Anti-virus pioneer Alan Solomon thinks anti-virus is dead. H

[mikeb]

but I'm not sure you can remove or uncouple windows explorer from the OS

shell changing has always been an option on NT...... beyond logging in its your choice as such.

It will not change file open dialogs and similar but they come from shell32...hmm not a full shell change really just the desktop and filebrowser.... assume a replacement for the latter is around.

Some did try to use the NT4 explorer but its a non starter unfortunately.

Again don't be running outlook express from yer alternative desktop...that would be naughty.

By the way 'view my desktop as a web page ' must have been the pinnacle of computer and security stupidity I suppose if you owned the internet it made more sense...ah megalomania and monopolies are fun to watch.

mike

[ardvark]

'view my desktop as a web page '

Wow, I haven't seen that in a while! I think the last time was on Windows 98 running Internet Explorer 4 or something like that.

Regards...

[vtpup]

MikeB your comments on schools are apropos. I'm on our district school board and am fighting district union IT and administration over their adoption of Chromebooks for students, Google groups and apps for all staff, teachers etc.

I'd rather see Linux and GNU as a direction for the future. And limitations on the need to connect and share huge volumes of unnecessary and or confidential student performance information, tracking etc. with commercial outfits.

I took home a Chromebook of a type they are considering buying for all the elementary school kids, and tried to simply back up the OS, according to Google's instructions. It required a connection to the Internet to accomplish, and 5 attempts which lasted up to 12 hours failed to do even that. The cancel button didn't work either and there was no progress indicator -- just a spinning icon. Total and absolute crap! I didn't even bother to install a Linux dual boot system, because I couldn't back up what was a piece of school property.

Even more amazing, the district union is addressing the privacy issue now with a proposal to have students sign an agreement to give up ALL rights to privacy and confidentiality. That's IT's and administration's solution to data security problems. Wiggling out of liability. That's the only issue.

Well you ask, why should students want or need privacy? Similar question to the commonly expressed idea that says if you don't patronize porn websites you shouldn't worry about malware.

Here's why students, parents, teachers, and administrators and IT heads should give a damn about what they REQUIRE kids to use, while forcing them to sign waivers:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/d ... 06676.html

[mikeb]

Yes... my glib comment does glide over the wider issues behind it.

I also find they are very good at spending other peoples money with little thought to value and long term use and other consequences and being non technical will be easily swayed by whoever buys the best slap up meal during the sales hype....hey it works for drug companies all the time.

Educational establishments should be remaining neutral in regards to what they use...forcing one companies or anothers software is not a good investment for anyones future. Apart from the obvious, what happens when big corp A no longer is interested in software b or machine c or system y and student x has not a clue how to work with anything else.

Sure use google, MS and so forth..... and at the same time go for open file/document standards so there is always a choice and you are not locked into one companies system.

Another aspect is since say MS force buying new hardware all the time... and google will undoubtedly be on the same path...it can become very expensive for parents to keep up with this gravy train as well as all the other items schools seem to require now.

If you have kids at school...protest...kick up a fuss...boycott any attempt to railroad anything that smells of someone elses fast buck. .

mike

[vtpup]

Exactly Mike.

Everybody here keeps saying kids need "tech" at school, which they equate with the ability to touch type and run canned applications.

Thus they now believe that high speed Internet access is essential to run a cloud based typing program that monitors kids performance after they provide personal details, email address, then log in and sign a user agreement.

The concept that a typing program could run locally on a machine without logging into Google, or worse, is incomprehensible. Yet some of the earliest applications in the PC revolution were typing tutors! They're a dime a dozen.

To me, if you want to teach "tech", give kids a Raspberry Pi, let them take it home and try programming something -- just like it was in the late 70's early 80's Let them learn by doing.

Legend here says when and if "rednecks" make a gift of a car to their kids, they take apart the motor first. Kid then has to put it together to get it to run.

Redneck? No, It's just a true understanding of the best education principles.

[neerajkolte]

I understand what you say about learning by doing.
When I was an apprentice in tool room making press tools and pneumatic fixtures. Better than from reading theory, I learned by dismantling many tools and pneumatic valves to understand their functioning.
I am glad my mentor never stopped me from doing it in the fear of damaging the goods. This knowledge of their core functioning helps me a lot in troubleshooting now that I work in maintenance dept.

Also after apprenticeship I worked in some small scale industries before joining major auto maker. This helped me to think of the ways to do things when easier costlier tools were not available. Kind of out of box thinking.

Lack of easier tools, do increase creativity and skills with proper motivation of course.

Thanks.

- Neeraj.

[mikeb]

Well we tried school briefly.... was told the 7 year old would learn how to use a mouse and keyboard that year... he had been uploading content to his website and designing its template from home for some time by then

I learned the majority of what I used later in life outside of school (well electronics was not on anyones curriculum at the time and a computer was something the teachers wheeled out, tried to turn on, and wheeled away again... a good pile on money wasted was that one ...allowing for inflation that piece cost 10,000 pound! Ok going back a bit but in the computer class the kids were teaching the teacher.) .... college was a formality to get a piece of paper....beyond the 3 rs the education
was mainly useful for partaking in general knowledge quizzes.
Best one was after 7 years of french I was still hopeless and could probably not manage more than one line of conversation. After 2 months in France and an AA phrasebook I was able to do basic 2 way communication.

Hmm offtopic I realised...but noticed it in the off topic section...did it move or am I losing it again?

mike

[vtpup]

Okay so back to topic, re. local programs vs java based browser equivalents.

Basically nowadays all malware comes from the Internet. You can refine that down to specific OS and browser holes, ignorance, false assurances by anti-virus outfits, etc.,

But bottom line, a clean computer OS install which never connects should stay healthy forever, assuming you add a few productvity apps from known sources and they are clean -- especially open source stuff, since it has no hidden surprises from the author

The impression being created is that all apps and personal storage must be centralized and communicated through the net "for security reasons". This kind of amazes me.

It seems to me that computing should be detached from communicating.

If you do that, the computing side remains functional, and the communication device is the only one that can be corrupted. But, if it has limited power to do anything else, being just an appliance, then It really doesn't attract the attention of malware.

The analogy is a phone, a video player, a web surfing device, and a disconnected personal computer. If you keep them separate, none is powerful enough, or exposed enough to do much harm -- or be of interest.

It's the combination that creates the problems.

The cellphone computer, and it's near relative, the Chromebook are the most recent stage in combining functions, producing a very attractive target, because of its cross connected power to control things and create wealth.

The schools are a particularly sensitive location to combine this power. But it simply highlights the architecture of technological vulnerability.

[vtpup]

A second and simultaneous problem is the continuing redefinition of privacy.

The growing disparity between user and and software developer privacy is a shield to malware.

This re-definition can be seen as users must sign blanket agreements eliminating their own rights to privacy, while agreeing to protect the proprietary nature -- the privacy -- of the software itself.

Users must not distribute or decompile or share, or re-sell the software while software companies must be allowed to compile user data and sell it without restriction.

To convince people to do this, code is hidden, contracts are obfuscated, false assurances given, code changed automatically on machines, web scripts hidden. Naturally that is fertile ground for adding malware, since it's hard to distinguish from good-ware. In fact the distinction has been entirely lost in many cases. Proprietary software is now largely indistinguishable from malware.

Which is REALLY why antivirus is dead.

[mikeb]

Now can someone fix this flaming forum......

[mikeb]

triple forum brain fart today

[mikeb]

I always was dubious about software engineers
as a young hardware technician...now I know why

As you point out any malware has to be given to the victim by some method...the internet is a great way to do it...fast and efficient. Basic system design should keep a healthy distance between the internet and the machine.... the Windows flaw was doing exactly the opposite and look at the result. I hope the rest of the software world continues to use some common sense in the design of systems...a solid security model is worth 10.000 antivirus programs....il est morte

mike