infection galore

All adware/spyware etc dont necessarily just come from porn sites they can come from absolutly anywhere on the internet!!

About a year and a half ago i remember a patch for Operation Flashpoint from Codemasters had a virus in it!

You wouldnt expect to get a virus downloading a patch for a game from a very reputable company!

But hey, it happens!

All you can do is install a firewall, anti-virus and things like spybot and keep them updated ensuring you use them regularly and be very paranoid about everything!

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All adware/spyware etc dont necessarily just come from porn sites they can come from absolutly anywhere on the internet!!

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I would go along with that, I came across a machine used by a local hotel: old version of IE, using Outlook Express as the mail client with "preview" turned on. Because the hotel has an internet presence to advertise, the address gets picked up by spambots and the like ............preview was opening them all:rolleyes:

I got rid of 106 items of malware........................I know that the machine is not used to visit prOn sites, or for any sort of deliberate net browsing, just opening and sending e-mails.

The only reason I came across it was that the OE preview had opened a spam with a corrupt header and that just froze the system.

Anyway from what I have seen related to prOn sites, it is trying to get you to visit them.........if you are already there............................ :confused:

It is certainly education and keeping things up to date, but in this case it was virtually an automated process with no user interaction required!

Cheers

I think I know why companies (large or small) cannot distribute a "fix" CD with new computers. I used to go to a local small computer store to hang out (yeah, I was a geek). All the time people would come in with this virus or some spyware. The owner of the store would quickly run something like adaware or spybot and an anti-virus program and send the person on their way (it was free to people who purchased their computers from that store). I asked the owner why he didn't just throw a quick CD together with those programs and this was his reply:

"I would have to compensate (pay) the software creators for the product."

Some kind of intellectual property rights bull. Using their products for financial gain of his business would infringe on some of those rights. Even freeware couldn't be distributed that way. Only if he made the program could he distribute it. I'm not sure if this is true, as I’m not a lawyer, but I do wonder if anything can be done about this. Maybe there could be some agreement of distribution.

Now, I'm not fully sure with all of the laws and legalities out there, but what if you had a computer store and sold someone a computer with say, linux on it and gave them a update disc with free or open source software that the company allowed. It seems plausable with linux, for windows?

Mungyun,

I think the complication is that the store might be thought to be getting "commercial advantage" by providing the freeware/shareware?

I don't see any real problem in providing the links and a text set of instructions and checklist though? Then it is up to the private individual to get the software/upgrades.

I reckon that would be legal in most countries?

Thoughts anyone?

I came across a clients pc that had 164 virii and trojan programs. I had a hell of a time cleaning that mess up. What got me was that they were on dialup and not a broadband connection but they had never updated the OS or the AV dat files and their daughter had installed kazaa right after they got the PC. I believe that educating everyone you know that has a computer about security and even writing up a monthly maintenance schedule for them to follow is a responsibility of those of us that get it.

Now I will say that some people will just never get it and those people should be banned from using the internet.

nihil: I believe that giving an individual a written set of instructions with links to the mentioned resources would be legal in most countries. If the programs are freely available and you and I can find them and use them, why not educate the normal user in the availability.

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Originally posted here by ccKid
their daughter had installed kazaa right after they got the PC.

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That is the problem. People think that kazaa is safe and they'll run that before installing any virus scanners, anti-spyware, etc. The computer gets sick, then the person will install this security stuff on top of it all. and chances are that these people are not even using the right stuff to fix the problem.