No Sympathy For Victims of MyDoom - Articles

[Guest]

It appears that IT professionals are getting fed up with clueless users spreading computer viruses by opening and executing email attachments. You'd think people would know better by now.

In this IHT story, the criticism is directed in an interesting way:

"The tension over MyDoom underscores a growing friction between technophiles and what they see as a breed of technophobe who want to enjoy the benefits of digital technology without making the effort to use it responsibly."

‘‘With some of these viruses that require user action, people have a responsibility to be careful and protect themselves.’’ The New York Times (via Ars Technica)

Please see also, "The Clueless Users Who Refuse to Upgrade" on The Register.

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[PhillyKev 0]

The analogy I've always used is; going on the internet with a computer without adequate and up to date virus protection is like walking around sneezing on people. It's socially irresponsible.

[velo90 0]

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The analogy I've always used is; going on the internet with a computer without adequate and up to date virus protection is like walking around sneezing on people. It's socially irresponsible.

On my computer at home I don't have adequate and up to date virus protection. I go on the internet on a reqular basis and have never had a virus infect my machine.

[freeflir29 0]

I'm not exactly computer illiterate and I ended up with it somehow. Only reason I knew I had it is that I received 1 "MailerDamon" notice. Even once I made SURE I had the latest updates from Mcaffee it took running scans 4-5 times to actually get rid of it. The virus kept replicating itself to other files. It happens.......I'm thinking I MUST have gotten it through work emails. How it got past Mcaffee I'm still not sure. I update fairly regularly. *Shrug* But.....I am a dumbass......

[Nightingale 0]

LOL.

I told my mom last week (after making her install an antivirus software) that going online without an antivirus is like having sex with a stranger without a condom. There's still no guarantee you won't catch anything, but the chances are a lot less.

[Guest]

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The analogy I've always used is; going on the internet with a computer without adequate and up to date virus protection is like walking around sneezing on people. It's socially irresponsible.

One of the articles calls it something like the electronic equivalent of sharing needles after a 3rd-world gang-bang...

Seriously, though, I agree somewhat with the remarks in the opinion pieces - people do need to take some responsibility rather than expecting that some magical force will do it for them.

edit to add last paragraph

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[PhillyKev 0]

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On my computer at home I don't have adequate and up to date virus protection. I go on the internet on a reqular basis and have never had a virus infect my machine

How do you know? Lots of viruses don't do anything to your machine, they just use your machine to launch attacks. You'd never know you have one if you don't use a virus scanner.

[velo90 0]

mmmm Good point, maybe I should install one.
I'll let you the results, but I'll bet ya it's clean

[n2skdvn 0]

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but I'll bet ya it's clean

also download adaware(lavasoft.com) or spybot search and destroy(google it) run them and you will find out how many programs have been doing things without your knowlege

if my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN
my site

[freeflydrew 0]

I bet it has something on it if it's running windows anything...
These "infections" don't necessarily impact your computer directly, instead they flood the network you're a part of with a boat load of packets of information, which slows down the network for everyone else connected, and can actually cause switches and routers to stop functioning properly, which effects network/server/printer connectivity.

I bet you're right if it's a mac

If you go to symantec.com, you can download different worm removal tools... download the Sobig, MyDoom, and Welchia removal tools and see if they find anything.

Then download spybot and run that and see what it finds.

I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised to see that there are in fact things on your computer that you don't want there.

These are all free downloads...

Edited to add: I've stopped runnign ad-aware on client machines because I think that it's not as thorough as spybot, I don't think that it removes all of the components on the things that it does find, and I think that it sometimes screws up the normal functions of the computer. I now use spybot for spyware, and cwshredder for internet explorer setting changes. This is only on other people's computers, as my personal machine isn't a windows machine.

[velo90 0]

Got an up to date virus scanner and checked my system at home.
2 copies of sobig in the "_restore" directory
6 unsafe javascripts found in the temporary internet files diectory.

So I guess I lost, my system was not clean.

Even so, the viruses were not active

I even got a chance to test my new virus scanner
Someone sent me mydoom so I tried to run it. Yep, the virus scanner caught it.

[Staso 0]

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On my computer at home I don't have adequate and up to date virus protection. I go on the internet on a reqular basis and have never had a virus infect my machine

How do you know? Lots of viruses don't do anything to your machine, they just use your machine to launch attacks. You'd never know you have one if you don't use a virus scanner.

not necessarily true. if your computer doesn't send any emails itself, nothing weird is going on it, there
is no unexpected or unexplainable network traffic, you can be sure to some extend that it's clean. i don't
have any anti-virus software on my home computer myself and never had any problem with viruses. it's
actually pretty simple, don't open files named sexy_bin_laden.JPG.pif or kiosk.exe and you should be
all set :) in old DOS era it was very different when files were shared on floppies and floppies were bootable :)

--
it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ...
Speed Skydiving Forum

[PhillyKev 0]

Not true....the slammer virus had nothing to do with email. It just scanned all the IP addresses on the internet looking for an open port and then installed itself.

Also, the mydoom virus contains its own email engine. Doesn't matter if you have outlook or not. It scans all the ascii readable files on your machine for anything fitting an email address pattern and sends itself out.

[Staso 0]

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Not true....the slammer virus had nothing to do with email. It just scanned all the IP addresses on the internet looking for an open port and then installed itself.

if i don't have anti-virus on my computer it doesn't mean i have my ports open :) and i added "to some
extend" meaning that opening attachments with strange names/extensions and/or unexpected senders will eliminate 98% of all the virus attacks. people get viruses because they don't think or don't want to think. and that's what the article mentioned in original post refered to.

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Also, the mydoom virus contains its own email engine. Doesn't matter if you have outlook or not. It scans all the ascii readable files on your machine for anything fitting an email address pattern and sends itself out.

agree, and i didn't mean finding letters in my sent box as a sign of the virus presence either. more like response from mailing list to your email that you didn't send, of from your friend. or some outgoing network traffic when there shouldn't be any.

--
it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ...
Speed Skydiving Forum

[PhillyKev 0]

Do me a favor....go to the sites listed above and run the free online virus scanning and spy ware detectors and let us know the results. As you see above, someone else made the same claims as you and found they were infected when they did that.

[Staso 0]

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Do me a favor....go to the sites listed above and run the free online virus scanning and spy ware detectors and let us know the results. As you see above, someone else made the same claims as you and found they were infected when they did that.

which one specifically do you want me to run ?

--
it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ...
Speed Skydiving Forum

[PhillyKev 0]

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

[Staso 0]

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http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

will do at home and post my results :)

--
it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ...
Speed Skydiving Forum

[bendywendy 0]

I have up to date virus protection and yet three days in the past week it has caught a virus that managed to slip past the email detection and infect a file.

So they can bite me - I'd like to go kick some hacker buttt myself for all the extra crap we have to deal with - but even more than them - the spammers!

[Staso 0]

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Do me a favor....go to the sites listed above and run the free online virus scanning and spy ware detectors and let us know the results. As you see above, someone else made the same claims as you and found they were infected when they did that.

here we go. sorry, to disappoint you, but no viruses for me. see pic attached. but i understand where you're coming from, most people should have anti-virus software on their computers. but my point is, that if you're careful and you know what you're doing (i've been working with computers for 15 years now), then the chances are high that you're gonna be fine without it.

stan.

--
it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ...
Speed Skydiving Forum

[velo90 0]

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As you see above, someone else made the same claims as you and found they were infected when they did that.

But I only lost on a technicality. There were virus's on my machine, but they were not active. My hard disk contained virus code but was not really infected.