Malware cleaner.

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#31 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by Nick »

No, I mean all of you seeming to put up with buggy operating systems and having to pay extra to add on software to prevent problem that should never happen in the first place, then when problems do happen, having to use extra software to tell you what went wrong in the first place.
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#32 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by jack »

Our Linux boxes have bugs too. Serious security problems.
As do our iOS and android phones and MacOS boxes.

It's arguable that the fsf toolchain is third party as are all the App and Play store applications...

My team look after 480-odd Windows hosts - when looked after they give little if any problems.
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#33 Re: Malware cleaner.

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Our Linux boxes have bugs too. Serious security problems.
Of course nothing is secure (just ask Intel), but I am not sure you are comparing like with like there. Just go back over this thread and it seems to be a lot of work that people are putting in and it just struck me that it was needing a lot of looking after for a laptop behind a router firewall.
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#34 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by ed »

the whole lot is a bit academic though, if it turns out to be a hardware problem....

but gpwm
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#35 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by Neal »

Having run a RPi3 for three weeks now as a low powered desktop I have to say I agree with Nick, I don't think I'll ever use a Windows based system again for my own personal use. Having a team of professionals to look after hundreds of Windows servers and clients is all well and good but when you don't need to....hardest part is getting out of the Windows habit of continually doing 'updates'....it just doesn't require it.
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#36 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by jack »

Neal wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:42 am Having run a RPi3 for three weeks now as a low powered desktop I have to say I agree with Nick, I don't think I'll ever use a Windows based system again for my own personal use. Having a team of professionals to look after hundreds of Windows servers and clients is all well and good but when you don't need to....hardest part is getting out of the Windows habit of continually doing 'updates'....it just doesn't require it.
But they do need updates - some of the most horrific vulnerabilities in recent years have been in the various Linux toolchains, e.g. OpenSSL,,,

Unix/Linux does not equal no patching or updates - have a look at the NVD system - there are a tonne of CVEs for Unix variants and their layered products. This is a very common misconception.
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#37 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by Neal »

Nick, I meant continual updates, yes, all computers running an OS will require updates at some point...its the seemingly incessant updates coming out of Microsoft I'm referring to. Of course being, by far, the largest install base the bad guys are going to target them more especially as there are so many downloadable tools available for the kiddies to play with these days....
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#38 Re: Malware cleaner.

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#39 Re: Malware cleaner.

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Don't think there is a day goes by without my Linux install needing updates... seems a lot more frequent than the Windows 10 OS I run on the other laptop.
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#40 Re: Malware cleaner.

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There is a distinction between "needing updates" and updates being available. All the open source devs that work on all the projects that make up Linux are all working away improving and fixing things, each of these changes get integrated by the packed devs of the Linux distributions and end up being seen by the apt-get update or whatever your distribution needs.

On the other side of the coin it took me months to push the Debian devs to update the OS project I work on, ironically it was Microsoft wanting the later version that made my life easier to get the updates pushed out.
But they do need updates - some of the most horrific vulnerabilities in recent years have been in the various Linux toolchains, e.g. OpenSSL,,,
Seems a bit unfair that Nick, OpenSSL is not a Linux toolchain, conflating the two in respect of bugs seems off to me, nothing stopping the other vendors from writing their own crypto subsystem if they want. All software has bugs.
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#41 Re: Malware cleaner.

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Nick wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:48 pm Seems a bit unfair that Nick, OpenSSL is not a Linux toolchain, conflating the two in respect of bugs seems off to me, nothing stopping the other vendors from writing their own crypto subsystem if they want. All software has bugs.
My point entirely. Linux, in it's purest form, is the kernel and nothing else. The default toolchain is the GCC one (loads of issues over the years with that). The Apache project contributes the web server and loads of other stuff - stacks of serious problems with those over the years. OpenSSL is on every Linux distro because Linux as we've stated is really just a kernel, so no TLS without OpenSSL (or an equivalent).... and on and on and on...

For Linux to be useful, you need a stack of addons, i.e. a distro, and they (and the kernel) have very much all had their share of serious issues.

All software does indeed have bugs. All of it.
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#42 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by ed »

There is a distinction between "needing updates" and updates being available
imo this is an important distinction.

Most non techy users buy a machine from Currys or Ebuyer or whomever and take the most readily available advice and switch auto updating ON.
This action alone must generate a good percentage of the gripes/criticisms that appear on the interweb. Some updates can cause problems for some users, and do!

techy users buying the same machine rarely turn auto update on, and update on a 'need to' basis when security issues are advertised....


and so we get the circular discussions about which OS and sometimes which hardware is best, which are meaningless in the main because they are misunderstood and often partisan discussions between those that understand the technology and those victims that are sold the techology with little understanding of the detail.....

The discussions are even more suspect because often those users that start a discussion are non techy and as soon as the discussion is joined by the techy contributors the original posters are off and never seen again.......

I really and truly knew what I wanted to say when I started this post...but I seem to have got lost...apologies...

also it took so long to type that another post has appeared that may have addressed what I was trying to say...or not.

edit: briefly again, imo....simple questions relating to IT issues are often responded to by techies who start scoring points with smart-arsed answers full of acronyms and quickly OT........I noticed this a lot on the embedded chip forums.....noobies got no chance.
Last edited by ed on Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#43 Re: Malware cleaner.

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jack wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:35 pm
Nick wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:48 pm Seems a bit unfair that Nick, OpenSSL is not a Linux toolchain, conflating the two in respect of bugs seems off to me, nothing stopping the other vendors from writing their own crypto subsystem if they want. All software has bugs.
My point entirely. Linux, in it's purest form, is the kernel and nothing else. The default toolchain is the GCC one (loads of issues over the years with that). The Apache project contributes the web server and loads of other stuff - stacks of serious problems with those over the years. OpenSSL is on every Linux distro because Linux as we've stated is really just a kernel, so no TLS without OpenSSL (or an equivalent).... and on and on and on...

For Linux to be useful, you need a stack of addons, i.e. a distro, and they (and the kernel) have very much all had their share of serious issues.

All software does indeed have bugs. All of it.
Yes, but the above is also true (for example) of OSX and OpenBSD.
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#44 Re: Malware cleaner.

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Nick wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 1:43 pm Yes, but the above is also true (for example) of OSX and OpenBSD.
Not sure what you're getting at here - OSX is FreeBSD-based and so all these are UNIX systems, either open-source or not.

I have no axe to grind with UNIX at all - I love it. Not even sure why this discussion is continuing.

All o/s s/w is complex. it all has bugs. Some very nasty indeed. If you want a light-weight (e.g. embedded) system, Linux or other UNIX variants are cool. I run Linux systems for stuff like OpenVPN at work and have probably 15 or more in the house (RPis mainly). Some of my best friends are Linux systems :)
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#45 Re: Malware cleaner.

Post by Neal »

Well I've enjoyed the discussion on a slow-at-work-day. Bottom line seems to be these latest vulnerabilities are going to cause server farms and MSPs far more issues than home users. Who should continue to be vigilant against all the 'normal' attacks faced when on-line...in that link to RPi I posted earlier in the comments somebody has posted a white paper on the new threats and shows how Javascript can be used to exploit them...
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