Antivirus software is the new protection racket

[NoNoBadDog!]

Frode;

You are absolutely correct, but the idiot that started this thread says
you need no firewall, no AV software, no protection of any kind. The OP
urges that you need do nothing to protect yourself because his miracle
device will fix it after it happens. It is whole premise. He does not take
into account the fact that the computer is vulnerable, can and will be
infected while online with no protection. He states that rebooting will
return the computer to a pristine state, which again is not a guarantee.
The OP preys upon the gullible and the ignorant...he deserves to be
railroaded out of the groups. He can peddle his fantasies and useless
hardware on the streetcorner...where the others who prostitute themselves
for a few dollars are. He belongs with the other crack whores.

Bobby

 

[Leythos]

Frode;

You are absolutely correct, but the idiot that started this thread says
you need no firewall, no AV software, no protection of any kind. The OP
urges that you need do nothing to protect yourself because his miracle
device will fix it after it happens. It is whole premise. He does not take
into account the fact that the computer is vulnerable, can and will be
infected while online with no protection. He states that rebooting will
return the computer to a pristine state, which again is not a guarantee.
The OP preys upon the gullible and the ignorant...he deserves to be
railroaded out of the groups. He can peddle his fantasies and useless
hardware on the streetcorner...where the others who prostitute themselves
for a few dollars are. He belongs with the other crack whores.

And what's really sad is that if I modify the computer with online
applications or while online, that I lose those changes when I reboot.

A router with NAT and quality AV software are always a first layer means
of protection against threats.

 

[Buffalo]

Installing Norton is one way to make a P4 run like a P2.

You're almost as bad as NEWS. :-(

 

[relic]

Avast! is not only free, it's non-invasive, and easy to get rid of if
you don't like it. (Try doing THAT, with anything Norton.)

Didn't you see the Removal utilities that come on the Norton CD? Totally
clean of all traces after you run them.

 

[Buffalo]

Avast! is not only free, it's non-invasive, and easy to get rid of if you
don't like it. (Try doing THAT, with anything Norton.) Also? I find
Avast updates regularly and is just as effective as anything Symantec has
released in the past five years.

Obviously you haven't read any of the AntiVirus tests in the last several years.
Norton scores so much higher than Avast.
Avast has an overall poor detection rate and that makes it not preferable to
many (even if it is free).

YMMV of course.

Hopefully, he doesn't visit you too strongly if you are using Avast as your only
antivirus program.

 

[Guest]

Frode;

You are absolutely correct, but the idiot that started this thread
says you need no firewall, no AV software, no protection of any kind.
The OP urges that you need do nothing to protect yourself because his
miracle device will fix it after it happens. It is whole premise. He
does not take into account the fact that the computer is vulnerable,
can and will be infected while online with no protection. He states
that rebooting will return the computer to a pristine state, which
again is not a guarantee. The OP preys upon the gullible and the
ignorant...he deserves to be railroaded out of the groups. He can
peddle his fantasies and useless hardware on the streetcorner...where
the others who prostitute themselves for a few dollars are. He
belongs with the other crack whores.

Actually it becomes quite apparent that NEWS is not a responsible
netizen since he cares nothing about inflicting harm on others while his
host is infected. I've seen similar posts by fathers that don't give a
gnat's fart about protecting his kids computers, doesn't care if they
have been trojanized and are running mailer daemons, doesn't care if it
participates in a P2P network and is infecting every file in his local
cache, doesn't care period. He just restores using an image and it's
all back to good again until his kids bitch enough about how they ****ed
up their machine to require another reimaging. Now there's a good
father figure teaching his kids morality ... not! **** everyone else, I
got mine working again. Sort of like the users of challenge-response
e-mail schemes.

 

[Zvi Netiv]

snake-oil... there is no panacea, no perfect protection...

Reset cards, which is what this guy is offering, aren't new. They are almost as
old as the PC itself. The first time I saw them in action was when I attempted
to install software on PCs at the students farm of the Weizman Institute, back
in '89, and the person in charge forgot to tell me how to disable the reset card
first.

do you really think that's the only way to deal with a virus infection?


no, they probably have drive images that they can simply restore from...

Most use reset cards - the PC "forgets" all changes on reboot.

Regards, Zvi

 

[kurt wismer]

Reset cards, which is what this guy is offering, aren't new. They are almost as
old as the PC itself.

i realize this, that's not why i called 'snake-oil'...

the implication of 'use this and have no more fear of infection' is that
it completely solves the virus problem - which, of course, it
doesn't... it may solve the virus recovery problem, but that's a
different matter...

as i'm sure you're aware, this reset card doesn't actually prevent
infection, so a machine can be sitting there pumping out worm instances
until the cows come home and all this product will do is get rid of the
worm when you next reboot but will restore you to the condition that
allowed you to catch the worm in the first place so chances are you
won't be worm free for very long...

 

[Leythos]

the implication of 'use this and have no more fear of infection' is that
it completely solves the virus problem - which, of course, it
doesn't... it may solve the virus recovery problem, but that's a
different matter...

I solved the problem with a simple solution, at least it's simple for my
mother-in-law.

I installed a router with NAT, then Symantec Corporate Ed. 9 AV
software, then setup the computer with everything she needs, tested it,
made a Ghost Image file of the OS and Data partitions, and then burned
the image to CD. I also left a copy on a third partition and she can
update it via diskette if she does any installs or updates that she
want's to save - outside of her normal CD-RW backups.

The thing, as you pointed out, is that the OP's solution is only good
for the moment that the image is reset. During the running/UP time, the
machine can easily be compromised, turned into a zombie, and users
personal information can be obtained. Not to mention that once the user
resets the system they lose all their changes unless stored off-line
somewhere.

The only place I can see using a reset card type device is a kiosk or a
Internet cafe where you want to wipe the machines between users - and a
simple Ghost restore across the network would take care of that too.

 

[nos1eep]

You're almost as bad as NEWS. :-(

Okay! Now I'm hurt, devastated and dejected. ;-)

 

[Zvi Netiv]

Zvi Netiv wrote:

i realize this, that's not why i called 'snake-oil'...

I know. That's not what I was addressing ...

the implication of 'use this and have no more fear of infection' is that
it completely solves the virus problem - which, of course, it
doesn't... it may solve the virus recovery problem, but that's a
different matter...

as i'm sure you're aware, this reset card doesn't actually prevent
infection, so a machine can be sitting there pumping out worm instances
until the cows come home and all this product will do is get rid of the
worm when you next reboot but will restore you to the condition that
allowed you to catch the worm in the first place so chances are you
won't be worm free for very long...

I should have been more explicit in my previous post.

I wasn't considering the effectiveness of reset cards as an "AV solution" but in
what they were originally supposed to do, i.e. anti-vandalism (the use in kiosk
/ Internet cafe mode is relatively new).

A reset card has no use in home and corporate PC, it's plain nonsense.

What made me think that you didn't realize it's about reset cards is your
following passage:
------

Only to commission a new drive or to replace one that failed.

I bet that most of the readers don't yet realize the nonsense of this thread ...

Regards, Zvi

 

[kurt wismer]

Zvi Netiv wrote:

[snip]
I should have been more explicit in my previous post.

sorry, you started out by replying to my calling 'snake-oil' on the
OP... i thought that (being the most controversial statement i made
there) was what had prompted the reply...

[snip]

What made me think that you didn't realize it's about reset cards is your
following passage:

actually i've heard kiosk administrators say that they use drive images
to revert changes made by users... i'm sure some do use a pc reset card,
but i think more people are familiar with norton ghost than are familiar
with pc reset cards...

I bet that most of the readers don't yet realize the nonsense of this thread ...

yes, well in a perfect world there would be no misinformation to dispel,
but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world...

 

[NWART]

Obviously you haven't read any of the AntiVirus tests in the last several
years.
Norton scores so much higher than Avast.
Avast has an overall poor detection rate and that makes it not preferable
to
many (even if it is free).

Actually those were paid tests by guess who? Three guesses and the first
two don't count.

 

[relic]

Actually those were paid tests by guess who? Three guesses and the
first two don't count.

Independent Test Lab. They have been testing them all for years:
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml

Avast:
Result summary: 12 passes / 19 fails
Norton:
Result summary: 27 passes / 6 fails

Neither can hold a candle to NOD32:
Result summary: 31 passes / 3 fails

 

[NWART]

Independent Test Lab. They have been testing them all for years:
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml

Avast:
Result summary: 12 passes / 19 fails
Norton:
Result summary: 27 passes / 6 fails

Neither can hold a candle to NOD32:
Result summary: 31 passes / 3 fails

Back to the original question, who do you think began funding the tests
almost 7 years ago and has continued to keep funding them?

 

[relic]

Back to the original question, who do you think began funding the
tests almost 7 years ago and has continued to keep funding them?

Irrelevent. You were claiming that all AV tests were paid for by the AV
companies, I supplied a link to tests that are NOT paid for by the AV
companies. Your response is inane.

 

[Guest]

Actually those were paid tests by guess who? Three guesses and the
first two don't count.

Yeah, right, it must've been fixed if it doesn't match your opinion. So
who paid http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2005_02.php?

 

[Guest]

Note that the VB results only measure how often a product *passes* their
test. It does NOT address coverage. It also does not mention HOW MUCH
coverage is provided. Plus there tests allow them to contact the AV
vendor to inform them of a FAIL so the vendor can recover and provide a
new version, which may simply be a new set of signatures. In other
words, a PASS might've been a FAIL that VB allowed the AV vendor to
recover from. And a PASS doesn't say how well the product compared to
coverage against other products. The VB list gives you a historical
view of how often the product has passed their test, so it shows how
well an AV vendor stays up to date. It doesn't show coverage within the
passed test nor does it indicate current coverage. Even the
AV-Comparatives tests are ran only at 3-month intervals but those tests
*do* measure coverage.

NOD32 got 95% coverage in the last AV comparative test. That puts it
behind Norton at 98%. But that coverage is the overall coverage and
each product performs differently within each category (but NOD32 was
equal to, or less than, Norton in each category). You can see why I
won't bother with AVG although it is free. Yeah, I know there are some
that say, "Been using AVG for months and never an infection", but
personal experience does not provide a wide enough range of testing to
qualify the product against all viruses (i.e., you're not going to
experience all viruses coming at you).

 

[Sammy]

Installing Norton will not slow down a properly configured maintained

computer.

Really? This is news. Please, what is the proper configuration so as
not to slow ones computer down with Norton?

( I have a network of over 200 computers of various makes, models and

vintage. Norton is on all of them. None of them are slowed down by
Norton...but then again I know how to maintain a healthy system).

Which version(s) of norton are you using, and please describe in detail
the exact no slowdown configuration one must use when dealing with
Norton Antivirus.

As it is however, in fairness to you; I suspect your full of it.

 

[Buffalo]

Really? This is news. Please, what is the proper configuration so as
not to slow ones computer down with Norton?



Which version(s) of norton are you using, and please describe in detail
the exact no slowdown configuration one must use when dealing with
Norton Antivirus.

As it is however, in fairness to you; I suspect your full of it.

Sammy, Sammy, Sammy.
Have you ever noticed a slowdown in any Windows system that had a cpu speed of
over 1.5GHz while using only Norton's Antivirus and not any other part of
Norton?
C'mon.