Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Obligatory “Safe Computing” Post

Following on my gentle rant about the idiot who wrote a cautionary article about Antivirus 2010 without once accepting responsibility for infecting himself or giving his readers any advice on how to avoid infecting themselves, in response to a couple of emails asking, essentially, “So, how do I avoid becoming infected?” here’s a lil enchiridion you can print out and tape to your forehead, if you wish. *heh*

Some folks would say to just use a ‘nix (Linux or Unix–BSD or some such) and not bother with further security measures, and they have a point. Most of ’em though, keep it covered with an artful comb over. 🙂

Seriously, ‘nixes are structurally less vulnerable and are a far, far smaller target, as well, and each of those things offer some protection. But threats designed to attack Linux and Unix OSes (including the OSX GUI-crippled BSD) do exist, and simple privacy concerns would compel any intelligent ‘nix user to have decent firewalls and practice other safe computing practices, so in some (small) part, what I’m about to say regarding safe computing practices for Windows users applies across the board.

1. Use your head. Learn the general nature of threats that exist and think about what you are doing when you use a computer. Simple common sense, which apparently is not all that common. Don’t blythely and unthinkingly “click” your way through your computer use and expect that you’ll not infect yourself. You probably will, if that’s your mindset.

2. Learn how to configure your firewalls and make sure they’re turned on. Always. I had some loon “support” person for my cable internet service once tell me to turn off Stateful Packet Inspection in order to solve a connectivity issue. I quickly escalated the call to someone who didn’t have his head up his ass (who then determined that, as usual, the problem was on my ISP’s end. Naturally. *sigh*). If I’d blindly obeyed the instructions from the idiot, major portion of my router’s firewall would have been disabled. Dumb. Really dumb.

And do have a “hardware” firewall (your router is probably running an embedded Linux with its own firewalling capabilities) for your network and each computer with its own software firewall. See here for a short FYI.

3. Make sure EVERY computer on your network is fully patched for known OS and application security flaws. Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) is a good tool for Windows users to use to locate and patch insecure software on your computers. Most contemporary ‘nix distros do a Good Enough job of helping folks do this via built in tools.

4. Make sure EVERY computer on your network is fully equipped with reliable antimalware software from reputable companies, and that ALL antimalware is always kept up to date and that ONLY ONE antimalware software is set to continually monitor computer behavior and automatically scan email, etc.

But. Do NOT rely on your antimalware software(s) to automatically update themselves and automatically scan your computers. At least once a week, manually update and scan.

5. NEVER–no! NEVER, ever open email attachments without FIRST manually scanning them with your primary up-to-date antimalware software. Never. I once had an infected attachment sent me from The Most Trusted (computer related) source I knew. A guy who was and is an Ultimate Computer Geek. He slipped up, but because I did as HE had taught me and scanned it manually, the fact that my anti-virus had somehow missed it on autoscan of emails didn’t matter.

6. Refuse to allow yourself to click on popups. No. Just DO NOT DO IT! First, what in the heck are you doing using a browser that allows popups, anyway? Get a modern browser, configure it to kill popups or get an extension that’ll do it. If you do see a popup, CLOSE THE TAB instead of clicking on the popup. You do not need to be on that site anyway, since the site owner is such a rude ass. Continue reading “Obligatory “Safe Computing” Post”

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What Do You Call a Gathering of “Maroons”?

Think Bugs Bunny’s infamous “What a maroon… “

Well, Woody was the first one to clue me in on the latest from that conspiracy of dunces, posting this,

This is the new logo for the Party of Voting Dead, Illegals and Felons? Oh, well. Woody then posted a number of more reasonable representations of the party’s real agenda and nature, even adding one based on a comment I made. I took that graphic representation and modified it as below:

Yeh, yeh, I didn’t do a really close color match to the original, but in my defense, it’s about 3:30 a.m. here… *yawn*

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I Have a Problem With This Picture

No, not with the idea. Look, if the guy’s right-handed, carrying his Bible in his right hand will interfere with his draw. If he’s a leftie, he’s not carrying his handgun properly for a efficient draw. Someone needs to think about these things…

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Really Puzzling…

Tonight I caught “The Great American Handyman” for the first time–catching the “final five” competitors, and found the show to be a real puzzle. These are the “final five”? I mean, really. Given a timed task, “fixing” a broken window in 30 minutes, all of them tanked at least one aspect. Break the glass time and again! “Handymen” who don’t know how to cut glass?!? Dropping a pane out (and breaking it) because no glaziers’ points used? What?!? *sigh* I mean, come on! One guy did a decent job, even after screwing up the glass cutting a few times. Another guy did an almost decent job after darned near filling a dumpster with broken glass… *sigh*

Then, 30 minutes to roof a doghouse. Piece of cake. Not for these guys. *profound sigh* All awful. Absolute fails.

Installing a toilet?!? Just about the easiest plumbing job there is. Easier, IMO, than installing a new sink and far, far easier than installing a new water heater, for some common examples. Did these guys do decent toilet installations? None of ’em did installations I’d want in my home. Some of the installations were disastrous.

And these were the five finalists*. No wonder so many folks are so often disappointed with handymen and contractors and such. Heck, I don’t know much more about such things than I was taught by my grandfather (the “more” mostly having to do with power tool use, since he never owned a single power tool), but still, just tagging along as a kid, I picked up more than these guys apparently know–enough tat calling in a handyman to do things around twc central is more a matter of my time than skill set.

OK, I’ll grant you, ONE of the guys is pretty close to OK in his skill set, and shows evidence of thinking things through a bit, but one out of the “final five”? Says a lot about previous episodes’ contestants, doesn’t it? How in the world were these contestants chosen, really?

*Actually, by the time the show got to the three event “obstacle course” one of the five had already–with extreme justice–been eliminated.

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Yet Another Lame “Warning”

(20+ years malware-free on my personal computers, speaking here.)

I am so very tired of this kind of thing,

“As a user who has fallen prey to this new rogue / virus, while surfing the net using IE9, let me share my personal experience with you.”

So very many stupidities in one brief sentence; where to begin? I’ll start with the least offensive element: “rogue / virus”. No, dumbass, “rogue/virus”. *sheesh*

Now, the next least offensive: “surfing the net using IE9”. Why do such a thing? It’s still in beta and… it’s still Internet ExPloder. Lame; truly lame. As much as the thing is touted as having been improved, features added, etc., it’s still far behind modern browsers in features and compatibility with standards.

But the really offensive statement is, “As a user who has fallen prey to this new rogue / virus [sic]…”

1. “[F]allen prey” indicates the attack was waiting in ambush for an innocent passerby. Not so, as I will explain in a moment.
2. “[N]ew rogue / virus [sic]”. No it’s not. It’s the rogue Antivirus 2010, which is almost exactly the same as the rogue Antivirus 2009 and the… etc. “New” it is not. It’s so old, it’s almost reached puberty. *heh* And it always achieves its infestation of a user’s computer by direct action by that user. Sure, it’s “laying in wait” to lure a stupid, lazy* user into installing it, but if one simply doesn’t install it, one will not be infected.

And, BTW, while I’ve seen the invitations to infect myself while surfing, it’s only while surfing with Internet Exploder or Firefox that I’ve seen these popups. Of course, the really stupid folks who infect themselves do so by clicking on static ads that lead to a direct download and install of one of the variants of this crap.

And the comment, “Not sure of which site infected me… ” once again says the author doesn’t recognize or accept responsibility for infecting himself–typical of most users infected with malware. Here’s a brief video that demonstrates the typical steps someone has to take to infect themselves with this pest:

No, it’s not “As a user who has fallen prey” but “As a user who has stupidly infected himself.”

Oh, the really funny thing about the article I find offensive overall? “…Antivirus 2010 labeled Alureon.h, though recognized by current security software like Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes, can remove the virus, but the after effects of the removal will disable users from using IE9.”

Bud, that’s not a negative. It’s a benefit.

Word of advice: If you ever do infect yourself with some malware, the FIRST step to recovery and prevention of future infections is to admit your own culpability. This guy’s just going to keep on infecting himself and refusing to accept responsibility, I’d bet.

*stupid and lazy? Yes. While one could say “naive” in this day and time a naive computer user running loose with an internet connection and installing apps willy-nilly is definitely the result of their own (or in the case of a child user, an irresponsible adult’s) stupidity and laziness. Period. No exceptions.

Update: catch the whiny, crybaby tantrum (replete with continued denial of responsibility for infecting himself) posted by the author of the screed I deplore in my lil rant. Sounds a bit angry doesn’t he? But… over at a Shoutbox forum (scroll down to the actual post), he records his reaction to my lil post differently:

“I was shown this article today in response to the article I wrote about IE9 and the Antivirus 2010 virus. I almost spit my drink all over my computer, laughing, when I read it…”

Quite the contrast to his crybaby tantrum here, isn’t it? Methinks the dude can’t even lie well.

BTW, just for posterity’s sake (because you can never trust liars not to “pull a Charlz Green”), here’s a screencap of the guy saying my post was funny, not “inducing frothing at the mouth anger” as his comment here indicates:

What a maroon...
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Firewalls–a Short FYI

I’ve long held that most people need to seriously think, if only for a couple of minutes, about one of their most basic internet security issues (beyond simply not being stupid *heh*): their firewalls. Yes, plural. Most people access the internet via a Windows computer*, and most people simply use a built-in Windows firewall at its default setting. Some unwittingly purchase (or have purchased for them) a router that has firewall capabilities as well.

But.

Most Windows users are still using the less-than-capable Windows XP software firewall, and I’ve found that many folks who have a router with NAT or even SPI capabilities either don’t have those capabilities fully enabled or, even worse, still have the factory default password unchanged.

Bad.

If you or someone you know is still using WinXP’s software firewall,please change that to a more capable software firewall solution. The free Comodo Firewall is pretty good. If you have Win7 installed, the choice is not as clearcut. More on that later.

NAT (Network Address Translation) and SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) firewalls built into most modern routers are easy-peasy to enable, and using them/not using them is a no-brainer. Even folks who only have one computer connecting to a broadband connection should have a NAT/SPI firewall-capable router installed between them and the internet.

Now, Win7 and firewalls. I’m certainly not averse to upgrading to a more robust firewall than the one included in Win7, but Steve Gibson’s Shields Up! utility says that combined with a NAT/SPI hardware firewall, it’s pretty darned good:

Of course, Gibson’s utility only tests the first 1056 ports, but he gives his reasoning for that, and it seems to make some sense, at least. Still, no previous Windows firewall/router firewall combo in the past has achieved he result noted above before now, so one might be relatively safe with a Win7 firewall/NAT/SPI firewall combo.

I will say that every computer I’ve had running Linux or BSD (usually just using the default firewall rules found in most distros) has returned a “stealth” notice from Gibson’s site. Heck almost all hardware routers use some ‘nix variant as their operating systems, anyway.

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Update to “Safehold” Critique

Esther Friesner’s got it right:

Goot eeeevening. Velcome to my eeeentroduction. Enter freely and—

SLAP!!!

Whew. Thanks. I needed that…

…Campy faux Transylvanian is jangly enough to the innocent ear, but when the reader’s eye must wrestle with that dreadfully twisted orthography, it becomes the realm of Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

And we don’t want that. We love our readers. We cherish our readers. We want our readers to be happy.

It’s be nice if David Weber took her advice to rectify his irritating naming convention in his Safehold series.

Granted, Esther Friesner’s humorous series of “Chicks in Chainmail” and “witches, werewolves and vampires in… Suburbia” stories are in a lighter vein, but readability shouldn’t be dependent on genre. (I wish James Joyce could hear that from the grave… even though he’swriting as much now as I wish he ever had *heh*)

BTW, if you think I think (yeh, as little as possible and only when I have to*heh*) readers of this space might enjoy Friesner’s wacky–yet respectful of her readers’ time and sensibilities *cough*, such as they might be–approach to her topics, then you’re right. From the intro to Fangs for the Mammaries*–

As I might have mentioned in the Introductions to previous anthologies, Suburbia has become a very easy target for the Hip, the Hot, the Artsy, and the Artsy-with-a-capital-F. Thus I promise not to yield to the urge to make vampire-slanted puns about how Suburbia bites, sucks, is dead, drains your blood, drives you batty, etc.

It is one thing to shoot fish in a barrel. It is another thing to bring flamethrowers into play against beached guppies.

Except I pretty much just did that, didn’t I? Oops.

*heh*

*Yes, it’s an anthology of (mostly) others’ stories set in Friesner’s unique world, still her vision.

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Well, It’s About Time

I’ve been running Opera 10.70.3488 on my Windows boxes for some time now. Yes, it’s still beta, but remarkably stable. I’ve been avoiding some builds with known regressions I don’t want to mess with, but in a few mins now, I’ll start moving my Windows boxes to Opera 10.70.9047.

The Linux compies will have to wait for tomorrow. Why? My cable service is experiencing a severe hitch in its getalong, tonight. SPent an hour w/so-called customer support just to finally get to a service person who would do a check to see that, yes, my (brand new Motorola SB 6120) modem was indeed just hunky dory, and that the problem was very obviously NOT on my end.

The Win version is just a 12MB download, but instead of being virtually instantaneous, it’s taking 15 minutes or so to struggle downstream to me.

And don’t even get me talking about upload “speeds”.

Readers here will recall this isn’t the first time I’ve had these issues, although almost all of them have been in the last year or so. And despite the ever worsening customer “service” and the maddening service outages and slowdowns, this is still the best option in internet service here in America’s Third World County, by an order of magnitude. Literally.

*sigh*

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In Re: the “Challenge of the Sith”

LC Aggie Sith has issued a challenge of sorts. I say, “of sorts” because the ground rules are rather vague. I’m not sure, for example, if not doing this correctly will result in a duel to the death with light sabers or simply the scorn of the blogosphere, but oh, well…

1. I like dogs. No great revelation, but as much as I like ’em, we don’t have one in the family right now. Was offered a really nice Pit Bull pup about a week ago, but…

2. I hated beer for most of my life. Then I discovered stuff that was unlike the typical “better poured back into the horse it came out of” manufactured American gagme. Beer: the second Holy Brew.

3. I don’t like coffee. I love it. But for the next few weeks, I’m off the stuff. Don’t ask. I won’t tell. 🙂

4. I’m handy with my hands. A regular Mr Fixit. But right now almost all my tools I need for projects at twc central are languishing elsewhere, so I’m less handy than usual.

5. I have a couple of degrees I don’t use at all. Anyone want ’em?

6. I was 38 before I got “hooked” by computers. A (moderately) late model Tandy TRS-80 did me in. The addiction has only worsened as I’ve aged.

7. Spicy? You think you like spicy? Try some of my habanero sauce. 😉 Jalapeños are for the kiddie table.

8. I’ve put over 250,000 miles on each of more cars than I even want to recall. Traveling’s no longer my thing. Short jaunts into the piney woods of America’s Third World County are about my speed anymore.

9. I have relatively small feet. Make of it what you will.

10. I have more scars than you do. Do too. *heh*

There. Do I get a bunny or a face-off with light sabers?