A long, but important bit of information...

The Wire Nut

Being a wethead wannabe and a somewhat secret Wall lurker, and Dan disciple, I would like to offer some advice on a subject I do know; technology…

From reading I know that a fair bunch of you are computer literate (ah, if only my clients were so...) but a good number of you are not…I hope this is helpful to both groups…

I am, by current trade, a “Rent-a-Geek” (Dan’s title for me is “The Wire Nut”) and I’ve made a fair and a fair living over the past 25 years managing all sorts of technology and the like. But in the past 3 or 4 months a larger and larger part of my income is coming from cleaning up and securing my clients PCs from “Spyware”, “Adware” and “Malware” (herein “Spyware”). This has become a far larger problem than the virus issue ever was.

While most viruses relied on a victim to make an active choice of opening an infected email or attachment, Spyware can attach itself to your system by you merely brushing through a web site. And, if you use, or your kids use music trading programs such as “Kazaa” or you’ve downloaded some “free” helpful thingy such as a non-name brand (i.e. Google, Yahoo) search bar, you are guaranteed to be infected up the wazoo…

Simply stated, Spyware are programs that silently download themselves in to you PC, either from visiting a web site (and they don’t have to be “bad” sites either) or from downloading and installing some sort of program that contains Spyware as a secret payload. Once installed Spyware can do anything from tracking what websites you visit, to creating pop-ups that are based on what sites you are visiting, to capturing your keystrokes (think credit card numbers and passwords), all of which can get silently sent down the internet.

The data collected can be used by legitimate companies or by the not so legitimate. My feeling is that if you have to track something by inserting Spyware, you have no legitimate use or right to that data.

As your system becomes more and more infected, you find that everything runs slower and slower, you can’t access some sites on the internet, and endless pop-ups litter your screen. It can get so bad that the PC is essentially useless. I’ve seen an awful lot of that lately…

Because of many serious security flaws, some by naïve design, some by sloppy programming, in Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, there exists many ways for Spyware to get buried within your PC. It is very simple for a web site to quietly download its payload into your computer with you ever knowing.

One of the fairly insidious ones is a pop-up or email that alerts you that your system “may be infected with Spyware” and offers to either scan your PC for free or even sells you, via fear tactics, their program to “clean” your PC. The end result is that your PC is further infected as the “cleaner” then loads your PC with Spyware. Clever, eh? Like a glass company with a stack of bricks….
Of course, where there is evil there is good. And money to be made from both. There are a number of good anti-spyware programs available for little or no money. Some of these will clean your system, while others will clean and attempt to protect you from further infection. What I have found is that each of these programs has their strengths and that it usually takes at least 2 or 3 of the programs to do an effective job.

Don’t confuse these programs with Anti-Virus programs like Norton Anti-Virus. Viruses generally attempt to damage your data, or PC, and/or create mayhem on the internet. Spyware is used to track you for marketing or to steal data from you.

The following are some of the programs I have in my toolkit:

Microsoft Anti-Spam (Beta). www.microsoft.com (look for it under the “Popular Downloads” or at: http://tinyurl.com/6fuq4.

MAS was originally produced by Giant Software and Microsoft bought them last December. Microsoft made some changes and released MAS as a free download. Note, however, it only works on Windows 2000, 2003 and XP with Internet Explorer 6.

MAS does a fair job of cleaning out spyware, and in protecting your system from further infection. I would estimate its “hit” rate at about 75%. Use it as your primary weapon.

Next is Spybot Search and Destroy: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html or http://tinyurl.com/37t9f. Or go to www.downloads.com and search for “Spybot Search and Destroy”

This is another free program that does a great job of cleaning up, and it’s pretty fast. I haven’t tried the prevention part of Spybot so I can’t vouch for that aspect.

It’s available in a gazillion languages and will run on just about anything.

Then there’s Ad-Aware: www.lavasoft.de or http://tinyurl.com/gaab or at www.download.com

Ad-Aware is the about the oldest of the anti-spyware programs and could probably claim to have invented the field. They have a free version, as well as full-featured versions that are for sale at modest cost.

I used to use Ad-Aware as my weapon of choice, but I think that the competition has upped the ante and I don’t use it all that much anymore. None the less, it remains a great product.

Recently I’ve added SpySweeper: www.webroot.com or http://tinyurl.com/5twoh

SpySweeper is, perhaps, the best of the lot. They offer a 30 day free trial and after that, a modestly priced yearly subscription. They also offer a free web-based “Spy Audit”. I just tried the audit and it found 3 different spyware programs on my PC. A protected PC no less.

I use SpySweeper as the “heavy artillery” and as a check of the other programs. Well worth the money.

How can you prevent getting infected? 100 % best way: turn off your computer, remove your internet service and go back to pen and paper.

Practically though you need to practice caution and diligence. As in virus protection, don’t click on any links in an email that you are not 121.5% sure of, and don’t open any email you are not 247% sure of. Even opening an email can infect your program with viruses and spyware. It’s true. I’ve seen it happen.

Don’t connect your PC to the internet without having a hardware firewall, such as a Linksys or Netgear Router/Firewall, and a software firewall such as “ZoneAlarm” from ZoneLabs (www.zonelabs.com). You need both. There’s a free version of ZoneAlarm available. Download it, use it.

Have an up-to-date Anti-Virus program. I like Norton Anti-Virus, others like McAfee, TrendMicro or half a dozen others. Get one, use it, and keep it up to date. Without it, you’re dead meat.

Install and use one of the Anti-Spyware programs.

Run Windows Update everyday. In Internet Explorer go to: “Tools” then select “Windows Update.”

Do not download and install anything on your PC, unless you’re 1000% sure it’s clean. Many, if not most, of those little “helper” programs, like the weather toolbars, search toolbars, screen-savers and wallpaper programs are packed with Spyware. The honest ones will clearly tell you if they are and what data they collect and what they use it for. The better ones will let you opt out of sharing your data.

Google and Yahoo are two of the good guys. But certainly not the only ones. Know what you are installing. Read the fine print, read the “Privacy Policy” notices. You’ll be shocked.

Especially avoid the “free” music download or file swap programs. Might as well open your door and toss your most private data to the neighborhood. If you have teenagers, you have spyware. Guaranteed.

For those who are more adventurous, you can try replacing Internet Explorer with its endless security holes and constant updates with the free Mozilla Firefox browser. It’s available from www.mozilla.org .

This browser is far more secure then IE, as it does not allow have a lot of the “enhancements” that are really open gateways to infect your system. It also boasts a tremendous amount of “extensions” or plug-ins, including the venerable Google toolbar. It also has some features that have eluded IE such as “tabbed” browsing, which is multiple browser windows, laid out in tabs instead of discreet windows.

Be aware that some sites won’t work unless they see that it is being browsed by IE. Primarily these are Microsoft sites (nach), especially Windows Update and their support section. But there is an easy way around this; install the “ieview” extension available on the firefox site and when you need IE, right-click the page in Firefox and select “Open in IE” Neat, huh?

Another cool extension is “Adblock” which prevents all those annoying ads and commercials that litter so many web sites from being displayed.

I know the Mac heads out there will crow about the advantages of the Mac in all sorts of ways, including the paucity of viruses and spyware, but this becomes a religious discussion and I don’t want to get banned by Dan. Just know that I had one of the first Macs produced in 1984…

Hope all this helps… If anyone is interested in more information on firewalls, Anti-Virus or the like, contact me off-line and I can email you some more information…

Thanks for listening….

Weezbo

say...i would like to know how...

to get rid of these You are the guy who now has 402000$ loan approved . hello i am dizzy wa bulah from west africa with s trillion dollars to put in you confidential bank account. buy caligama quayludes and propiteta.and my all time favorite you won the lottery from Germany.:)) Yah Right! ) i just delete them buh every day its the same junk any way to do this?adaware and spybot doesnt get rid of them..thanks ..i appreciate it.

The Wire Nut

These emails

you talking about? If so, get a good Anti-Spam program, like CloudMark (www.cloudmark.com). If it's spyware, that is, pop-ups and the like, follow the advice I laid out above...

Weezbo

ok ihope i get the cloud deal on my computer and mr mombuto

and the rest of the goofy space and time wasters vanish from the internet permanently

The Wire Nut

Then

follow my first bit of advive, and unplug the computer! ;-)

Constantin

Very good points Alex!

And I thank you a great deal because I have to (from time to time) help out PC friends with spyware/adware/infection/etc. problems. Now I know what yo use...

There is one other way to reduce your vulnerability to adware/spyware/virii, and that is to avoid MS products where possible. Your teenager may not like being given a Mac instead of a PC (fewer games), but OSX itself has yet to be breached by a virus, and it's been out for 4 years. Linux is another alternative that also gets the job done (but with even fewer games). The advantage of Linux is that it'll run on your old Windows hardware long after Windows "updates" and bloatware have made the hardware obsolete.

I have used OSX for several years now... by and large it is as stable as the underlying hardware. Only once was I left in the lurch, due to a hard drive crashing... For those of you who're considering Macs, here are the programs I use in my daily life:

• Norton Anti-Virus... the grand-daddy of them all. While the rest of the Symantec offerings have gone to heck, NAV still stands out as a pretty solid program, which now detects Mac and PC virii.
• DiskWarrior... a step up from the Disk Utility program in terms of its ability to fix bungled directories
• TechTool... the industrial-strength recovery program. The current implementation (4.0.3) allows you to boot from an emergency partition it can install for you. That way, unless the disk is hopelessly fried, you can enjoy the speed of a HD-based recovery effort.

ScottMP

stone horse

thanks so much for offerin that info. That is the true center of the wall... sharing info. We all have something to offer and you've done your part.

Scott

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Boiler Guy

Excellent and timely

information Alex.

Myself, being a "novice" user and lurker of various sites similar to this one always have a concern about stuff happening that I don't understand. I am sure I am not alone out here.
Your informative post really puts a lot of things in simple terms, easy to understand. I feel quite vulnerable when the pimply faced geek (no negatives intended) behind the counter tells me to venture into things I seem incapable of understanding. Too many whatifs.

Maybe you could create a discussion table @ Wetstock!? I am sure it would provide endess good information to us "non techi dudes".

Thank you whole heartedly for your efforts.

Weezbo

how about spam@uce.gov ....?

i find this page last night ....http:/www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/nigeralt.htm ...... is this a reliable kind of deal?

DanHolohan

Alex,

we love you.

Steamhead

Very good info, Alex

to which I might add a couple of things:

1. Avoid using any Microsoft programs. As you stated, these seem to be the most malware-prone programs on Earth. Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape and others will do the same job as IE, and WordPerfect Suite will do the same job as Microsoft Office with pretty good file-format compatibility, plus it will run on Windows 98 and ME.

2. Set up your anti-malware programs as well as Windows Update to either update themselves automatically or notify you when an update is available. ZoneAlarm takes this a step further by checking your anti-virus program for available updates.

Alex, have you tried the a2 anti-spyware program (www.emisoft.com)?

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The Wire Nut

Ah, leave it to you...

to make it a religious issue Constanine! ;-)

I'm sure Macs are better in the virus/spyware arena, but it just doesn't do what most business' need. You can't run Slant-Fin or Wirsbo software, and most business software just won't work on it. As the Mac has about 5% of the market, most of which is student or the graphic artists, there is no real incentive to produce anything outside the needs of those 5%...

Just so you know, in my early days, I was a Mac fanatic...then I had to earn a living... In fact, I built a trading ticket management system on the Macs back then, when I worked for a brokerage house...

You're right about Norton Anti-Virus, it's become bloat-ware, but it is still the best Anti-Virus program out there, at least for individual users. Avoid, however, their firewall (use ZoneAlarm instead) and their anti-spam software. They're not as good (IMHO) as the other programs, some free, that are out there...

It's a real jungle out there... In some sense, I should be grateful to Microsoft, not only did they create a "standard" to bring some order out of the chaos, and I was right in the middle of all that chaos (hey, I still remember WordStar keyboard commands!), and they've created endless work cleaning up after the problems...

The Wire Nut

Aw...

shucks!

Thanks for the kind words Scott... I do feel that I have gotten a lot more out then I've put in...maybe I'll have a chance to contribute more....

The Wire Nut

How much interest

is there for a table at WS, providing it's OK wid da boss?

I was going to do my wiring thing again, I wonder if there's enough interest for both?

Thanks for the kind words... And my pimples cleared up a long time ago! ;-)

The Wire Nut

Good points...

but it's hard for people to switch out of the MS habit. Face it, they provided a consitant platform (such as it was/is) for programs, and, I know it's hereasy, but I like the MS Office products, they work well for me... But I've been working with them for years... I can't stand WordPerfect (sorry), and I find it clumsy and awkward (redundant)....

I do agree that not using IE is a good choice. I have to be careful in corporate environments, because there are a lot of "standards" and a lot of systems are tuned for IE. But for the average user, I think Firefox (www.mozilla.org) shines... I also hear good things about Opera, though I am not sure it's still free...

Haven't tried a2, but I'll look into it. You can't have too many tools in the toolbox...(honest honey, I really need that wrench...)....

BTW, the steam is working great, though there are a number of issues I need to tackle come spring...

gerry gill

I'll pass the info on to my wife,

as i only speak english....seriously, thank you for caring.

The Wire Nut

At least...

whilst speaking, one doesn't have to capitalize! ;-)

Thanks for the kind words...

Constantin

Say it ain't so!

Alex, there are some Mac users on this board, even if I can probably count them on one hand with fingers left over... :-P

Anyway, while MS has done an amazing job to make their OS run on a plethora of platforms, devices, etc. I've also concluded that their attention to detail (particularly WRT security) is so lacking that you'll never have any issues with job security... In fact, I suspect that a lot of IT departments refuse to switch to Linux and/or Mac for the same reason.

I find that I spend about 95% of my time using iTunes, a mail browser, an office suite and a web-browser. The rest of the time, it's more specialized programs, like HTML editors, etc. up to, and including, windows-only programs that I run using an emulator. Given how little I need these windows programs, this setup works for me. I imagine that if I were using HVAC-Calc daily that my tolerance for emulated speeds would drop rather quickly.

On the flip-side, the only virii I have to deal with are principally MS Macro-virii, as none have been developed for the Mac OSX yet. Thus, for me the Mac operating system is the best choice. Others may prefer WinOS because they have some special software that they use all the time... I totally understand that.

Anyway, have you played with Linux boxes and do you think they are ready for Desktop primetime?

Boiler Guy

I was running Norton

but have since switched to Panda. It seems (to me) to work much better than Norton ever did. What is your impression of Panda? I now also use Spy Sweeper and quite like it.

leo g_13

tried panda

was not impressed, slowed everything down. Then the next day, shaw offered me free AV and firewall, etc. took them up on it and so far so good. Did not like A2 either, ran it, nothing found, ran ad-aware, 5 trackers found. Good-bye A2!

Thanx for the info Stoneman.

Leo G

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The Wire Nut

No bears here...

Never even heard of Panda... Problem is that in my business, it is important to standardize on a few known quanities. If I get hit by the proverbial garbage truck, anyone can pick up on Norton or Sophos or Windows...

Can't say the same for a lot of other products, as good or better as they may be...

The Wire Nut

Rockhead...

As stubborn as I am a stonehead I'm not... But I do own a Stone house, hence the name...

The Wire Nut

Tonka Toys...

I've played a small bit with OSX and although the bouncy icons are cute, I can't see anything it does any better then my PC running 2000 or XP pro. Don't think it's any more stable... And I can't stand not being able to right-click. I live to right click...

I really find all the cutsy stuff too distracting for regular use. I always turn my XP PCs back to the "Classic" interface and TaskBar. But since I am a "power user" (though a majority of my interaction is email, word and excel) I want to cut to the chase...

Played with the 'nix variants a few years back. Never got too far, too much to learn and not enough time, nor did I really want to make the time... Hence, I suppose, my desire to change careers!

I think that Linux is making great inroads as a server platform. Google lives by it... As the applications arrive the installed base grows... If they had an Exchange Server for Linux, it would be a hard knock to MS... As a desktop, I never could really find a use for it, and until people are comfortable abandoning Office, it will be a touch sell...

Kal Row

the only one that was able to fix my hyjacked I-explorer...

was http://www.adwareaway.com/

tried all the other ones - and they couldnt do it - nor did manual editing of the registry - i had what they called a fifth generation of something

Luke Lefever_2

Linux is not that hard, and its rock solid. Don't even need a firewall because it doesn't have the vulnerabilities Windows has. For easiest conversion, use Fedora Core 3. Or wait a couple of months for Fedora Core 4. Use Firefox for a browser and tell the evil empire where they can go. And best of all- ITS FREE!!! OpenOffice runs circles around Word, Excel, etc... GIMP makes Photoshop look like a brick, and did I mention that ITS FREE??? Just my not so humble $.02. Luke Lefever, Lefever Plumbing & Heating, Inc. Elkhart, Indiana.

Constantin

Come on, Alex...

... Even OS9 supported right-clicking, if you attached a two-button mouse. I was using a two button mouse back in college, so that's ten+ years ago. Just because Apple doesn't ship a two-button mouse with its systems, doesn't mean that the OS doesn't support them. Any two button mouse with a USB jack will plug in and work with any modern Mac.

I also followed in your footsteps of turning off all the extra eye-candy in WinXP. In my case because XP is so slow to start with (in emulation) that any optimization is a big performance improvement. Perhaps I should have stuck to Win2000, I hear it isn't as saturated with a bazillion services running in background as XP is.

I had a lot of fun going through an optimization site which explained the myriad of background processes in XP and what they were good for. I never understood why all that stuff couldn't be laid out in a better form, like the in the "sharing" control panel of OSX... that way, you can opt into making your machine more vulnerable rather than opting out of it like in Windows. I turned off a lot of stuff, never missed it, and XP has become usable since.

However, I agree that modern OS' in general place too much emphasis on eye-candy instead of functionality. Raskin of Macintosh fame razzed OSX endlessly because it was less user-friendly and intuitive than OS9. To a point, I agree with him, because OSX is not as easy to use as OS9, in general. On the other hand, many people gladly give up a little bit of user-friendliness for the rock-stable platform that OSX has become.

In closing, it will be interesting to note what effect wide-spread Linux deployments like the city of Munich will result in. Some people have predicted the tipping point is near, I disagree. For whatever reason, the majority of users are still content to use Windows even though it requires a lot of vigilance, maintenance, etc. because the dominant system gets all the new games, applications, etc. first. Fair enough.

Constantin

Beautiful house...

That's a thing of beauty and repointing all that rock makes it look better today than in the vintage picture.

Congrats again, on the timely post re: what software to use, the approaching finish date in the bathroom, the house, and the coming kid!

Unknown

Alex

Macs can do everything that most most businesses need. Certianly all of a heating contracting bisinesses needs

The Slant/Fin Hydronic Explorer™ and Wirsbo's ADS™ work just fine on My Power Book G4. It runs Loop Cad just as well. Power Cadd is the most powerfull CAD system available and it's what Siggy uses this for all his design work on his Mac. Although his hydronic Design Studo™ was written for PC's, I'm told it works just fine using Virtual PC. (VPC) does a fine job of emulating the "evil empire's" OS with very little loss of speed. In fact it's very fast and it works well. Similar to eating a good steak VS. a Big Mac.

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Unknown

Alex

Macs can do everything that most most businesses need. Certianly all a heating contracting bisinesses needs. It's called Virtual PC (VPC)

The Slant/Fin Hydronic Explorer™ and Wirsbo's ADS™ work just fine on My Power Book G4. It runs Loop Cad just as well. Power Cadd™ is the most powerfull CAD system available and it's what Siggy uses this for all his design work on his Mac. Although his Hydronic Design Studo™ was written for PC's, I'm told it works just fine using VPC as well. It does a fine job of emulating the "evil empire's" OS with very little loss of speed. In fact it's very fast and it works well for us. Similar to eating a good steak VS. a Big Mac.

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Steamhead

Worked for me

a2 found a couple of things SpyBot and Ad-Aware missed, when I first tried it- can't remember what they were though. As you say, you really can't have too many tools.......

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The Wire Nut

Clickity-Clack...

So if it was supported, why do they insist on the one button mouse? Remember how Jobs refused to have any of the Macs have fans? Remember how hot they got? Remember how much money the old Kensington Microware made selling Mac fans (incidently I was employee #1 of Kensington back in the good old days..)

I suspect that the new generation of users will start having real exposure to 'nix. But Microsoft is a strong competitor and always will be. For the most part they do have tremendous support, which you pay for, but trust me, for $245 they will do what ever it takes to solve the problem. Mind you this is tech support for Techs at this price. But I've had them stay on the phone for 12 hours straight... Yes, I know that 'nix wouldn't have those problems (yea, right!) but the fact is software is an art and not a science and there will always be bugs...good software is never finished, just abandoned...

I suspect that 'nix will grab a larger and larger share of the server marketplace (sort of like the little condensing boilers are doing to cast iron), but MS will do what it has to keep ownership of the desktop. You can be sure they have a 'nix version of Office ready... Linux scares the crap out of MS and they are very aggresive, very rich and very smart...

The Wire Nut

Emulate this...

Gary,

I used VPC back in the old days when it booted up and made the old IBM double beep and the ratchet noise that the 5" floppys used to make!

But why bother running emulation on top of another OS? You exponentially raise your bug and support quotiant...

I have no doubt, no, I am quite sure the Mac does a lot of graphics things better, but Windows dominates for a reason; volume of applications and support.

In the end, both OS' do the same thing in almost similar fashion; point, click, double-click, etc... but I can get a lot more support for Windows issues than I can for Mac issues. In my line of work, support is the name of the game... Same issue with 'nix... Volume and depth...

The Wire Nut

Spywareeveryware...

I spent all of Thurs. cleaning out Spyware from clients and family PCs. I tried Adaware Away based on your input and found it worked well, but the interface was pretty bad, and the English grammer (translated from French, I suspect) was pretty amusing...

But in the end, it took at least 4 different programs to clear up the PCs. Mostly SpyBot, Microsoft AV, Spy Sweeper and Adaware Away...

I am also going to investigate CounterSpy from Sunbelt Software. It just got very good reviews... www.sunbeltsoftware.com or a trial version at www.download.com. Search for counterspy (one word...)

The Wire Nut

Tried it...

Tried to run a 'nix desktop, using various variants. At one point had 3 PCs stacked with a KVM switch so I could play with 3 at a time...

Even subscribed to Red Hats version for awhile. But I could never get it to work as well as my Windows setup... Not that it wasn't more than capable of being as good and most likely better, I just didn't have the time to do all the hacks...

One major problem with 'nix is the Outlook problem. Many business run Exchange Server. For all the negatives, it does work fairly well and is feature rich. The last time I looked there were some pretty good 'nix servers hitting the market, but all were missing the depth of support and the massive amount of 3rd party support that MS products have...

The reality in relation to wetheads, is that many don't have the time or the experience to venture in to that neck of the woods...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a cheerleader for the Dark Side, but I have to realistic about my clients requirements and expectations...

Constantin

Alex, you already know the answer to the question..

Steve Jobs is a character. Not a particularly nice one, but under his watch, Ian and the rest of the crew at the R&D labs have churned out some trend-setting designs.

Just because Jobs doesn't think that first-time users are ready for two-button mice (and, most such users aren't) doesn't prevent the Mac from supporting the users that want to be power users. Even a five-button USB-scroll mouse from MS will plug and play in any OSX machine.

As for fanless designs, the last machines to not have fans were the Cubes. Allegedly, the thermal management works in that design, but I have never used one. No doubt, every machine benefits from thermal management, but Steve is obsessed with silence... he wants his computers to be tools, unobtrusive, etc.

Steves obsession with form over function is legendary and it was the cause for the inception of my web-site in 1999 when I detailed for the Mac community how to replace the smouldering capacitors inside their Graphite Airport base stations.

As for stability, I had my first non-responsive mac yesterday for the first time in 2 months. As I didn't want to keep waiting for the OS to figure out what had gone south, I actually had to reboot the thing on an occasion other than a system-software-update related reboot... otherwise it sleeps or is on 24/7. Contrast that to my colleague at work who rebooted XP twice to get WiFi access.

The one system-wide issue I had was related to a third-party add-on that promised to delete ads called AdGate. Overall, the program worked great... but in conjunction with Safari-based surfing to ebay or Mapquest, I could reliably cause kernel panics... very, very bad news. Now I use a usercontent.css file to filter out ads everywhere... works great!

Constantin

A couple of reasons come to mind...

... my primary computer is a Mac laptop. I still have a hankering for Windows-based programs (once in a while), so how to have access to both w/o emulation when I am out and about? The only solution that comes to mind is running a windows session over VNC, timbuktu, or whatever, which is fine as long as you can guarantee a TCP/IP connection. Planes, trains, and automobiles usually put a big red X through that plan.

So, I use VPC for the few applications (HVAC-Calc, HDS, etc.) for which there aren't equivalents on the Mac. I suspect that Gary does the same thing. And, if he uses a older version of Windows, the speed might not be so bad either. Since the windows machine is not being used to surf the net, get mail, etc. the virus threat level is low as well.

jerry scharf_2

Not quite, Luke

I'm a Unix hack for the last 20 years. I just spent 2+ weeks rebuilding from the ground up a server that got hacked (it was a favor...) This is the first time I have read the list since I took that on. They didn't appear to think they needed a firewall either...

Now the system is reasonably tight. There is a laundry list of things to clean up still up, but the packet filtering, file auditing and general work is done.

Why did it take so long? Because with free software, there are 7 ways to do anything, and it seems that over the life of the machine someone had used at least 3 choices for each option.

Nobody's safe. The machine I built isn't safe either. I just try to make it harder to get at my machine than others, and make sure that pain is above the net value of hacking it. Used to visit secure sites for a job, the spooks had a great time hacking their own machines. Quite scary how well they did at it.

jerry