Re: Family tech support

["Larry Seltzer" <larry () larryseltzer com>]

Get her Windows 7 and have her run as Standard User. She won't be able
to install anything difficult to remove anymore. 

If she needs admin privileges then she needs them on Linux too. Maybe
people aren't writing such malware for Linux but they could. Given that,
what could Microsoft do?

One answer could be whitelisting; it's becoming a reasonable solution in
managed networks, but for consumers it's not clear who manages the list.

Larry Seltzer
Contributing Editor, PC Magazine
larry_seltzer () ziffdavis com 
http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/

-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org]
On Behalf Of Drsolly
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 8:12 AM
To: funsec () linuxbox org
Subject: [funsec] Family tech support

Daughter.1 has picked up a nasty, that wants her to pay for an
antivirus, 
and keeps nagging at her. She already had Norton, but that doesn't seem
to 
want to know. I don't know if she's updated it - probably not.

I didn't fancy wrestling with the malware to try to remove it, or go
back 
to some previous checkpoint (there probably isn't one).

I offered her two solutions.

1) reinstall XP. She doesn't have the CDs (I don't think they came with 
the computer). I suspect you can't buy XP now. Vista will cost her about
a 
hundred pounds, and then she'll need to buy a new word processor, I'd 
guess. Probably another hundred or two. 

I suspect that a new laptop would be cheaper. I remember when we used to

wonder if a virus could actually destroy the hardware. Well, you don't 
need to when it's cheaper to buy a new computer than to get rid of the 
virus.

2) I install Linux. Zero cost, and she most likely won't ever see
another 
malware.



It's a no-brainer, really.


Do the folks at MS realise what this is doing to them?

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