Wednesday, April 16, 2008

And the neckbone's connected to the... ankle bone?

Microsoft recently released a security update to its spyware detector product built in to Windows Vista. The only problem: It disables USB keyboard and mouse. Which, if you've bought a non-laptop computer lately, you know that all the new computers come with USB keyboard and mouse. Thus rendering said computer into a doorstop.

Now, how it is that a spyware software update can disable USB devices, I dunno. Spyware software shouldn't be touching USB hardware or even the USB subsystem as a whole. There's just no connection between the two. That's like the neckbone connecting to the ankle bone.

On the other hand, we're talking Microsoft. 'Softies don't think like us mere peons, they're smarter than we are and can always come up with new and innovative ways to add bugs to our computers. If Microsoft had designed Frankenstein's monster, the ankle bone probably WOULD have been coming out of the neckbone, and the monster would have been scuttling along on its back with its feet coming out of its neck. I am so glad to be running MacOS on my laptop nowdays...

-- Badtux the Techie Penguin

7 comments:

  1. Badtux,

    M$ one giant leap backward.

    Theres only one answer to M$, linux. If you have to run WIntel hardware don't infest it with M$. Of course if the archetecture wasn't so awful and lacking in fundamental security it wouldn't be such a hack

    I'm buying my first ever new laptop and guess what OS is NOT installed.


    Eck!

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  2. Well now, as a Linux penguin I've attempted to run Linux on a laptop many times. The problem I keep running into is that I can't reliably get WiFi networking working, nor can I use my Sprint Bluetooth phone as a modem to access the home office. I finally gave up and bought a Macbook. It "Just Works" and, behind the scenes, it's actually FreeBSD so if you want you can just pop open a "terminal" window, which puts you at the bash prompt, and all your normal Unix/Linux commands are available, even "make" and "gcc" (assuming you installed the XCode package when you installed MacOS). Ones not available, you can add via the third-party MacPorts system (similar to the FreeBSD "ports" system), but thus far I've only added "mc" and "git" (the former because I need a Norton Commander like filesystem browser, the latter because I need to deal with Linux kernel source).

    Regardless of what OS I run, I have to run VMware on my laptop because I have to compile our applications for three different versions of Linux, so I bumped my RAM up to 4 gigabytes and installed VMware. I then created an encrypted filesystem for the corporate source code (looks like gibberish when I don't have it mounted), and NFS-mount it from within the VMware. That lets me use the native VPN software, the corporate revision control software, etc. on MacOS to connect in to work, as well as Aquamacs for editing source code and iWork for creating documents and presentations, while also being able to compile and test our software under multiple versions of Linux. And if anybody steals my Macbook, all they get is my collection of penguin porn and a file full of unreadable gibberish (since you need the password to mount it)...

    So for this Linux penguin, the Macbook has turned out to be the best Unix laptop out there. It also fits well on airplanes and trains...

    - Badtux the MacPenguin

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  3. now that they are making bond movies again i have returned to a recurring notion that bill gates would make a perfect bond villian. at the part where bond is about to be gruesomely and exotically killed and the bad guy always feels compelled to talk about it, gates could say:

    i was only trying to help. they wouldn't understand. stupid fools.

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  4. ...the answer seems clear to me. The best way to prevent spyware from getting onto a 'tower' or desktop model is to address it at the ultimate logical source (ULS). If you disable the keyboard and mouse, that ULS - i.e., the computer operator - will be incapable of getting on-line (or doing much of anything else, apparently, but sacrifices must be made); if you can't get online, you can't pick up spyware, so the ULS is blocked. These 'Softies are geniuses, I tell ya....

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  5. Mr. Yenta just recently bought us a laptop, but he said he only got it because it was available with XP. It looks like Vista is going to be the newer, bigger, badder Windowns ME. Businesses are still resisting adopting and Bill Gates is already talking about its replacement.

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  6. 2 things come to mind, well, 3 actually, but more about that later.

    1. Flash drives should be disabled during a virus scan, then re-enabled.

    2. Recording studios, where I work, use a gadget called an iLok, which is basically a small flash drive, that holds all the license information for the ProTools system and plug-ins. Ditto above during scanning.

    Of course, as a 95% Mac user, I really don't have to suck Bill Gates' tiny weenie.

    YMMV.

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  7. Uhm, no. Flash drives should be *enabled* during virus scans. Otherwise you can't detect viruses located on the flash drives.

    Regarding the iLok, that's one reason why I'm glad that Apple took the iLok protection off of their Logic music production system. Not that there's a virus scanning issue on the Mac, since there are no Mac viruses, but (shrug). I already don't have enough ports on my Macbook for all the stuff I want to hook up to it.

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