"Gurus" complaining about neophytes and security

Oh brother, I'm not going to bother naming the reporter, they have to
make a living too. But the article I read today was prety lame.

Tech "gurus" (probably only one genius) are complaining about
neophytes and computer security. That the spread of virus's is all
their fault. Why did you click on the attachment that you didn't know
what it was?

Well, number 1, most people trust their anti-virus software, which is
of course approaching the cost of the operating system itself (over 4
years, mine will far exceed what I paid for the OS itself!).

So much for being a neophyte. And why pray tell do you even need to
use the address book if that is the favorite target of virus writers?
Is it that hard to paste your addresses from a separate file? Or is
it too complicated for those "tech gurus" to import their address
books only when they need them?

How many people really need to send emails to clusters of people? I
doubt very many or very often. And lets not forget about blaster.
That didn't need anybody's action or email program.

Anyway, some people have the bright idea that I should get a license
to operate a PC because they use their address book? Oh brother.
Grow up.

Yes, neophytes have access to powerful machines. And so do the
"gurus". Most virus's in emails get caught transparently, so I don't
who this this "guru" is that influenced a Times reporter, but then
again, it doesn't matter.

Virus writers will fade away one day. In the mean time, put a fraud
alert in your credit file. If enough people do that, maybe the credit
companies won't be so eager to help someone that steals your identity
and tries to refinance your mortgage while they are in Hawaii spending
your money?

Makes sense to me. When enough lenders can't get business because
millions have put fraud alerts in their credit files to prevent future
problems, then perhaps the Credit Companies will start hiring new
people? There, I just created some jobs for the economy!

What doesn't make sense is trying to attack a Microsoft server that
can handle several terrabytes of data. What a waste of time. And
quit whining about neophytes, you were one too at one time (whoever
you are).

If counterfeiting is a crime worthy of the Secret Service, then
stealing an identity should be as well (isn't that counterfeiting?)?

Tell it to Congress.

By the way, if Congress is going to borrow money, who do they borrow
it from? Do we end up paying for two space programs, ours, and a
foreign country's?

Sounds like a question for Clark Kent.

stargazer wrote:

Oh brother, I'm not going to bother naming the reporter, they have to
make a living too. But the article I read today was prety lame.

Tech "gurus" (probably only one genius) are complaining about
neophytes and computer security. That the spread of virus's is all
their fault. Why did you click on the attachment that you didn't know
what it was?



I have a better question for them, why the hell did they make it posible for
an executable to run by just clicking an e-mail attachment? And how are
they supposed to even know 'what it is' when the file extentions are hidden
and all a file need to run as an executable is have the right file
extention. I'm trying to think of one good reason to make an e-mail
attachment executable other than speading viruses.

All it would take is to make it so executables could only run from within
certain system folders that only have write access by the admin user. Then
people would have to really think if this is a good idea to run this
attachment on their system, rather than just a click and BAM. Wait a minute
one OS already does all of this, wonder why these aren't spreading any
viruses! :-)
--

Stacey