Lost in 01010001110010101100101

[Visnu]

Can somebody tell a newbie and a bit amateur about security
how pgp technology works and how it can protect you from viruses,worms etc
in IM,chat,p2p programs...?And why linux doesn't get affected by malicious exe files?
Any easily understading links to learn about these....?Please HEEEEEEEEEELP!!!

[slick8790]

how pgp technology works and how it can protect you from viruses,worms etc

PGP doesnt protect you from virii. It stands for Pretty Good Privacy. Which means it is encryption. also AFAIK, linux can be affected by malicious EXE's. For IM, i think the new version has an encryption option. maybe be a bit clearer. BTW, the title translates to QÊe


slick

[Deimos326]

there are hundreds of great tutorials on this website about all that stuff you have listed, just go to the Tutorials section in the forums... also, post a lot, sometimes getting an answer from one of the members around here will help you more than reading a very long tutorial..
as for some links to help with computer security, here are a few..
www.astalavista.com
www.hackers.com
www.undergroundarchive.co.uk
www.hackerintel.com (news portal)
www.hackers.andmuchmore.com

these should be enough to get you started, read alot of the tutorials on these links, will help alot... one more thing, before you post a question about something ALWAYS search on www.google.com first, remember google is your best friend!

[i2c]

pgp is a public key encryption scheme its a method of effectivly "scamblimg" your data so its difficult for the person without the keys to read it,

keys are made up of very big prime numbers

to crack pgp requires massive computer power and time,

a good link to how pgp works is below

http://www.pgpi.org/doc/pgpintro/

it doesnt really protect you from viruses and worms, i suppose if a program is checksumed (different to pgp) you will know when the file has been altered. Altering a file could mean inserting a virus into it aqnd thus the checksum would not work out, take for example the ISBN number of books the final digit of this is a checksum, work out by adding all the numbers up and then doing the sum of these numbers modulus 7

checksums are used in communications such are p2p and IM to check that the information sent is complete/ un corrupt or not been inserted by a person with ill intent

linux doesn't get affected by malicious exe files

Thats a bit of a throw away comment of course linux can get knakered up, as long as these exe are intended for the linux OS, I think i read that comment somewhere when I was learning networking and Linux, and did some thinking and realised that when you program linux its different to programming windows. There are different calls for libarys and other such things.

Also because the majority of computers in this world that are under attack are windows based this is the reason that allot of tools and virii are created to affect these,

hope that helps, shoot any questions off me, PM me if you need help

i2c

[groovicus]

I think i read that comment somewhere when I was learning networking and Linux, and did some thinking and realised that when you program linux its different to programming windows. There are different calls for libarys and other such things.

Also because the majority of computers in this world that are under attack are windows based this is the reason that allot of tools and virii are created to affect these,

Just to clarify this particular passage:

For a Linux binary virus to infect executables, those executables must be writable by the user activating the virus. That is not likely to be the case. Chances are, the programs are owned by root and the user is running from a non-privileged account. Further, the less experienced the user, the lower the likelihood that he actually owns any executable programs. Therefore, the users who are the least savvy about such hazards are also the ones with the least fertile home directories for viruses.

Even if the virus successfully infects a program owned by the user, its task of propagation is made much more difficult by the limited privileges of the user account. [For neophyte Linux users running a single-user system, of course, this argument may not apply. Such a user might be careless with the root account.

Actually, the entire article is informative: http://librenix.com/?inode=21

[phishphreek]

Visnu: I hate to inform you of this, but you'd better be careful how you title this thread.

Hopefully noboby here works for m$... you clearly have infringed on m$ intelectual property...

They can sue the pants off of you now...

You may want to have a mod change the name of the thread....

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

[Tim_axe]

I'll address the Linux issue in a way you will understand.

Linux can't (natively) run code written for Windows. It is probably due to this that you heard this comment, where a new virus is spreading through e-mail and Linux isn't effected. If you download a EXE file off of a website that is for Windows, then Linux won't be able to run it, and will simply ask you what you want to open the file with. It is like an unknown type of file. This is why if you want to buy games for Linux, you need to make sure you get a Linux version of the game since the Windows version simply won't work. Linux can sort of act like Windows with a program called WINE. That program reads an EXE for Windows and can usually run it in Linux by changing some functions or libraries around when the Windows EXE asks for them.

In short, there is code that can hurt Linux, but it has to be written specifically for Linux. Chances are that you won't find a virus for Linux spreading through the Internet/E-mail since few people run Linux, and all of the people who run Windows, their PC wouldn't know what to do with the Linux Binary Executable so it wouldn't spread through them. Very few people would be affected and many people (running Windows) will just end up with files that "don't work" in their e-mail, and go on to run attachments in all of the other e-mails in their Junk Mail folder and cause some *real* damage... Unfortunately they would probably also think that the file that "didn't work" caused the problem, and not the ones that did infact work...


And sorry I don't have a link..., but I think my explanation is pretty valid (first paragraph). The second paragraph happens to be my speculation into the situation...


*edit:
It can't be serious, lol. IIRC, the binary system was in use well before that, in calculators and stuff. Funny, I've never seen that before.