Moronic virus writers should be put to sleep

[The Real Andy]

Bought a new laptop, installed MSSQL server. Stupid me forgot to apply the
MS patch for the security vunerablilities in SQL server. Damn blaster
strikes. Now wonder my RPC service keeps shutting down and forcing me to
loose all my work. So of too MS website I go for the patch, 37mB of patches
later all is good. Thank **** I decided to get that ADSL. Gee, now I can
even get access to MSDN without having to wait for those friggin CD's to
come. msblast port permantly wired shut now...

Which brings me to the point, If I ever catch one of those fucked up little
square eyed vandal nerd hacker loser 'cant get a root' twisted moronic fools
who writes those viruses I am going to shoot him on the spot. **** it, its
worth a jail term i reckon. The courts would probably give me an award for
doing it.

Which brings me to another point, i need recommendations for virus software.
Whats the best value for money or better still, whats the best freeware
program available?

Best regards:

Andrew, who has lost about 20 fucken stored procedures to cocksucker virus
motherfucker.

 

[Unbeliever]

Along with spammers and idiots who post U.S. only "deals" to Aussie
newsgroups!

I use AVG from grisoft. It's free and worth every penny.

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

Cheers,
Alf

 

[Rob]

Along with spammers and idiots who post U.S. only "deals" to Aussie
newsgroups!

I use AVG from grisoft. It's free and worth every penny.

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

Cheers,
Alf

I second Alf - AVG is good & free! It's saved me quite a few times.

rob

 

[GM]

You need a firewall as well - download zonealarm free from zone labs - or
better yet do what I do run smoothwall on an old crappy PC as a full
hardware firewall. You only need an ethernet connection between the two and
your external modem(it supports ADSL and cable modems check the website)
www.smoothwall.org

Regards
Giles

 

[amstereo - matt2]

Firewall would save you from MSBLAST (AKA lovesan) - avg works well, use it
here & on every machine sold at work

free viri scanners are better than no scanners

 

[Oldus Fartus]

Firewall would save you from MSBLAST (AKA lovesan) - avg works well, use it
here & on every machine sold at work

free viri scanners are better than no scanners

No they are not, because they give a false sense of security.

IMHO the best free scanner at the moment is eTrust. I use and really
like VET and both it and eTrust are by CA.

Recently when CA announced they would re-establish a free scanner I
recommended to some friends who were using AVG that they give eTrust a
try. One emailed me the next day to say that he had done so and the
first time he ran it it cleared ten different instances of four
different worms and viruses which AVG (completely up to date) had missed.

 

[Rob]

You need a firewall as well - download zonealarm free from zone labs - or
better yet do what I do run smoothwall on an old crappy PC as a full
hardware firewall. You only need an ethernet connection between the two and
your external modem(it supports ADSL and cable modems check the website)
www.smoothwall.org

Regards
Giles

Good point Giles, I also run a free version of Zone Alarm.
rob

 

[Bob Parker]

Put them to sleep... without torturing them for an extended period
first? Are you feeling benevolent towards these American low-life
spammer/hacker slime scum because it's Christmas?

Bob

 

[Bob Parker]

G'day,
I had a look at the CA website, which says eTrust EZ Antivirus is
"1-Year-$24.95 USD". I used to use their product when it was free, but
went to Grisoft AVG which has never missed a worm yet (that I know of,
anyway).
Can you give us a URL for this free version? Thanks.

Bob

 

[David Segall]

No they are not, because they give a false sense of security.

IMHO the best free scanner at the moment is eTrust. I use and really
like VET and both it and eTrust are by CA.

Recently when CA announced they would re-establish a free scanner

Not exactly. They are offering a one year free subscription and even
then the only mention of it I could find on the CA site is a press
release (http://www3.ca.com/Press/pressrelease.asp?CID=52733). It's a
rather clever gimmick to sign up new users in the hope they will pay
the annual fee when the free one expires and to distinguish themselves
from the other advertisers on the Microsoft site. For those that want
it but don't want to go through a lecture from Microsoft to get it,
the url is http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/.

recommended to some friends who were using AVG that they give eTrust a
try. One emailed me the next day to say that he had done so and the
first time he ran it it cleared ten different instances of four
different worms and viruses which AVG (completely up to date) had missed.

I used the old, genuinely free one and it worked well. I now use AVG.
Of course, I couldn't resist a "free offer" so I am trying it out. It
did not detect a virus that AVG missed on any of the three computers
here.

 

[Oldus Fartus]

Not exactly. They are offering a one year free subscription and even
then the only mention of it I could find on the CA site is a press
release (http://www3.ca.com/Press/pressrelease.asp?CID=52733). It's a
rather clever gimmick to sign up new users in the hope they will pay
the annual fee when the free one expires and to distinguish themselves
from the other advertisers on the Microsoft site. For those that want
it but don't want to go through a lecture from Microsoft to get it,
the url is http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/.

Yes, I am sorry, you are perfectly correct, it is indeed one year's free
subscription. Sorry to be misleading.

I used the old, genuinely free one and it worked well. I now use AVG.
Of course, I couldn't resist a "free offer" so I am trying it out. It
did not detect a virus that AVG missed on any of the three computers
here.

Same here. I used to be a lover of InoculateIT when it was free, but
when discontinued went over to AVG, then when I bought my new computer
earlier this year it came with VET and I was pleasantly surprised to
find it was exactly the same as InoculateIT and came from the same
writers. I very much like the daily updates (sometimes two or three)
and (touch wood) it has picked up everything thrown at it so far.

I will have no hesitation in renewing my subscription when it expires
early next year.

 

[David L. Jones]

Bought a new laptop, installed MSSQL server. Stupid me forgot to apply the
MS patch for the security vunerablilities in SQL server. Damn blaster
strikes. Now wonder my RPC service keeps shutting down and forcing me to
loose all my work. So of too MS website I go for the patch, 37mB of patches
later all is good. Thank **** I decided to get that ADSL. Gee, now I can
even get access to MSDN without having to wait for those friggin CD's to
come. msblast port permantly wired shut now...

Which brings me to the point, If I ever catch one of those fucked up little
square eyed vandal nerd hacker loser 'cant get a root' twisted moronic fools
who writes those viruses I am going to shoot him on the spot. **** it, its
worth a jail term i reckon. The courts would probably give me an award for
doing it.

Which brings me to another point, i need recommendations for virus software.
Whats the best value for money or better still, whats the best freeware
program available?

I use Anti-Vir (www.free-av.com) and ZoneAlarm for a firewall, both of
which are excellent and free.

Regards
Dave

 

[Bob Parker]

I was actually subscribing to the CA anti-virus. Then they changed
something which made their software conflict with DOS programs on my
machine. Their technical support people were absolutely non-helpful
and gave the strong impression that they wished I would go away and
stop annoying them. So I got a refund with no problems and have been
using Grisoft AVG ever since.
I'm running Mailwasher which makes it very hard for a worm to even
get to my machine, but if it does, it's nice to have a second level of
defence.

Bob

 

[Oldus Fartus]

I was actually subscribing to the CA anti-virus. Then they changed
something which made their software conflict with DOS programs on my
machine. Their technical support people were absolutely non-helpful
and gave the strong impression that they wished I would go away and
stop annoying them. So I got a refund with no problems and have been
using Grisoft AVG ever since.
I'm running Mailwasher which makes it very hard for a worm to even
get to my machine, but if it does, it's nice to have a second level of
defence.

Bob

Fair enough Bob, we all have our likes and dislikes, and under those
circumstances I would probably have done the same.

I have no hesitation in saying that AVG is probably the best of the
really free scanners available, BUT, I also have seen a number of
infections which it has missed, and in machines which were kept up to
date with upgrades.

Using Mailwasher as well though, you are probably fine.

 

[Bob Parker]

Oh yeh, if you're not running Zone Alarm or equivalent, you're wide
open to attacks from all those nice American hackers. Just looking at
the log files of what it's blocked, even on a dialup connection for a
couple of hours, is frightening.
If anyone's getting the impression that I'm utterly fed up with
American spammers and hackers, you'd be right. The US government's not
doing a thing to curb them from destroying the use of the net by the
rest of the planet. After January 1st, it's going to get a LOT worse.
See http://www.spamhaus.org/news.lasso?article=150

Cheers,
Bob

 

[The Real Andy]

Fair enough Bob, we all have our likes and dislikes, and under those
circumstances I would probably have done the same.

I have no hesitation in saying that AVG is probably the best of the
really free scanners available, BUT, I also have seen a number of
infections which it has missed, and in machines which were kept up to
date with upgrades.

Using Mailwasher as well though, you are probably fine.

I have noticed that the MS patches have picked up a few auto-executing
thingies that it missed before. Interesting. Funny, this SQL worm has been
the first problem I have ever had with XP.

 

[Albm&ctd]

Andrew, who has lost about 20 fucken stored procedures to cocksucker virus
motherfucker.

I'm amazed at how many moronic people go out of their way to get virus
infected.

Al

The only turkey in Iraq was Bush.

 

[Andy]

Oh yeh, if you're not running Zone Alarm or equivalent, you're wide
open to attacks from all those nice American hackers. Just looking at
the log files of what it's blocked, even on a dialup connection for a
couple of hours, is frightening.
If anyone's getting the impression that I'm utterly fed up with
American spammers and hackers, you'd be right. The US government's not
doing a thing to curb them from destroying the use of the net by the
rest of the planet. After January 1st, it's going to get a LOT worse.
See http://www.spamhaus.org/news.lasso?article=150

Cheers,
Bob

Gotta agree with you Bob - the amount of unwanted activity is absurd
and on the increase. Our average here is about 100 "hits" per hour
*per machine* via a 56k modem. No wonder the connection speed appears
to get slower and slower as time goes on - it's all the unwanted
traffic choking up the bandwidth.

We have a permanent modem connection with a Linux machine handling the
firewall and mail server with the windoze machines routed through it.
Like most, we have shares running on the windoze machines but they
don't share on TCP/IP protocol. TCP/IP and network sharing is just
asking for intruders to "have a go" as far as I'm concerned. The
TCP/IP protocol with sharing also leaves open some unwanted ports that
are vulnerable to UDP attacks.

Don't believe that it's only the US that is a big threat as far as
hackers are concerned. We've had some fairly "persistent" activity
from our asian neighbours and from Europe.

These slimy bastards just seem to attack anyone and everyone trying to
find an "in" or an open relay so they can hide their tracks. I really
feel sorry for the less aware victims (eg. people from my parents
generation) whose machines are comprimised and/or used in attacks
against someone else all without their knowledge.

The 'net is a great resource but the abusers make life hard for us
all. I really can't understand why any government would take such a
stance. Doesn't it make sense to protect such a resource (and it's
users) from such blatant abuse?. The click-here-to-opt-out option is
bullshit in it's finest form - this only alerts them to the fact that
they have a "live-one". Maybe the are breaking the rules if they spam
you again but what's to stop this information being collected and
sold/traded to another party?.

I would like to see more input on these issues from others in the
group.

Apologies for the rant - I'm getting off the soapbox now ;-)

Andy

 

[Justin Thyme]

Those that think everytime zonealarm detects an attack that they are indeed
under attack are stupid, sorry. That MS broadcasts PC identities on port
139 everytime a connection is made to a network is not reason to think
you're under attack - you are not. Zone Alarm et al have to justify your
expense in purchasing their products so they bombard you with attack
information in order that you think 'it must be doing it's job' and so
worth the expense have lulled you into a sense of misplaced security.

Get Linux and all your virus and attack troubles will come to an end.

NOT!!!
Linux is still susceptible to attack. And when it does get hacked, a hacker
is able to do much more on a Linux box than they can on a Windows box.
There are vulnerabilities in many of the utils on linux, such as ssh,
telnet, many ftp's etc etc. There are more Windows viruses around, but
that's just because of the number of windows boxes around. Unless properly
configured, Linux is very easy for a hacker to get into - and not many
people who do a default install of their favorite distribution will know how
to properly secure it.
About a year ago, I got called in to fix up a network that was doing strange
things that got too much for the business's resident Linux guru. The system
had about 5 Linux servers, and a couple of WinNT servers - only 1 Linux
server, and the 2 windows servers were directly exposed to the internet.
All of the Linux servers had been hacked, and had all sorts of programs
running on them. One of the servers had been hacked in such a way that on
the next reboot it refused to start as many of the standard files had been
deleted. Most of the machines had had the key utilities such as ls and ps
replaced with hacked versions that wouldn't display the malicious programs.
At the same time, the Windows servers had nothing wrong with them. In the
end I had to back up the data and rebuild the Linux servers as the mess was
too great to repair. So don't say Linux servers make your security problems
go away.

 

[Bob Parker]

Those that think everytime zonealarm detects an attack that they are indeed
under attack are stupid, sorry.

I don't think that at all. But in amongst all that activity, I've
traced back a few of those probing attempts to some sources which to
my untrained eye looked very suspicious.
Better to have Zone Alarm and long log files from it, than leaving
a machine wide open to everything which is out there, IMHO.

Bob