[Tfug] Ideas for the ultimate "Grandma Millie" distro...

[erich]

I'm afraid it's true,

         Cybercrimals install spybots in the computers of the naive, and
unbeknownst
to the naive, the spybots go out and attack the rest of the internet at
the bidding
of the cybercriminals. So the good guys have their hands full, and, so
far, the internet
has been amazingly resilient. If you see a spam with a nonsense subject
line,
think spybot.

                                                                                             
Erich


Jim March wrote:

>Couple of points here...
>
>I too ran WinXP with every possible M$ patch/update/protection, and then
>applied a paid-up and up-to-date Zonealarm.  Also avoided M$ browser/mail
>apps, ran Firefox/Thunderbird.  Didn't matter - something came crawling in
>my pipe and hosed me good.  Spent two days just trying to figure out what
>was in there - it gave lots of indications of being a botnet critter.
>Finally just backed it up, nuked it and started with Ubuntu Dapper, never
>looked back.
>
>I have every reason to believe that while running XP correctly will HELP,
>it's no guarantee.  And for what I keep on my laptop, data I really care
>about...nope.  Not where I wanna be, thanks anyways Mr. Gate$.
>
>In the case I just finished yesterday, it was eerily similar.  Weird
>glitches, and the XP firewall was turned hard OFF with all options grayed
>out - very abnormal.  Threw Blacklight at it, nothing.  Rootkit Revealer
>flat-out froze solid, deer in the headlights time.
>
>Now I've *never* seen Rootkit Revealer crash.  It's really a dead-simple
>app.  I had to assume that something already in memory was looking for
>it....esp. when combined with all the other clues.
>
>---
>
>The face of malware is changing.  Now that it's possible to make money with
>malware, the level of "perverse professionalism" is way up.  They're not
>pranks, they're all too often systematic takeover attempts and they don't
>like being dislodged one bit.  One new trend is for malware to act as a very
>good anti-malware barrier to everything else to avoid anybody else stomping
>on their "turf" and also prevent the user boogging down enough to nuke all
>the crap on there.
>
>That's just...insane.  If you were back in the '50s or '60s and wrote a
>scifi story about what's actually happening you'd be labeled a loon right up
>there with L. Ron Hubbard.
>
>Fer chrissakes, when do we say "enough"?
>
>Jim
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>  
>