Interesting Links for 26-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• The awesome Rosamicula writes about her experiences of being invited on news shows to talk about the riots.
  (tags: news riots media uk EpicFail)
• 6 Reasons The Guy Who's Fixing Your Computer Hates You. I have felt this way many, many times.
  (tags: computers funny malware)
• Nick Clegg defends Human Rights legislation. It saddens me that someone needs to.
  (tags: rights uk law NickClegg politics)
• Sad Etsy Boyfriends
  (tags: men photos funny)
• Labour joins Tories to stop trams even reaching Princes Street. Saving £9m/year, at the cost of not having a useful system.
  (tags: trams edinburgh headdesk)
• Females choose mates for their personalities (in zebra finches, obviously)
  (tags: personality reproduction birds)
• Robonaut R2 tweets from outer space
  (tags: robots astronauts space)
• We lose Steve Jobs _and_ Rob Malda on the same day? What is the world coming to?
  (tags: slashdot)
• Doing away with the dentist’s drill by helping teeth regenerate themselves
  (tags: health medicine body teeth dental)
• Some clarifications on the Iceland story from a few days ago.
  (tags: iceland finance banking)
• When Not To Quit: Man Revived After 96 Minutes
  (tags: health medicine body technology)

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I always wonder where, exactly, people are going to pick up this malware. For work I have to go to many, many sketchy porn sites and have never picked up any malware. I've never installed any toolbars (I turn them down because they confuse me) but honestly even after visiting the darkest corners of the web my Norton has never alerted me to anything other than cookies it wants to remove.

As far as I can tell as long as you turn off "Active X" (whatever the fuck that is) and run Norton it's nearly impossible to pick up malware.

[andrewducker]

What browser do you use?

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Firefox.

[andrewducker]

That might explain it :->

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Really?

I've always used it just on the general principle that if there are two options and one is made by Microsoft and one isn't always choose the one not made by Microsoft. (The exception being Windows because I can't be asked to figure out Linux.)

[andrewducker]

It certainly used to be the case that IE had more security holes and was targeted more (because it was more popular).

I don't know what the situation is nowadays.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Given my distaste for microsoft products, Firefox is really my only option because I won't use any Google products (other than their search engine) because as far as I can tell Gmail, Google Plus, Chrome, Google Wave, etc... are essentially large scale tracking/keystroke recording devices.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I was invited to appear on radio in Canada and TV in the UK because of a piece I wrote on BBM and interception powers. However I turned them all down and sent them to someone who knew the law better than me. And would look better on TV. Oh, and who wasn't just another journalist.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

If you're using on OS post XP SP2 and a browser with resonable malware protection, you're pretty safe.

We fire up VMs and go surfing russian porn sites for work stuff every now and then. The only way we've ever got infected was deliberately downloading a poisoned toolbar (and we knew that in advance).

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

So, I'm right, you have to almost deliberately try to infect your computer.

I mean about four months ago a guy wanted me to do ads for his new "shemale" site (I know this term is offensive, but it was porn and calling it a transsexual site would not be accurate) and for competitive research I had to go through some of the sketchiest sites I'd ever seen and when I was one I had Norton do an unscheduled scan and all I got was a bunch of tracking cookies.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Hmm... you say below you're on firefox. You also probably keep your system moderately well patched. I end up fixing quite a few computers.

The people who get malware tend to have one or more of the following habits:
1) Using internet explorer
2) Putting off doing patches and software updates
3) Installing lots and lots of software they "found on some website"
4) No good mental model of what software "should" do. (E.g. "the porn I was trying to view said it needed to install a downloader program to work" -- they don't usually admit to the porn part but I bloody know that's what they mean. These are also the people who open that email which says "Here is the v3ry important invoice for u." and then click on the box which says "yes, I do want to run this.").

If you are even moderately careful about keeping a computer patched and using a single good piece of anti-virus software (free ones are just fine) then you most likely won't have an issue. If you know what you're doing you probably don't even need the AV.

One guy's computer which was "running slowly" had six different viruses. He never patched and the taskbar was just a mess of a dozen bits of crapware he'd installed and never removed. This is an extreme case but I come across lots of people who have picked up malware from various sources.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Was there any good evidence that BBM was used more than any other messaging system (apart from the fact that blackberry is prevalent in that age group). It seemed that the rumour sprang from nowhere with no evidence other than that some people were seen to receive some messages using blackberries (which were, after all, the phones they use) and immediately it became accepted fact.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. Anytime any site tells me I need to install something to look at what I want I click away on the general assumption that anything on the Internet is redundant so if, for example, one site wants me to download some shit to watch a Kim Kardashian sex tape, I'll be able to find another site that doesn't require me to download something.

And, yeah, whenever Microsoft, Java or Firefox want me to update I update - not because I'm trying to protect my computer but I just figure the best way to get them to stop them bugging me about an update is to just do the update.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... when you say it it sound so obvious. Now if only there was some way to make the entire rest of the planet think like that.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

That said - holy fuck has anyone else noticed that the most recent Firefox update generally sucks? It's much less stable than the last update (though I figure all I have to do is wait a week or two and they'll be another update that will work better.)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

In my case it's just laziness. It's easier not to install something than to install it. It's easier to let Windows 7 update when it wants to rather than have it give me pop ups at the bottom of my screen every day until I do.

I'm surprised the sheer laziness factor doesn't protect more people.

[andrewducker]

Interesting - I've not had a single crash since moving to the latest version. But if there are problems for some people then hopefully they'll fix whatever the cause is.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you've just laid yourself wide open to various geeks recommending obscure web browsers to you. So I'll get in first and recommend Opera, which I find to be faster than the others and better at handling dozens of open tabs without causing your system to slow down.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

It only happens when I have many open tabs. Before the update I could have as many tabs as I wanted open with no problem. Now, if I have about 10 tabs open and try to play a video or open up a Java enabled chat room I'll get a "hang" about 50 percent of the time.

I have no doubt they'll fix it. Every so often with any software an update will have an unexpected problem.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You know what we need? A good old-fashioned public information film.

"Tufty the Web Squirrel says 'Don't install software from people you don't know'..."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

IE still has hooks into the OS. Infect IE, you get the computer.

Firefox is a program. The OS doesn't trust programs.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

ActiveX is IE's built-in application code - like Java or flash, but part of the browser. It's used to make a web page do stuff like a program instead of like a web page.

Question: Are you running as an Administrator user while you surf? And you mention this is for work - are you part of a company? Do you have a Domain and an IT department, etc?

[steer.livejournal.com]

"Oh look, Willy the lecherous web weasel is watching pornography. Don't open that attachment Willy! Too late. It wasn't a picture of hot squirting babes at all. Poor Willy."

[steer.livejournal.com]

After this discussion I was thinking "You know, this is absolutely right -- a modicum of common sense and a bit of basic laziness and no sensible person should pick up malware unless they're super unlucky."

Then, this about a massive hack into probably the world's most trusted computer security company.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/082611-was-this-the-e-mail-that-250136.html

[andrewducker]

Unfortunately, "a modicum of common sense" is incredibly rare...