permanent solution to viruses

permanent solution to viruses

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Subject Author Date
permanent solution to viruses Martha 07-10-2006
Posted by Malke on July 10, 2006, 9:01 am
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Martha wrote:

> Did you ever wonder....do antivirus companies genuinely hope that
> hackers will have a change of heart and stop trying to infect other
> people's computers? That's obviously not the case. For the antivirus

(snip rant that's too long to read)

A quick scan of your rant shows that you really don't know anything about
the way the malware/spyware/virus "industry" works - which is nothing like
your imagined scenario. Start reading here if you want to educate yourself.

http://www.benedelman.org/

There is also an interesting article about Direct Revenue here:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_29/b3993001.htm

Malke
--
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic"

Posted by =?Utf-8?B?S2FybCBMZXZpbnNvbiBb on July 10, 2006, 3:11 pm
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"Martha" wrote:

> you don't need antivirus software to stay safe from the onslaught of online
> hackers. All you need are two hard drives and one copy of Norton Ghost.

You do realize that Symantec makes that product as well...

> Now surf all you please. If your computer starts manifesting symptoms of
> spyware/virus infection, such as slowing down, acting inconsistent... simply
run
> Norton Ghost and tell it to replace your current operating system with the
pristine > back up copy.
> Now you've surfed where you wanted, and it only took 5 minutes of Ghost
> Restore to put your computer back in perfectly clean top running shape.

That's not a responsible thing to be publicly advising others to do. Some
people can run safely without antivirus, with only a modest risk of becoming
infected. However, not everyone can do this. And you don't always have
noticable side effects like slowness when you become infected, to tell you
you're infected. Your plan is entirely reactionary and not at all
preventative, so that you can become infected and become a nuisance to other
Internet users. Last, what about patches? Does not the system restore wipe
off all your patches installed since then, leaving you vulnerable to
infections?

Trust me, many wise people have been working on a "permanent solution" to
viruses. If there was a better solution than using antivirus software,
firewall and patches, it would be selling like gangbusters right now.

> Ever wonder how much space those definitions are gonna take up on your
> hard drive after 10 years goes by? In the year 2016, you will all
> probably need an extra 200 gig hard drive just to hold all the
> anti-virus definitions that will be necessary to keep up with 10 years
> of new viruses!

Antivirus companies are way ahead of you, and have alread started deleting
signatures for old extinct viruses. Besides, it's not really a good idea to
be planning your current security posture based on what might or might not
happen in 2016.

--
kind regards,

Karl Levinson, CISSP, MCSE, CCSA, MS MVP
-------------------------
Microsoft Security FAQ:
http://www.securityadmin.info


Posted by Roger Abell [MVP] on July 11, 2006, 2:19 am
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> Did you ever wonder....do antivirus companies genuinely hope that
> hackers will have a change of heart and stop trying to infect other
> people's computers? That's obviously not the case. For the antivirus
> companies, such as Norton, a reduction in number of hackers/viruses
> would cause their business to fail. Norton, like law-enforcement,
> THRIVE BECAUSE of the bad things that people do.
>

If governments were successful they would become useless.
If religions were successful they would become useless.
etc. etc.

<snip>

> Personally, I have my computer set up to automatically run Ghost every
> night after I go to bed. I am greeted in the morning by one beautiful
> woman and one very clean and virus-free computer.
>
> The only sacrifice you have to make is that whatever you download from
> the internet or save from cd-rom, must be placed on the second hard
> dive, where the Ghost back up files are. Cuz if you just download
> stuff to your desktop, theywill all be wiped out with everything else
> as soon as you run the ghost restore.
>

. . . and you immediately reinfect the new image using the
> whatever you download from the internet or save from cd-rom,
> must be placed on the second hard dive
vectors, at least until you make a new Ghost image that includes
their payloads . . .



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