h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are a few things though. Anybody who is worried about such attacks being run through their system should get to know thier system and what should be running on it. Also, by scanning any dowmloaded products with an Anti-virus product(such as McAfee or Norton) they can be assured a little extra protection (but they have to remember keep it updated). One good way to protect your self is to not download products which may have such things in them (ex.- things from warez sites). anyways i'm rambling and i'll stp wasting your time now.

yes, a good AV program is a good thing to have, but it is sometimes like closing the door after the cows have got out, (or something )

The problem with AV progs is that they can sometimes cause system errors, and often do not intercept scripts disguised as 'friendly'

We will be adding a complete guide to personal computer protection methods, so stay tuned (see the index page for this info)

The article does mention the hazards of warez sites

And you are not wasting my time. Comments are always appreciated

warez sites? Whats them?

Websites that host unauthorized, or 'pirated' copies of commercial software, are commonly called 'warez' sites..

Ftp sites that are not normally web-browser-accessible, but also contain such material are called, 'filez' sites

For some reason, lost in the mists of shadowy cyberspace/time, 'illegal' software is designated by the underground internet community as 'warez' 'filez' 'appz' 'mp3z' etc etc.. all generally using the letter 'z' rather than 's'

In fact, most of the sites promoted as 'warez' site do not really provide access to software, but are just 'bait' sites loaded with porn pop-ups, trojan laden scripts, and other annoying or potentially malicious garbage..

Pirated software often contains malicious code, such as trojans, designed to recruit unwitting zombie 'soldiers' into cyber armies for the purpose of launching distributed denial of service attacks against various domains..

ISPs hosting such sites risk being shut down, but many of the servers are located in countries that do little to honour copyright law..

The owners/creators of pirated software are naturally interested in closing down the warez sites, and take active, legal measures against them wherever possible.

BTW, there never will be a smiley, and there is a vast gulf between stupidity and ignorance... asking questions is definitely not stupid, and ignorance is nothing more or less than desire for knowlege and enlightenment!!!




Tal

deep, man

I guess I've been lucky....I never used any anti-virus software at all...always noticed the viruses in attatchments without downloading them...never realised how open I'd left myself to all the other stuff until I read all this lot...

This is probably the best 'what to do to stop getting a virus' thing on the web...all the others just want you to buy their software...

Would I be right in assuming then, that the chances are, the MP3s, etc you can search for on cute-ftp will all be warez?

Not necessarily.. I don't do much mp3-ing myself, but I think most of the stuff available is pretty legit. Scan well, though..

If you have an updated A-V app, it will detect any malicious code contained in any file.. A good A-V program will even detect virus code nested two or three layers deep in a compressed file..

I use a firewall all the time. It is even on when I am offline, because I would probably forget to turn it on..

My A-V proggy has a 'real time' option, but I only use it to scan email and ftp files for site design, and (rarely) media such as floppies, CD-ROMs etc...

The firewall is the first line of defense, as noted in the article.. a good one will stop intrusion dead in its tracks..

I should update the article with a few more links.. but GRC is a real good place to start.. also, a site called anti-hackerz is a very informative place to look. Very helpful and friendly folks run it, too... I'll update the article with the link... later

still looking for A-V...going through that list one at a time only my computers too crap to run any of them so far

If you don't have any luck, use the e-mail link on my page, if you wish. Send me an email, describe your computer and I will see what I can come up with...

And you can always go to the online scan thingy, for now...

found one...at last

And that would be??..

A nice () called Imwin Integrity Master...its about as user friendly as a do-it-yourself castration kit, but in my experience with computers, the less user-friendly, the better it is at the job

LOL

never heard of it..

Should if become too painful, take a look at AVG personal edition.. min req... Windows 95/98/NT, 4MB RAM, 256-color display, should run on darn near anything... free, too!!

If you're running pre 9x winedoze, try the DOS-based F-Prot, also free

And don't forget to update MSIE regularly -- although I wouldn't bother with ver. 6.0.. and the security settings, and AnalogX script defender, and...

I run windows 95 (just), but AVG and F-PROT both stop it from booting properly for some reason and the security settings...do you know how annoying it is to be told activex controls are marked as unsafe on this page everytime you visit pretty much any site! Though I must admit, I love it when those Javascript boxes stay grey and dont load

Yeah, you'll notice near the start of this thread I mentioned that AV proggys often cause system errors, and that includes boot up problems.. which is why I don't allow AV apps to run 'real-time,' but call 'em up only when I need 'em to scan a file..

Use the firewall for real-time protection, and install script defender as a little added insurance... and then you can relax the security settings a bit..

I don't, because I am very paranoid, and I think Activex is overused, misused, and a stupid design, anyway... And I say this even though I design Flash-type animations and stuff..
-- I *try* to convince clients how useless these things are, but the things are popular...

A good firewall, such as Zone or Tiny, will not impact on system performance, because it only looks at communication through the various 'ports' thru which your computer talks to the internet.

The script defender just sits there passively, and activates only when an 'unsafe' script attempts to execute..

If you need/want some instruction on how to deactivate the annoying 'real-time' facilities of your AV program, just ask..

I've got no idea what active-x does, but I've noticed no loss of anything since it's been gone and I read somewhere about Flash that something like 60% of surfers like flash but only 2% will hang around long enough for it to load.....

I'm not so sure its running in real time thats the problem...it loads so far then tells me theres a memory conflict at whatever address it is then restarts in safe mode...if that sounds like a problem running it in real time, telling me how to deactivate it would be great - otherwise its time to hop back over to the land of linux

It's fairly involved, and maybe means editing your registry.. you can either contact me offsite, via my email.. or wait a day or two for me to post an article on site. which is something I keep meaning to do anyway.. and now I have a reason...

A quick check of the 'startup' folder would tell you if any apps are loading automatically there, but many AV apps load thru the registry 'run' and 'run services' keys.. and I suggest you wait for detailed info before attempting to edit the registry...

If an app won't let you boot into windows, you may have to boot into 'safe mode'

BTW, I am jealous of your Linux knowledge.. I want to learn, but just never find the time...

Anyway... I'm going to check out the George Harrison thread.. I understand he just passed away...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/music/newsid_1492000/1492446.stm

I'll wait for your article - educate us all at once

Problem with Linux is everythings written for windoze ...and I used it for so long, when I switched over to windoze nothing seems to make sense....like why is it incompatible with itself? why does it select the most in-opportune time possible to crash itself? Why....(continued on page 48..)


*has hated microsoft since the days of cp/m - before it was even microsoft *