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  #21  
Old January 25th 04, 07:22 PM
al
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"duck" wrote in message
How many copies of the Swen virus have you received? I've had to set up a
filter to delete copies off of my email account before I retrieve my email
because it takes too long to download them all.


snip babble

How many spam messages have you received coming from compromised Windows
hosts?

I personally think Windows is the worst thing to happen to computing.


It never ceases to amaze me how idiotic some people can be about such
things. I hope you're not an adult, because if you are it shows an amazing
inability to study all the facts. Whatever OS holds the title of most
popular will have most people (and therefore most morons) using it. It
therefore goes without saying that a good proportion of them will not use AV
and will be dumb enough to open attachments that come from people they don't
know or are unexpected (and obvious looking!) from people they do know.

Linux attracts more serious hobbyists and professionals - there are
therefore far fewer morons using it. If it were mass-market like Windows it
would have just as many problems. In fact - just have a look at the amount
of advisories coming out recently ... doesn't trial Windows behind too far.
Sendmail and Apache together account for a *huge* amount of patched
vulnerabilities.

If you don't like Windows, don't use it. However, Bill Gates is merely a
successful kid who turned an idea into one of the biggest businesses in the
world. At least he's done something good with some of the profits - which
he's perfectly entitled to make btw, unless you have a serious problem with
capitalism! Take a look at some other big businessmen out there and tell me
what good they've done the world?

Windows has had a huge impact on modern computing. Without it, we would be
a long way behind where we are now. Ruthless competition has pushed them
forward at a rate of knots. This doesn't condone some of their dodgy
business practices. But how bad are they compared to the Murdoch empire,
any given oil company/textile company/pharmaceutical company? I think
you'll find the answer is not very. With the many good things they have
done, they've done some pretty dumb things - every company and every person
does. Live with it ...




a


  #22  
Old January 25th 04, 07:32 PM
duck
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On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:31:17 +0000, Andrew Ratcliffe wrote:

How many copies of the Swen virus have you received? I've had to set up
a filter to delete copies off of my email account before I retrieve my
email because it takes too long to download them all.


Personally I never get any viruses. This is because I have good AV
software, and I never give out my e-mail address to anyone except friends.
I would never post it to usenet!


I don't get viruses either. Though it's not because I have an AV
scanner :-) Giving out my address to only friends and associates would be
a viable solution, as long as they aren't susceptible to viruses
themselves (which they aren't).

I used to use a fake From address too when posting to mailing lists and
Usenet, but on one occasion I accidentally used my real address. I got a new
email address after that.

The address in the From field isn't my main account and I delete all
messages over 147KB in size (the size of the Swen virus) before running it
through a spam filter.

Of course all of what you say is true. But as with anything that is the
dominant on the planet all the assholes out there try their best to hack
it/steal it/destroy it simply because of the huge target potential...


Yes, but the damage can be mitigated by good security practices. For
instance, allowing email attachments to run was (is?) a stupid thing to
do. A virus like Swen sent via email would never take off on Unix-type
systems. I am heartened to see that XP SP2 will come with the firewall
enabled by default though, which will stop compromised Windows machines
from being used to relay spam.

Of course, if Microsoft release the specs for the .DOC and .XLS formats,
NTFS, SMB etc. we can help them to reduce their level of world domination
and therefore reduce the number of virus attacks on Windows... :-)
  #23  
Old January 25th 04, 07:37 PM
R D S
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Steve wrote:
|| "R D S" wrote in
|| :
||
||| Parish wrote:
||||| Now we know for certain that this country has gone stark staring
||||| mad......
|||||
||||| http://tinyurl.com/2teet
|||||
||||| Time to buy that delapidated farmhouse in France methinks.
|||
||| Unbelievable.
||| This country seems to love to celebrate sportspersons and greedy
||| capitalist monopolising money hoarders.
||
|| Actually Gates plans to give most of his money away.
||
|| http://society.guardian.co.uk/charit...049184,00.html
||
|| The main problem with this country is small minded knee jerk
|| reactions to headlines without bothering with small details like
|| facts; the article posted reported his donations had you got managed
|| to get past the headline.

So WTF doesnt he give some away now? Im sure he has plenty.
Why isnt Windows half price, why cant i sell my old OEM's, why did he use
underhanded tactics from day one to become the richest person in the cosmos?
When win 98 was ****e why did we still have to pay for SE? Why can I not use
my copy of Office on more than one machine?
If he is making so much money and intends to give it away then what is he
doing? Showboating his monopoly?

Rick



  #24  
Old January 25th 04, 07:37 PM
Bruce Stephens
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"Fat Freddy's Cat" writes:

[...]

Personally, I think Microsoft was the best thing that ever happened
to the world of computing and he deserves such an honour.


Yeah. Services to the antivirus industry, if nothing else.
  #25  
Old January 25th 04, 08:38 PM
duck
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On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:22:57 +0000, al wrote:

"duck" wrote in message
How many copies of the Swen virus have you received? I've had to set up
a filter to delete copies off of my email account before I retrieve my
email because it takes too long to download them all.


snip babble

How many spam messages have you received coming from compromised Windows
hosts?

I personally think Windows is the worst thing to happen to computing.


It never ceases to amaze me how idiotic some people can be about such
things. I hope you're not an adult, because if you are it shows an
amazing inability to study all the facts.


OK, perhaps I over exaggerated. Maybe not the worst, but Windows is a bad
thing. Regardless, if you're going to insult someone by calling them a
child, it doesn't look good if you call them idiotic in the same paragraph.

Whatever OS holds the title of
most popular will have most people (and therefore most morons) using it.
It therefore goes without saying that a good proportion of them will not
use AV and will be dumb enough to open attachments that come from people
they don't know or are unexpected (and obvious looking!) from people they
do know.


In the example of the Swen worm, why is it even possible to for email
attachments to be run? Mutt, Balsa, Evolution, KMail, Elm, Pine, Sylpheed
et al do not allow email attachments to run just by clicking on them.

Linux attracts more serious hobbyists and professionals - there are
therefore far fewer morons using it. If it were mass-market like Windows
it would have just as many problems. In fact - just have a look at the
amount of advisories coming out recently ... doesn't trial Windows behind
too far. Sendmail and Apache together account for a *huge* amount of
patched vulnerabilities.


On CVE, Apache has 86 CVE entries. IIS has 121. Apache has a higher, or
equal, or similar markets share that IIS.

I can't defend Sendmail. It is widely known to be rubbish, use Exim
or Postfix instead. I made a lovely list of the number of entries each MTA
has on CVE. Draw your own conclusions.

Sendmail 48
Exchange 42
Exim 6
Postifx 3

And before anybody says otherwise, Exim and Postfix aren't MTAs
that nobody uses. Just looking through my mailbox, Exim is used by 1&1,
Freeserve and BT Internet, and Postfix is used by PayPal, Pipex and ebuyer
amongst others.

If you don't like Windows, don't use it. However, Bill Gates is merely a
successful kid who turned an idea into one of the biggest businesses in
the world.


Could you please elaborate on what idea you are talking about. The WIMP
metaphor perhaps? Word? Excel? Messenger? Internet Explorer? Operating
systems?

Windows has had a huge impact on modern computing. Without it, we would
be a long way behind where we are now. Ruthless competition has pushed
them forward at a rate of knots.


The current version of IE doesn't even have a popup blocker. Or tabbed
browsing. As of the 24th they still haven't patched the URL spoofing
vulnerability from 11/12 that has just been exploited in the wild. Has
Word/Excel etc. really changed since 95?

This doesn't condone some of their dodgy
business practices. But how bad are they compared to the Murdoch empire,
any given oil company/textile company/pharmaceutical company? I think
you'll find the answer is not very.


But just because a given entity isn't as bad as Esso doesn't mean it's
misdeeds can be ignored.

  #26  
Old January 25th 04, 09:32 PM
al
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"R D S" wrote in message news:bv12ec$m7dj6$1@ID-
So WTF doesnt he give some away now? Im sure he has plenty.
Why isnt Windows half price, why cant i sell my old OEM's, why did he use
underhanded tactics from day one to become the richest person in the

cosmos?
When win 98 was ****e why did we still have to pay for SE? Why can I not

use
my copy of Office on more than one machine?
If he is making so much money and intends to give it away then what is he
doing? Showboating his monopoly?


Because his business model works and you don't deserve the money! Charities
do.



a


  #27  
Old January 25th 04, 09:46 PM
al
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"duck" wrote in message

OK, perhaps I over exaggerated. Maybe not the worst, but Windows is a bad
thing. Regardless, if you're going to insult someone by calling them a
child, it doesn't look good if you call them idiotic in the same

paragraph.

Apologies if I went a little OTT ... just annoys me the way so many kids
take this anti-MS stance because they believe it will give them some sort of
street cred with the underground scene. It really doesn't, it just shows
business naivity.

In the example of the Swen worm, why is it even possible to for email
attachments to be run? Mutt, Balsa, Evolution, KMail, Elm, Pine, Sylpheed
et al do not allow email attachments to run just by clicking on them.

Because MS caters for the mass market unfortunately. You can bet if linux
was the OS of choice for he masses that any money making software house
would make the same choice for security settings so their product looked
great, even at the expense of the above mentioned attacks.

On CVE, Apache has 86 CVE entries. IIS has 121. Apache has a higher, or
equal, or similar markets share that IIS.

OK, Apache wansn't the best example, it's matured a lot now. It still has
it's limitations (which perhaps leads to it being more secure do to less
code) - how many web sites can run Apache only to acheive what they want
without having to add a bunch of other products to expand it's power.

I can't defend Sendmail. It is widely known to be rubbish, use Exim
or Postfix instead. I made a lovely list of the number of entries each MTA
has on CVE. Draw your own conclusions.

Sendmail 48
Exchange 42
Exim 6
Postifx 3

The two most widely used, as one might expect, are the two most targetted.
Qmail I think has always been good.

And before anybody says otherwise, Exim and Postfix aren't MTAs
that nobody uses. Just looking through my mailbox, Exim is used by 1&1,
Freeserve and BT Internet, and Postfix is used by PayPal, Pipex and ebuyer
amongst others.

Yes, I think sendmail is finally on its way down. On the corporate scene,
who knows where Exchange 2003 will lead with it's "trustworthy computing"
initiative. One thing I can say in it's favour is at least it's trying a
bit harder. Interested to see how much difference that makes!

Could you please elaborate on what idea you are talking about. The WIMP
metaphor perhaps? Word? Excel? Messenger? Internet Explorer? Operating
systems?

Not sure what you mean ...

Windows has had a huge impact on modern computing. Without it, we would
be a long way behind where we are now. Ruthless competition has pushed
them forward at a rate of knots.


The current version of IE doesn't even have a popup blocker. Or tabbed
browsing. As of the 24th they still haven't patched the URL spoofing
vulnerability from 11/12 that has just been exploited in the wild. Has
Word/Excel etc. really changed since 95?

Commercial pressure because it's the market leader. Popups I believe will
be an option in the next version though. At least MS have a security team
that respond quickly to problems - not all companies bother at all. You got
to wonder about some of the stuff they haven't patched ... presumably
there's some reason for this that's too painful to face up to! And yeah,
Word/Excel has changed - it's much bigger and less compatible now All
about OLE type things now ... the business market is what drives it.

But just because a given entity isn't as bad as Esso doesn't mean it's
misdeeds can be ignored.

No, it doesn't. But MS is demonised far more than it seems it deserves. Or
perhaps other companies are demonised far less than they deserve!! Either
way, far too many people jump on the bandwagon because it seems "cool" to
slag of MS. They've done a lot of bad things but their contribution can't
be ignored today.



a


  #28  
Old January 25th 04, 10:01 PM
R D S
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
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al wrote:
|| "R D S" wrote in message
|| news:bv12ec$m7dj6$1@ID-
||| So WTF doesnt he give some away now? Im sure he has plenty.
||| Why isnt Windows half price, why cant i sell my old OEM's, why did
||| he use underhanded tactics from day one to become the richest
||| person in the cosmos? When win 98 was ****e why did we still have
||| to pay for SE? Why can I not use my copy of Office on more than one
||| machine?
||| If he is making so much money and intends to give it away then what
||| is he doing? Showboating his monopoly?
|||
||
|| Because his business model works and you don't deserve the money!
|| Charities do.
||
||
||
|| a

So will we send an end to famine before much longer do you think?
Thanks to Bill Gates?
Makes me wonder why i still see the Oxfam 'please give £(x)/month adverts on
TV since Microsoft are harvesting such a massive amount of money for good
causes.



  #29  
Old January 25th 04, 10:34 PM
Paul H
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you can use your copy of Office on more than one machine. Read the small
print.


  #30  
Old January 25th 04, 10:39 PM
al
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"R D S" wrote in message news:bv1atl$mupoe$1@ID-
So will we send an end to famine before much longer do you think?
Thanks to Bill Gates?
Makes me wonder why i still see the Oxfam 'please give £(x)/month adverts

on
TV since Microsoft are harvesting such a massive amount of money for good
causes.


Look .. you can grumble all you like, but he gives far more than almost
anyone else. He's not responsible for ending world famine - we all are!
What exactly would it take for him to be "just" in your eyes? Give every
penny he owns? What exactly do *you* do?



a


 




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