Posted on 09/20/2004 5:30:58 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts
"Why is that Bloody Sam?" you may be asking yourself.
I use and recommend that everyone use Mailwasher.
It allows you to access and view your email while it is still on your ISPs server before you download it to your PC. It is invaluable and a great piece of software that has saved my bacon many a time.
Ah, the smug feeling of satisfaction you get from running Linux....
Bookmarking - need to send this to a friend
Bump
I don't use file and printer sharing or the windows ICS on my wireless network, and both my DSL and wireless routers have firewalls, in addition to a non-windows software firewall on each machine, and MAC filtering and WPA security enabled.
I'm no expert, but this article appears to be referring to Windows' default network configuration, with only the built-in Windows firewall installed. Anyone who goes with a default windows network config is asking for trouble -- a fact that's been known for years.
I don't think anyone really expected that would change with SP2, and to rely solely on a software firewall created by Microsoft is also asking for trouble.
I would bet the biggest uptick in compromised home computers will be due to wireless networks, a hot item for the back-to-school crowd this year. Most of these are sold without security features turned on, and the average user doesn't have a clue that they're broadcasting personal info to the world. I have a neighbor that uses his name as the broadcast ID, for instance -- it doesn't get much dumber than that.
Spyware Stormer will get it all on each scan.$29.95 0ne time charge.
As for spyware, I use SpywareZapper (Costa a one time fee) and it finds and removes stuff that Spybot and AdAware miss. It even removed a real annoying program called “Purity Scan” off of my dad’s computer when nothing else would do it. Also, it got rid of another tough piece of spyware called “Wild Tangent” off of my computer which showed up thanks to the newest version of AOL Instant Messenger.
Known by most geeks, few others. The masses will hear "firewall" and if they recognise the word at all will think it makes them safe. This is a real configuration problem. Personally, I'd know never to accept a default microsoft configuration if I had any windows computers to protect, as microsoft knows jack about security, but many people continue to trust them for reasons I don't fully understand.
You're quite right about the security issues with wireless networks. They are going to continue to be security nightmares. People think computers are like toasters, when they actually require more care and feeding than the average automobile. I wouldn't really care about it so much, and just be content using a computer that just works without hassles, but I'm definitely affected by the spam and raw network consumption from those who do not.
My wireless network uses full crypto, does not broadcast, and is tied to the MAC addresses of my wireless NICs. Unfortunately, this is not the configuration out of the box.
I do the same. Unfortunately, that's not quite enough.
I left a laptop running kismet on the couch for three months to see what it would dig up. My wireless network is fairly busy, and in all of that time the laptop only came up with ONE "interesting" packet. That's not nearly enough to crack a key, but I'm still using 40 bit cards because they're (a) cheap and (b) supported.
So I change my keys every two months, just to be sure. Use hexadecimal keys only, no names or words that can be looked up in a dictionary.
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