Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.customize (
More info?)
> > Talking about this, I wonder if your antyvirus software saved your
> > conputer
> > at least once, can You tell me?
>
> Depends what you mean by "saved". Sure, my anti-virus has flagged plenty
of
> garbage being sent my way. As part of my job I wrote some code that gets
> executed by an Exchange machine that processes roughly 2000 emails a day,
> and anytime it encounters something it doesn't recognize it automatically
> forwards it to me for manual analysis. Did I ever get infected though,
no,
> never. Neither did the Exchange machine, which has been in operation for
> over 4 years. You're not suggesting that having a virus sitting in a
> mailbox as a message attachment qualifies as "being infected", right?
I do receive viruses in mail attachments sometimes. My policy is to block
any unknown address who sent me a letter with attachment. I usually block
*@domain.com, but this is for my private e-mail. I don't have incoming
trafic (executable code) that needs to be checked. I prefer spending my
computer's resorces for programs and fast performance. In my case a good
security policy, up to date software and keeping an eye on what is running
is enough to keep me safe from viruses and hackers.
In your situation you do need an antivirus program.
> > On my network (Windows shares), there are
> > thousands of computers and a big number of infected.
>
> Absolutely, I consider Intranets and LANs to be hostile environments,
> especially when there's a few thousand machines hooked up to it and well
> beyond my control. In this situation, a good dose of paranoia is just
> common sense.
Although a secured computer without a fire-wall will be fully functional in
a Windows shares LAN, It's always good to block anything unused - that means
fire-wall the Internet door.
> > The latest viruses
> > available on the Internet are spreading around. Just as you mentioned:
No
> > fire-wall, and no Antivirus software, but I havent noticed problems,
slow
> > performance or memory leaks.
>
>
🙂 It doesn't take an awful lot of computing power to send a 40KB file
> over the LAN or SMTP or what not. You think you would "notice" everything
a
> decent anti-virus program is better positioned at identifying?
The chance to notice a virus just when it arrives is very poor. I would
notice it some time afterwards and proceed to recovery. In general a secured
computer won't get infected that easy...
> Seriously, you need an anti-virus. No "but"s or "if"s about it.
Well, I do make a full system scans from time to time, but for performance
reasons I never install the antivirus software on the working OS.
> >> Email addresses in the clear, I understand, but I've never seen anyone
> >> try
> >> to hide a URL in fear of getting worms and what-not.
> >>
> >> Besides, self-propagating worms will try to find new machines to infect
> >> by
> >> IP address;
> >
> > It's not a good practice to post private addresses in a clear form not
> > just
> > e-mails, but all kind of private addresses. This is my advice.
>
> The fallacy I was trying to point out is that by scrambling a URL you're
> avoiding problems. Automated processes such as viruses and worms don't
care
> about your machine's domain name or directory structure; as long as they
get
> *some* sort of response (which they'll do by IP address) they'll start
> hammering it. By scrambling a URL you're only preventing people from easy
> access, and not accomplishing much else. By posting your scrambled URL
and
> instructions to "decode" it, your machine is effectively just as much of a
> target for a human as it would be if you posted the URL in plain text.
> You're just scramling your URL for the wrong reasons. If you really,
> absolutely, positively need a private folder, you don't post it in Usenet,
> scrambled or not. Do you really care whether Google indexes the page you
> sent me?
The less unwanted requests, the less traffic I pay for. An indexed link in
clear form causes a lot of unwanted requests daily.
> MY advice is to get a decent firewall and anti-virus, download the patches
> as they become available, and you won't have to act so paranoid.
I already answered that.
> > By the way You didn't tell me if You like my web site?
🙂
>
> I thought I'd do you a favor by keeping quiet.
🙂 Let's just put it
this
> way: I'm far from being color-coordinated, but ...my eyes!
😛 The baby
> blue and pink/purple scheme clashes...badly. The main page is also quite
> minimalistic and hard to navigate (though that could be me not
> knowing...Russian?)
The site is not for the big audience. I don't have much resources to put on
it - this is just a lobby - writting HTML and scripts. The menu has links to
the entire content of the "public area". In fact it is a very fast and easy
way to navigate. Originally it was created with Bulgarian language interface
and that's why You can't navigate from it. Because of Your idea, now it
speaks English (unless You go to Regional Settings in the Control Panel and
choose Bulgarian from there ;-)
I also spent some time in changing the colours - if You don't like this
colour scheme, just open the Display properties and pick another one... Try
it, it's fun! ;-)