfered the virus to your windoze partition well, currently all my mail is saved onto my /home partition, but every other document/file/picture/whatever i get e-mailed to me that i want to save, i save it to my other hard drive, which is all FAT32. i actually do want to figure out how to make KMail save all my e-mail on one of those FAT32 partitions, so if i have to wipe out MDK for whatever reason (or screw it up and wipe it all out) i don't lose some stuff i've got in my e-mail currently, some of it is good information that i'm just too lazy to save in a different way. however, the next time i do boot into windoze, i do have to get AVG to update it's virus list and then just sit back and watch, because it does checks all the time on it's own. however, this e-mail account (which is my primary) is only used in linux. i NEVER open it in windows anymore, and if there's something i get e-mailed here that i think i need in windows, i foreward it to myself on another account and go to windows to retrieve it. You can be glad that you do not have win xp for more reasons than just the virus issues. I have used machines with 95, 98, ME and XP as best as I can tell the single biggest difference between 98 and XP is eye candy. Same old winblows crap with a lot more eye candy and a generous portion of bloat added also. I almost forgot a defragmentation utility that is as F#$ked up as a football bat. Any given machine seems to run much slower when 98 is upgraded to XP, and to top that off there still seems to be a lot of issues with getting drivers to work in XP. IMHO in the last 5 years all MS has been able to do is take a bad product and make it worse. A few new features were added but I cant see where getting a few improvements were worth the problems that came with them. I have seen much more genuine improvement from Mandrake in the 6 months that it took mandrake to change from 9.0 to 9.1 than I have seen from MS in the 5 years that it took to go from 98 to XP. Oh well enough of my rant. i am glad i'm not using windows often. while i have heard some things about XP, there's an extensive process that must be done to turn off a lot of programs hiding in teh background that are sitting there eating up memory and resources, and MS did not make it easy to find the switch to turn them off at boot up. but everything that has gone on in the ms world and them trying to control what we do with a computer loaded with their software, i just don't like it. that's one of the main reasons i'm trying to stay away from it at all costs. i just can't justify supporting that way of thinking. while i'm not violently lashing out against it, when in computer related discussions with friends and whatnot, i do bring up linux and am able to inform them of what i know about it and what i've seen as advantages and disadvantages over using a MS OS (disadvantage - gotta start learning how to use the command line, it was a struggle for me at first, now i'm comfortable with it). linux is a disadvantage to some people because all they want to do is point and click, but even then most of what i do in linux has become point and click thanks to the GUIs. but even when doing things in the GUIs, i still feel i have more control over the system than i ever did in ms. but now this is kinda going off topic, so to boil it back down to linux...from what you all say, the threat of a virus attack isn't here, and it's one less thing to worry about. that's good, and i like that. Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sun, 2003-09-07 at 12:19, Eric Huff wrote: Hell, I go for a much more subtle approach. How have you guys been standing up to Sobig and MSBlaster this week?... got any idea of what it's cost you? I sure am glad I don't have to worry about that, if you ever want to try out Linux, let me know, I have a set of CDs in the truck, I can give you if you want,,, you know these virus only attack MS products. Isn't it true that if you are fully patched (as painful as that is) that these virus's don't get you? A No. I'm not trying to stick up for windows in any way, but at work, our sys is windows, and we haven't had a problem. That you and he know about. or can trace back to those Virus/worms Our IT guy and i talk about it, and he thinks his next small company will use linux, but in the meantime, he keeps the system up to date and we have had no sobig problem. Don't get me wrong: using microsoft programs every day sucks. I feel handicapped at work now that i have linux at home. Ahhh don't worry,,, there is a silver lining to the cloud generated by those blue screens It gives everyone a chance to get up and stretch, and look away from the screen, and for those of us without a LCD screen, it makes a difference. heck a smart manager ought to allow coffee breaks at odd times, so they can coincide with Blue Screens of Death. I just want to make sure i understand this. I was under the understanding that with out making regular payments to BG's boys, it was against the law to understand what windows is doing? G Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sunday 07 Sep 2003 5:19 pm, Eric Huff wrote: Hell, I go for a much more subtle approach. How have you guys been standing up to Sobig and MSBlaster this week?... got any idea of what it's cost you? I sure am glad I don't have to worry about that, if you ever want to try out Linux, let me know, I have a set of CDs in the truck, I can give you if you want,,, you know these virus only attack MS products. Isn't it true that if you are fully patched (as painful as that is) that these virus's don't get you? I'm not trying to stick up for windows in any way, but at work, our sys is windows, and we haven't had a problem. Our IT guy and i talk about it, and he thinks his next small company will use linux, but in the meantime, he keeps the system up to date and we have had no sobig problem. Don't get me wrong: using microsoft programs every day sucks. I feel handicapped at work now that i have linux at home. I just want to make sure i understand this. Microsoft and Linux issue about the same number of security fixes. There are tens of thousands of MS viruses, and a handful of Linux viruses, most (all?) of which can do no harm unless you run as root. There is no way to protect an MS system to the same level as a basic Linux install running as a normal user. It is possible to make a Linux machine a lot more secure than that. On a standard MS install any executable that you run can write to any file on the disk, and even if you secure that it can still read every file on the disk. On Win9x you can't even go that far. There is no such thing as a fully patched Win95/ME machine; MS has stopped supporting them. Forget servers, they are usually fully patched, virus protected and carefully watched. The real battlefield is the desktops and home users, and that is 99% MS, and about 10%* fully patched and virus protected. That creates a large breeding ground for virii, so they will go further than if they target the 1% market. You cannot trust a closed company to release timely and adiquate patches. With Open Source the stimulus is there to do it quick and right. For 20 years MS products have not paid any attention to security, and they appear to only be giving it lip service even now. For 30 years Unix has had its eye on the ball. A fully patched machine is no ultimate protection. The FSF were hit by a trojan attack within the 1 week between an exploit being published and the fix being available. Only the clever virii are stopped by patches. Stuff that travels on floppy disks and by exchanging executables are still able to replicate on Win9x and any other MS OS that isn't locked down by the sys admin. *nix machines running as normal users are mostly imune to this vector, because there is no write access to executables. * 86.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot. -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
a patched system will not proof you if someone on your system runs the executable.. Yeah, of course. patching a system only helps against works like blaster that do a remote infection.. if someone double clicks an attachemnt, all bets are off in windows. So in the case of sobig, it doesn't remotely target a hole in micr*soft, but relies on somebody running the file? I see. With so many micr*soft seurity problems, i have trouble keeping the facts straight... So that means that on all these infected sobig machines, someone double clicked? That just blows my mind. I can't understand why outhouse still allows executables to be run. If you want people to double click on files and have them opened up by the proper program, fine. But how often does it even make sense to run an executable from an email program? You'd think by now outhouse would disable that ability. If people really want to infect themselves, make them copy it somewhere first. Sorry. As many times as i encounter it, i never get used to such blatant stupidity. -- Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Join the content organization discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/NewIndex Join the General Wiki Development discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/DevelopingTheMandrakeCommunity#Discussion Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
so here's a question about the viruses. does a router with a natural firewall built in help out at all? i'm on cable and i run a 4 port router, even though i only have one computer on it, and i only use the router for the firewall protection, just to keep the hackers out. but since my IP address stops at the router and my machine gets a different IP address, because the router gives it an IP address like it's on a network, does this help out at all in the stopping of spreading any viruses? if i am wrong in any of this, please correct me. i was told that what is seen from the outside is one IP address, and if i was running 4 computers off of the router, only the one IP address assigned to me by the cable company would be seen on the 'outside' using basic means to see it. of course, they could use some programs to see there are more machines on the network if they really wanted to, but that'd start being an invasion of privacy at a certain point. like i said, if i'm wrong, correct me. please. Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
I just want to make sure i understand this. I was under the understanding that with out making regular payments to BG's boys, it was against the law to understand what windows is doing? G Hah! That's true. :) -- Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Join the content organization discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/NewIndex Join the General Wiki Development discussion: http://mandrake.vmlinuz.ca/bin/view/Main/DevelopingTheMandrakeCommunity#Discussion Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sun, 2003-09-07 at 23:19, Eric Huff wrote: Hell, I go for a much more subtle approach. How have you guys been standing up to Sobig and MSBlaster this week?... got any idea of what it's cost you? I sure am glad I don't have to worry about that, if you ever want to try out Linux, let me know, I have a set of CDs in the truck, I can give you if you want,,, you know these virus only attack MS products. Isn't it true that if you are fully patched (as painful as that is) that these virus's don't get you? my two baht worth: keeping yourself fully patched *is* painful enough - it leads directly to the reason I'm here. Just keeping AVG up to date alone: 1.5M every few days on a dialup that I have to pay for both by the minute and by the Meg, not to mention the times [often] when the connection drops almost at the end of the download, so you have to download it again... As for windoze update - don't get me started :) And in my case, even though I was updated and all, suddenly I had Zonealarm asking if I wanted to let all these make money fast schemes to act as a server. That's what pi**ed me off - the fact that something could get written to my hard drive and executed without my knowledge. If the casino crap could get through, what about those stories about kiddie porn and beasties and such - you hear about those lowlifes hijacking other ppl's computers for their crap... Just imagine a bunch of cops burst through your door and take away your computer and find some extra-naughty pics on it... Oh it must have been a virus that put those there!!! I could imagine that's a defense that wouldn't fly - and here in Thailand they put in [a really horrible] prison for a few years *then* kill you for that sort of thing... When the stakes are that high, windoze isn't worth it! -- Merlin Zener Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
rikona wrote: Hello Margot, Sunday, September 7, 2003, 12:39:39 AM, you wrote: M Some people don't have a choice - they may be working for M unenlightened employers and using the list from work, or maybe M (like me last year) they are using the list from an old (M$) PC M while trying to get the internet connection working on Mandrake. Even if you can't get away completely, it is wise to use as little M$ virusware as possible - NO M$ software other than the OS if you can. There are excellent alternatives to the junk M$ offers. Doing so will decrease the virus/security/privacy issues by a huge amount. It is well worth the effort. If you can't leave M$, then get as far away as possible. I have relegated the Win98 PC to a dark corner. It gets dusted off and switched on once a week, when I have to use IE6 to access one of my bank accounts because the bank's software runs on M$ with ActiveX controls. They say this is for security reasons (!) - I'm still trying to persuade them that for security reasons I should be able to access my account using linux - no luck so far, but I'm still working on it! Margot Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sunday 07 Sep 2003 7:13 pm, crak600 wrote: so here's a question about the viruses. does a router with a natural firewall built in help out at all? i'm on cable and i run a 4 port router, even though i only have one computer on it, and i only use the router for the firewall protection, just to keep the hackers out. but since my IP address stops at the router and my machine gets a different IP address, because the router gives it an IP address like it's on a network, does this help out at all in the stopping of spreading any viruses? if i am wrong in any of this, please correct me. i was told that what is seen from the outside is one IP address, and if i was running 4 computers off of the router, only the one IP address assigned to me by the cable company would be seen on the 'outside' using basic means to see it. of course, they could use some programs to see there are more machines on the network if they really wanted to, but that'd start being an invasion of privacy at a certain point. like i said, if i'm wrong, correct me. please. Mike A firewall will stop you being hacked, either by a person or by a virus on an infected machine, if it is set up right. It will not protect you from virii that arrive in mail or anything else that you let through the firewall. For example if you run a web server, that server is open to be hacked. A router firewall will usually let out all traffic from your LAN towards the Internet. Therefore it is not helpful in preventing you spreading virii. It could be setup to do so, but it isn't usually, and it sounds as if you are using a factory default setp. -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sat, 2003-09-06 at 21:32, Eric S. Dye wrote: Dear List, I received two viruses (both sobig) from the newbie list..from [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] I would suggest getting a good antivirus program. I am using a combination of Norton, Trend Micro, AVG and Benign. AVG can be gotten for free, though I use the registered version. Benign is a wonderful program that just came out that neutralizes any suspicious mail. It can be secured from www.firetrust.com. There is a 15 day trial on it and then you have to buy the program. McAfee has a good program. I am using XP at the moment, but also have Lindows installed. I have the Mandrake 9.0 as well, but it is not installed at the moment. Having gotten a number of viruses from the Newbie list, I am surprised because I thought Linux was pretty much impervious to viruses. I don't know which of the above programs can be used with Linux. Eric S. Dye, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 7.0.167 / Virus Database: 259.11.7 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 I your using Linux, the Sobig virus won't bother you. It's a Windows virus only. -- Brian Craft Yahoo Instant Messenger ID: bcraft67 AIM: linuxman67 Website: http://userdata.acd.net/javaman67/ Linux..the OS of Choice! Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 September 6, 2003 07:32 pm, Eric S. Dye wrote: Dear List, I received two viruses (both sobig) from the newbie list..from HYPERLINK mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] and HYPERLINK mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] I would suggest getting a good antivirus program. I am using a combination of Norton, Trend Micro, AVG and Benign. AVG can be gotten for free, though I use the registered version. Benign is a wonderful program that just came out that neutralizes any suspicious mail. It can be secured from HYPERLINK http://www.firetrust.comwww.firetrust.com. There is a 15 day trial on it and then you have to buy the program. McAfee has a good program. I am using XP at the moment, but also have Lindows installed. I have the Mandrake 9.0 as well, but it is not installed at the moment. Having gotten a number of viruses from the Newbie list, I am surprised because I thought Linux was pretty much impervious to viruses. I don't know which of the above programs can be used with Linux. Eric S. Dye, HYPERLINK mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] I seriously doubt you got the virus (either of them) from the list. What you got was from an infected Outlook Express 6. similar to what you are using. Version and software I mean, not the infected part. I have no idea whether yours has a problem. The list itself is a sympa server that doesn't know s**t from shinola about the troubles with Microsoft Viral Transport System. The people that help one another and any strays that show up to ask questions are highly unlikely to send you any infected messages. You can figure out where the mail really came from by checking the headers even in Outhouse Infect. Look under the View button for Full Headers or similar. Have fun Eric. Just don't preach anti-virus software to GNU/Linux users from a Windows computer; OK? Regards; Charlie - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User 244963 at http://counter.li.org Cooker on kernel 2.4.22-5mdk 19:37:49 up 10:20, 1 user, load average: 0.21, 0.38, 0.33 Only someone with nothing to be sorry for smiles back at the rear of an elephant. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/Wo2pG11CaRuZZSIRAt+8AJ95/K+TZLIY69HR6mPlh5VqhSNgQACfSBdc VMw9ZUFlWV7Biu0oNW9OYj0= =kAK3 -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sat, 06 Sep 2003 18:32:08 -0700 Eric S. Dye [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: I am surprised because I thought Linux was pretty much impervious to viruses. Not pretty much, it is. You could save yourself a whole lot of money, flush McAfee, AVG, and whatever whatchamacallits that make $ from Microsoft's egregious incompetence, down the toilet if you would get rid of at least Outhouse, at best the whole Windows thang. The only *reason* people who run Linux even *use* anti-virus software (which is free BTW), for the most part, is to be nice and not allow viruses to spread to people who are unlucky enough to use Windows. Once in awhile, tho, as with any system, some slip through, and it looks like someone on here is infected, but it is certainly not anyone running Linux. -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate. -- Marcus Terentius Varro Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
Charlie M. wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 September 6, 2003 07:32 pm, Eric S. Dye wrote: Dear List, I received two viruses (both sobig) from the newbie list..from HYPERLINK mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] and HYPERLINK mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] I would suggest getting a good antivirus program. I am using a combination of Norton, Trend Micro, AVG and Benign. AVG can be gotten for free, though I use the registered version. Benign is a wonderful program that just came out that neutralizes any suspicious mail. It can be secured from HYPERLINK http://www.firetrust.comwww.firetrust.com. There is a 15 day trial on it and then you have to buy the program. McAfee has a good program. I am using XP at the moment, but also have Lindows installed. I have the Mandrake 9.0 as well, but it is not installed at the moment. Having gotten a number of viruses from the Newbie list, I am surprised because I thought Linux was pretty much impervious to viruses. I don't know which of the above programs can be used with Linux. Eric S. Dye, HYPERLINK mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] I seriously doubt you got the virus (either of them) from the list. What you got was from an infected Outlook Express 6. similar to what you are using. Version and software I mean, not the infected part. I have no idea whether yours has a problem. The list itself is a sympa server that doesn't know s**t from shinola about the troubles with Microsoft Viral Transport System. The people that help one another and any strays that show up to ask questions are highly unlikely to send you any infected messages. You can figure out where the mail really came from by checking the headers even in Outhouse Infect. Look under the View button for Full Headers or similar. Have fun Eric. Just don't preach anti-virus software to GNU/Linux users from a Windows computer; OK? Regards; Charlie - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User 244963 at http://counter.li.org Cooker on kernel 2.4.22-5mdk 19:37:49 up 10:20, 1 user, load average: 0.21, 0.38, 0.33 Only someone with nothing to be sorry for smiles back at the rear of an elephant. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/Wo2pG11CaRuZZSIRAt+8AJ95/K+TZLIY69HR6mPlh5VqhSNgQACfSBdc VMw9ZUFlWV7Biu0oNW9OYj0= =kAK3 -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com I believe what he means is at least two messages were posted to the list that contained the sobig virus. I've counted at least two tonight. -- David Filion Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sunday 07 September 2003 02:52 am, HaywireMac wrote: You could save yourself a whole lot of money, flush McAfee, AVG, and whatever whatchamacallits that make $ from Microsoft's egregious incompetence, down the toilet if you would get rid of at least Outhouse, at best the whole Windows thang. The only *reason* people who run Linux even *use* anti-virus software (which is free BTW), for the most part, is to be nice and not allow viruses to spread to people who are unlucky enough to use Windows. on my windows side, i do run AVG, that's the only virus program i run, and it's free, does updates for free and when in windows, i have it running all the time (although i rarely use windows anymore). i havn't ever seen the need for 3 or 4 virus programs running at one time in windows, i've only ever run 1 at a time. and over the course of a year before i started running virus programs, i only ever picked up one virus. EVER. and to top it off, i spent years on AOL and only ever got that one virus. over the next few years running virus protection all the time, i never picked up a single virus and was never alerted to any viruses in my system or e-mails. people i knew on aol used to pick up viruses left and right, but they'd only be running a single virus program that did free updates whenever needed and the viruses were always blocked before they infected their computer. you don't need to be THAT worried, just pick one program that automatically does updates and you'll be fine. Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 September 6, 2003 09:12 pm, David Filion wrote: whack I believe what he means is at least two messages were posted to the list that contained the sobig virus. I've counted at least two tonight. Probably, but what I posted is still what I think. People running MS virusware shouldn't be calling us or this list infection focal points. I thought there were more than two, and I've also seen a s**t load for every post I've made to newbie and expert. Those all die in /dev/null though. g Peace; C. - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User 244963 at http://counter.li.org Cooker on kernel 2.4.22-5mdk 21:25:35 up 12:08, 1 user, load average: 0.96, 0.55, 0.40 Everyone is more or less mad on one point. -- Rudyard Kipling -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/WqX1G11CaRuZZSIRAsPGAJ94/04nXxEfLoboH3+UHib1MwZdEwCgkkEN noa2jvqkSeuecnuKeeDmtDs= =KujB -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sunday 07 September 2003 03:28 am, Charlie M. wrote: Probably, but what I posted is still what I think. People running MS virusware shouldn't be calling us or this list infection focal points. I thought there were more than two, and I've also seen a s**t load for every post I've made to newbie and expert. Those all die in /dev/null though. g so lemme get this straight, a ms-win virus could be picked up in linux, but then wouldn't do anything until you booted the computer back into windows, right? from everything i read about that sobig virus, it didn't touch win98 machines, i did updates anyway just in case. makes me glad i didn't go and buy winXP. it was the fact that i was completely sick of win98 that i started using mandrake :) Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 03:40:12 + crak600 [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: so lemme get this straight, a ms-win virus could be picked up in linux, but then wouldn't do anything until you booted the computer back into windows, right? nope. you cannot pick up a virus in Linux. It would be on a different partition, one the Windows system cannot access. what is happening is that people on this list (some, gr) still use MS Outhouse to post to the list and receive from the list. -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ No matter where I go, the place is always called here. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses..........
On Saturday 06 September 2003 10:40 pm, crak600 wrote: On Sunday 07 September 2003 03:28 am, Charlie M. wrote: Probably, but what I posted is still what I think. People running MS virusware shouldn't be calling us or this list infection focal points. I thought there were more than two, and I've also seen a s**t load for every post I've made to newbie and expert. Those all die in /dev/null though. g so lemme get this straight, a ms-win virus could be picked up in linux, but then wouldn't do anything until you booted the computer back into windows, right? Wrong. Rebooting into windoze would only cause a problem if you then open the virus in a windoze email client or somehow transfered the virus to your windoze partition from everything i read about that sobig virus, it didn't touch win98 machines, i did updates anyway just in case. makes me glad i didn't go and buy winXP. it was the fact that i was completely sick of win98 that i started using mandrake :) Mike You can be glad that you do not have win xp for more reasons than just the virus issues. I have used machines with 95, 98, ME and XP as best as I can tell the single biggest difference between 98 and XP is eye candy. Same old winblows crap with a lot more eye candy and a generous portion of bloat added also. I almost forgot a defragmentation utility that is as F#$ked up as a football bat. Any given machine seems to run much slower when 98 is upgraded to XP, and to top that off there still seems to be a lot of issues with getting drivers to work in XP. IMHO in the last 5 years all MS has been able to do is take a bad product and make it worse. A few new features were added but I cant see where getting a few improvements were worth the problems that came with them. I have seen much more genuine improvement from Mandrake in the 6 months that it took mandrake to change from 9.0 to 9.1 than I have seen from MS in the 5 years that it took to go from 98 to XP. Oh well enough of my rant. Marc KM5KW Composed on a 100% Windows and Microsoft free computer using Mandrake 9.1 and Kmail Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Viruses.
On Wednesday 25 July 2001 11:51, Adams, Jamie wrote: Just a small note about the SirCam virus, i had never heard of this, but on my windows machine at work this morning i have recieved 3 messages from an unknown person infected with it. Get a life, mate. I've had over 30 of the damn things so far g. One of us needs to get out more, I guess. -- Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa) [EMAIL PROTECTED]/unisa.ac.za http://www.geocities.com/clasqm This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC Free Dimitry Sklyarov!
Re: [newbie] Viruses. - Booting Doze
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 19:09, you manipulated electrons to produce: snipped: In the Windos world, many of the most successful and most devastating virii have exploited old (often years old) security holes. Windos sysadmins, many of them incompetant (you would have to be if you use Windos), refuse to install security patches because it will require rebooting the system. In the *nix world, a reboot is only required if one wants to change the running kernel. *** In the Doze world, if it is running, running at all, you don't do nuthin', nuthin at all. It will stop soon enough of its own accord... -- Cheers, John http://counter.li.org GO HERE IF YOU SUPPORT LINUX! Fablor is now Webhosting?? What on earth for?? Info here: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (it's only an Autoresponder) :-)
Re: [newbie] Viruses.
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 18:03, Paul wrote: Hi folks, Everybody except Linux Users has heard about SirCam a new EXTREMELY annoying virus. Seems a very popular one out there at moment - can send random giant file attachments ! Which brings me to the point: I don't border on - I AM paranoid in the Doze world - I executed the MEDIUM option of security on my M8 setup. Is there anything else advised at this stage? I have heard of it too, even though I don't do winders. It is a bad one, indeed. You would not have to worry if you are not running a mailserver for other people. Otherwise you should install an antivirus program. They do exist, because many winders mail clients pull mail from *nix boxes. If the server can eliminate a viral mail, it will reduce the amount of spreading through the winders pc's. You can consider Amavis, McAfee, AvP/Linux Paul Most GNU/Linux antivirus apps are designed to find Windos virii, not GNU/Linux ones. This can be useful if you're running a GNU/Linux server and Windos clients. I know that there is a version of AntiViral Toolkit Pro that claims to be able to find GNU/Linux virii. I would argue that it is mostly unnecessary, and that the bulk of its advertising is based on FUD. The vast majority (and perhaps all) of GNU/Linux virii are designed to exploit well-known security holes for which there has long been a fix. If you keep your system up to date with the latest security packages (Mandrake does a good job of releasing these), you should have little to fear. In the Windos world, many of the most successful and most devastating virii have exploited old (often years old) security holes. Windos sysadmins, many of them incompetant (you would have to be if you use Windos), refuse to install security patches because it will require rebooting the system. In the *nix world, a reboot is only required if one wants to change the running kernel. -- Sridhar Dhanapalan. There are two major products that come from Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. -- Jeremy S. Anderson
Re: Re: [newbie] Viruses
Chernobyl (a CIH virus) would have to be favourite. It can render a Windos machine totally unbootable, necessitating a format (to remove the virus fully) and a reinstall. Not big deal ; Bill Gates did too .
Re: [newbie] Viruses.
Hi folks, Everybody except Linux Users has heard about SirCam a new EXTREMELY annoying virus. Seems a very popular one out there at moment - can send random giant file attachments ! Which brings me to the point: I don't border on - I AM paranoid in the Doze world - I executed the MEDIUM option of security on my M8 setup. Is there anything else advised at this stage? I have heard of it too, even though I don't do winders. It is a bad one, indeed. You would not have to worry if you are not running a mailserver for other people. Otherwise you should install an antivirus program. They do exist, because many winders mail clients pull mail from *nix boxes. If the server can eliminate a viral mail, it will reduce the amount of spreading through the winders pc's. You can consider Amavis, McAfee, AvP/Linux Paul
Re: [newbie] Viruses.
On Wednesday 25 July 2001 07:58, John Rigby wrote: Hi folks, Everybody except Linux Users has heard about SirCam a new EXTREMELY annoying virus. Seems a very popular one out there at moment - can send random giant file attachments ! Which brings me to the point: I don't border on - I AM paranoid in the Doze world - I executed the MEDIUM option of security on my M8 setup. Is there anything else advised at this stage? Well, tiny firewall can block ports for you, and it would be wise to watch http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/security/ and to subscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so you get email when new fixes are available. We generally manage to stay 3-6 months ahead of the worm/trojan makers with fixes for the exploits they use, but if you don't update, you can become a victim. But don't worry very much about viruses. They are an academic speculation for linux. A really effective virus is theoretically possible on a machine that does compilation, by sitting in memory and watching for a make and streaming in its code, but direct pollution of executables is another matter, not very easily done. Civileme
Re: [newbie] Viruses?
Exactly that is why you can't be infected by a Winblows virus on a Mac platform and vice versa. It also is the same reason you can't run Winbloze apps in Linux without an emulator. BTW, haven't seen too many viruses for Linux lately and how many are there for Winblows, umm ... around 50,000? * Original message from: Dan Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Toby Sheets wrote: Is Linux susceptible to the same virii that Windoze is? No, because viruses are written for a particular processor/OS platform, and none of the calls upon which a DOS/windows virus would rely are present in Linux. Of course, if you're running WINE or VMWare, that's another story... -- Dan Brown, KE6MKS, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Re: [newbie] Viruses?
There is ONE documented Unix virus. It is called "Bliss" and was written as an academic exercise to explore the theoretical possibility of construction of virii that could traverse Unices. Bliss can infect a user space, but then who gives write privileges to an ordinary user for anything executable? If you run on an open connection as root, well you deserve what you get. Windows was created as a SINGLE-user system. One user per computer. Then Microsoft, looking at a system that had little to no security to begin with, made its products more "competitive" by hooking directly to the operating system core that only they knew. (How else could a mediocre design like Word take the market from something as well-planned as WordPerfect?). Windows NT is an immature GUI Unix slowly being invented into a full Unix by Microsoft, but very young, yet, and different enough that many, many exploits exist. So, Windows is wide open to exploits, Windows NT is sort-of secure till you add Microsoft Software that DEPENDS on hooking directly into the operating system core. That's why there are 50,000 or so exploits, varying from trojans to worms to virii. With one system having bolt-on security as an afterthought, and the other having middleware that runs in privileged mode and executes shell commands, the security is somewhere between laughable and atrocious. Irecommend to all my friends that if they must use Windows, then use it locally. Use Linux to connect to the internet and to intranets. If not, the next site you open with MSIE might just destroy your computer in a single step. The next attached (*.xls)spreadsheet you open from your email might just send itself out to all your friends on all your address lists and then repartition your fixed disks without any warning. McAfee antivirus is available for Linux. It checks incoming files for windows exploits. Isuppose using Linux as a workgroup firewall and gateway is becoming a rather common practice, since McAfee sees a market there. Of course, the fools once tried to claim they discovered "bliss", too. Civileme John May wrote: Exactly that is why you can't be infected by a Winblows virus on a Mac platform and vice versa. It also is the same reason you can't run Winbloze apps in Linux without an emulator. BTW, haven't seen too many viruses for Linux lately and how many are there for Winblows, umm ... around 50,000? * Original message from: Dan Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Toby Sheets wrote: > >> Is Linux susceptible to the same virii that Windoze is? > >No, because viruses are written for a particular processor/OS platform, >and none of the calls upon which a DOS/windows virus would rely are >present in Linux. Of course, if you're running WINE or VMWare, that's >another story... > >-- >Dan Brown, KE6MKS, [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good >with ketchup. -- Rejoice, the wait for Windows 2000 is over! http://www.ms-windows-2000.com/
Re: [newbie] Viruses?
True story: A friend of mine who works for a local car dealership wanted some help in designing their web page. He sent me an email, and a second one was automagicaly generated for him by, you guessed it, Happy99. This occurred right after the big discussion on this list about Happy99. I saw it, deleted it, never even worried about it affecting my Linux box. Then I sent him an all caps email telling him to get a virus scanner to work fast. He was the contact point for many customers via email. I love Linux! -- Ty Mixon e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ:26147713
