Title is correct. The problem is our governments aren't interested in protecting us. There shouldn't be any need for antivirus or firewalls, you don't walk around in a helmet in case someone hits you in the head. We should crucify these people and televise it.

it took them a whole day at an undisclosed location to learn that you should run windows updates and have your firewall on?

My suggestion is to build an OpenBSD-based router network router running pf.

PF is what the United Arab Emirates use to block Skype use in the UAE (to force everyone to use the state-owned telco provider). It's extremely powerful, and while it may seem like overkill, I'm thinking that it would probably be the easiest way to get what you want.

OpenBSD is a open source, free-for-download BSD UNIX, originally branched from the FreeBSD code when one of the developers got an itch to audit the entire codebase for potential security flaws and exploitations. It's been called the most secure OS in the world. Every line of code has been audited for security flaws. PF was added to the kernel a couple years ago.

The PF firewall is extremely configurable.

But all this requires some requisite UNIX-hacking skills.

http://www.openBSD.org
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=pf&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current&arch=i386&format=html

MISSING REEL

Makes every sci-fi plot watchable... Whenever they start claiming the Cylon virus can penetrate their Firewall simply because they network their computers, I start twitching, and my friends just say "Missing Reel, dude", and all is right in the universe again.

>> ^gwiz665:
I was a fan of avast, but I thought it felt too sluggish. Antivir is way faster.
Don't buy a firewall or antivirus, ever. It's a waste of money. The free alternatives are just as good.
Stay far, far away from Norton.


I'll have to give it a look when I get my Windows PC up and running again. I've never heard of Avira before.

Tests have shown that the free alternatives aren't quite as good as the commercial products, but I say they're good enough. The extra 1% detection rate you get with Symantec isn't worth whatever they charge.

I was a fan of avast, but I thought it felt too sluggish. Antivir is way faster.

Don't buy a firewall or antivirus, ever. It's a waste of money. The free alternatives are just as good.

Stay far, far away from Norton.

You're safe enough, anything more and you're paranoid.

Computer safety is not hard as long as you use common sense and be careful when you're on "suspicious" pages.

I recommend avira antivir, keiro/sunbelt firewall (or comodo firewall) and spybot S&D. If you use Win7 beta, you can just use windows firewall, it's much improved there.

Caution and a firewall are enough to protect you from the vast majority of threats. It's been years since I last saw a virus/worm/exploit that didn't rely at least partially on social engineering.

Antivirus is always helpful. Avoid anything that tries to replace the Windows Firewall (like Norton Internet Security). They all seem to really fuck up your system, in my experience, and there's no reason to replace a perfectly good software firewall anyway. If you're using commercial AV, make sure you've got a subscription or it's a waste. A lot of people swear by AVG or clamwin; I'm a fan of avast.

If you want extra tinfoil for your hat, you can make use of virtual machines (http://www.virtualbox.org/) or sandboxes (http://www.sandboxie.com/) to isolate activities from the main system. There's also RVS (http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/) and Windows SteadyState (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx) if you're just looking for a way to quickly restore your system if/when you believe it to be compromised.

Rather than be overly paranoid about security, I usually just make sure I can wipe my computer clean at any time with no risk of losing data. If I suspect something is wrong, I do a new install rather than screwing around trying to diagnose the issue. It's far more practical at work, but it's still not too bad at home.

Um, you are f-ed if you ever open acrobat pdf from the browser.

I nuked that crap acrobat reader from my system and use foxit reader.

I got a trojan (not detected by AVG) and had to manually remove it with System Rescue (linux) bootdisk. (Sent the little bugger files to AVG). I only noticed because it was launching IE every 20 mins to go to some spyware ad sites. I'm 100% sure it was looking at a relatively normal but maybe risky website and got infected through PDF holes.

Anyways, just check for trojans, and anything going out on the internets.

I think you must have these: autoruns, tcpview, procmon, RootkitRevealer or AVG anti-Rootkit. (the first files are all freeware SysInternals/now Microsoft) Basically, just know what is normal and what should be running on your computer and what is harmless. You are pretty good with a firewall and AVG. Update Acrobat or toss it.

Australia is an odd place. Surprisingly conservative. Between this, the "clean feed" nation wide firewall, the hoo-haa over computer game classifications, and the generally conservative media rules... well, it kinda makes me want to move back home.

How do you fix that? Its easy, turn remote access off. Then buff your firewalls. IF you dont have at least 2 firewalls then you are asking for a screw up.

You could also set up a honey pot, with some nice logic bombs to destroy the computer that is attacking your personal computer.

If they claim that you broke a law, then you will have to fight for what you believe is right.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
While the sheep are quite nice, I was disappointed by the way it all works. It's a bittorrent client that downloads mpegs and plays them as a screensaver. It seems rather inefficient to me. Certainly, these could be rendered in real time on any computer made in at least the last 5 years? Downloads would be drastically smaller then, as it could just be plaintext algorithms.
Also probably the only screensaver to require firewall reconfiguration.

Look in to the sofware, generating these fractals cost many hours of computer time.

While the sheep are quite nice, I was disappointed by the way it all works. It's a bittorrent client that downloads mpegs and plays them as a screensaver. It seems rather inefficient to me. Certainly, these could be rendered in real time on any computer made in at least the last 5 years? Downloads would be drastically smaller then, as it could just be plaintext algorithms.

Also probably the only screensaver to require firewall reconfiguration.

Oh cripes, does anyone remember the website this came from?

I'm pretty sure it's www.youareanidiot.org but I don't want to click on it since I remember the consequences.. My friends and I used to send this to each other disguising it under false URLs..

By the way, you probably don't want to go to that website since I didn't check to make sure it was the right one. My firewall software won't even let my browser in there so visit it at your own risk. Honestly, even if it is the right site I wouldn't recommend it

Wot no corporate firewall?