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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: blobrana on July 02, 2004, 03:07:31 PM

Title: Danger. Danger...
Post by: blobrana on July 02, 2004, 03:07:31 PM
Hum,
in case you pc users don`t already know...

<[color=5196F3]Danger. Danger , Will Robinson[/color]>
Replace and disable Internet Explorer now!
<[color=5196F3]/Danger. Danger , Will Robinson[/color]>


<[color=5196F3]Never fear, smith is here[/color]>
Solution here (http://www.newsforge.com/software/04/07/01/123233.shtml)
<[color=5196F3]/Never fear, smith is here[/color]>

Good luck...   :-)
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Vincent on July 02, 2004, 03:24:21 PM
I was thinking more along the lines of... danger danger, high voltage! :-P

Quote
The difference is, Sun designed Java with security in mind, and Microsoft didn't.
:lol: So true!

I'm glad I don't use IE anymore, I don't need to waste my bandwidth on stupid updates for a stupid program, I just waste it on HL:DoD instead :-D
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: spihunter on July 02, 2004, 04:31:32 PM
Has Anyone tried this: xplite (http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html)

It claims that it can remove IE 8-)
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Vincent on July 02, 2004, 05:01:40 PM
Great innit?

You buy Windows then you've to buy something else that's unofficial so you can be in control of your software :lol:
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: DonnyEMU on July 02, 2004, 07:13:23 PM
The thing that annoys me about the whole browser war issue is that Microsoft took another approach to things than Netscape/Mozilla did and have been taken to task for it..

The first demos I ever saw of Windows "chicago" 95 experimented with the idea is that if you have one window open you could open a word document and excel document whatever you wanted any window could be any program. That element is still there today.

Microsoft and rightly so saw the fact that http telnet and ftp are protocols just like SMB and other existing protocols should be built into the OS.. I would like to see this approach taken in AmigaOS, and then the browser just becomes an application that enables these protocols.

You can't disable or remove IE because it is based on integrated protocols which I could argue should be part of the OS anyway, not an add-on..

I would just say that it's all how you implement them. I would love to see an HTTP-Handler built into the AmigaOS that is an integrated as data types are..

Netscape can still be run with IE present. Why hobble your OS...
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: blobrana on July 02, 2004, 07:48:47 PM
>>Why hobble your OS...

Hum,
 it seem that, security wise, you don't have to actually `surf` ,`click`  or `download`  anything with IE to get Wiped-out, dude...

It just has to be on your machine...

The new breed of worms come hunting ...

Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: seer on July 02, 2004, 08:18:10 PM
Has Anyone tried this: xplite

Jep, it's pretty good, lots of things it lets you uninstall/reinstall the easy way (Outlook Express, Media Player (IIRC there are 3 MP on XP, the "original", version 7 and you can install version 9)..

Also let's you deactivate Windows File protection and other windows hard to get rid of preinstalled stuff..

It's pretty expensive for something you use only a few times..
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Floid on July 02, 2004, 08:43:44 PM
Quote

DonnyEMU wrote:
Microsoft and rightly so saw the fact that http telnet and ftp are protocols just like SMB and other existing protocols should be built into the OS.. I would like to see this approach taken in AmigaOS, and then the browser just becomes an application that enables these protocols.
Conversely, it's great to have one program that does everything.  (I can't bring myself to consider filemanagers that won't preview images anymore.)  But then, when do you ever stop using that program?  And how much longer until that program becomes an 'OS,' as happened to Windows itself?

Quote
You can't disable or remove IE because it is based on integrated protocols which I could argue should be part of the OS anyway, not an add-on..
You can from '98, you just get left with Windows 95, in terms of file management.  XP is DOJ-compliant (where "allow disabling, to some extent" has been taken equal to "remove"), so people don't try so hard.  MS have a valid point in so far as developers should be able to 'link against' IE if they want, but they're also convicted monopolists, so government theoretically had the right to say "f*** off, you already own the planet."

Quote
I would just say that it's all how you implement them. I would love to see an HTTP-Handler built into the AmigaOS that is an integrated as data types are..
Well, for one thing, the protocol implementation should probably be separate from the renderer.  This is theoretically true on *NIX, or at least could be with ease (enh, the W3C has a http lib, right, I forget what it's called?), to the extent that you could even have as many http handlers as you want (libbob'shttp, libshirley'shttp), but of course, there's also the freedom for the libraries to have completely different interfaces.  (Note that there *are* drop-in, compatible library replacements in use on the planet, under flavors of *NIX that allow that sort of thing... Lesstif versus Motif, for instance; at least, I *think* that one's a drop-in.)

Better to consider are the UI and sociological problems.  It's a subtle one, since consistently is normally good, but when the underpinning is "invisible," a user isn't forced to be aware of who's code their running.  Now let's say libralph'shttp has a bug that filters all references to the existence of the Republican Party.  Is your user aware if she's using Ralph's version or not?  What sort of hoops must she jump through to find out?  Is she going to realize there's a problem in the first place, or does she keep voting Libertarian despite a strong and overwhelming desire to invade Iraq and restrict the rights of homosexuals? ;-)

That's the UI problem.  If you don't see it, you may or may not know about it, and from this is "DLL hell" begat.

The sociological problem is that, with consistency, all this very fancy code -- maybe it's hard to imagine a Quake datatype, to play .WADs, but how about one to handle or edit 3D models? -- gets hidden behind the same old system UI.  "Great?"  Well, sure, for the user, at least if they don't accidentally install Ralph's lib.  But many developers, even when not coding for profit, usually want some recognition; they want a "brand."  One way around this is to be Apple, and simply tell developers to suck it up, but software that is both good and easily identifiable has an unfortunate tendency to propagate faster than software that's equally good but stays 'behind the scenes.'  To the extent that even Apple's official stuff has that shiny metal (woodgrain?!) skin on it, to remind you you're using "the real thing."

You can get around this for a while, but all it takes is one WinAMP to blow a hole in the side of the boat.
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Cyberus on July 02, 2004, 08:51:27 PM
Quote

Vincent wrote:
I was thinking more along the lines of... danger danger, high voltage! :-P

Funny that...so was I

Quote

I just waste it on HL:DoD instead :-D

Too right! Since I played that round a friend's house I've been considering building a PC, just so I can play it! SO addictive! SO cool!
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Floid on July 02, 2004, 08:57:18 PM
Quote

blobrana wrote:
>>Why hobble your OS...

Hum,
 it seem that, security wise, you don't have to actually `surf` ,`click`  or `download`  anything with IE to get Wiped-out, dude...

It just has to be on your machine...

The new breed of worms come hunting ...

Most of the worms that hit you while you're doing nothing don't bother taking advantage of IE.  Some of the last wave, at least, hit on the idea of injecting code that calls a tftp client (function?) buried in Windows to fetch the 'rest of' the worm.

Getting rid of such services is a brute-force approach to the problem; you could always just pull the plug.  At the same time, there's no reason for a home user's desktop to sit ready to accept a remote procedure call or SMB file copy from anywhere else on the planet by default.
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Glaucus on July 02, 2004, 08:57:38 PM
Of course, you could also just install the latest patch that supposedly fixes this problem: Microsoft Releases Fix for IE Phishing Exploit (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/07/02/microsoft_releases_fix_for_ie_phishing_exploit.html).

I'm all patched up.  :-D

You might also want to install BHODemon (http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm) to ensure you don't have any nasty Browser Helper Objects installed. A while back I used hijackthis (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html) to clean up a friend's & my sister's computer from BHO type malware. It wasn't really that hard, you just have to know which BHO's are friendly and which are not (using something like TCPView (http://www.sysinternals.com) helps narrow down the bad guys fairly quickly).

Btw, I tried to install Netscape 7.1, and I keep getting a BSOD at about the time it's installing Java. When I reboot I see the NS7.1 icons, but it doesn't work. Resuming the install makes it go all mental, and restarting from scartch just gets me the BSOD again.  Hmmm...  Not a good thing...  I think I've given up on NS7.1, now trying Opera. Hope that installs a bit more smoothly.  :-)

  - Mike
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: blobrana on July 02, 2004, 09:19:04 PM
Tnx for those links...

And i`ll add:

Information  (http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/download_ject.mspx) on Download.Ject exploit

So M$ has releasing a configuration change (http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/5/5/e55bbf16-ae16-4d58-8f75-3233ec146255/Windows-KB870669-x86-ENU.exe)  for Windows XP, er, available on Windows Update.
(Those poor soles using Windows XP SP2 RC2 need not apply to this update.)



 :-)
[And they lived happy ever after, er, until the next exploit showed up]
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Hyperspeed on July 02, 2004, 09:58:36 PM
For someone who has only ever used an Amiga (with occasional playing
about on PC) it is very worrying that we are often called to help out
PC users who have gotten into a mess.

How is the average Amiga user to know about worms, viruses, spyware
etc.?

We don't get any of this trouble so we are useless to ask really.

:-(

I think I get enough trouble trying to ward off sites putting cookies
on my machine (looks at Amiga.org) and I'm glad that Amiga browsers
have basic security measures such as warning about submissions,
insecure links and referer headers.

I always look to Virus Help Denmark for my virus needs but that is
just basic file virus detection.

The PC world has gotten a whole lot nastier in the last few years, I
hear now that worms just look for random IPs now and brute-force into
your ports!

Eeek!

:-o
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: BIG-IRON on July 02, 2004, 10:02:31 PM
I use mozilla firefox and love it, try it out guys! its even skinable
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: HopperJF on July 02, 2004, 10:05:23 PM
When I was on NTL with my XP machine last year (suicide) we got a worm every month or two. It was a complete joke.
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: blobrana on July 14, 2004, 10:48:37 AM
Well,
 there's a whole flurry of new patches to be downloaded today ...
And a few in the pipe line for a couple of new IE security flaws...
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Vincent on July 14, 2004, 12:35:24 PM
Quote

blobrana wrote:
Well,
 there's a whole flurry of new patches to be downloaded today ...
And a few in the pipe line for a couple of new IE security flaws...
Surprise surprise :-P

Someone should hack the m$ websites and redirect people to alternative browsers :-D
Title: Re: Danger. Danger...
Post by: Vincent on July 14, 2004, 01:25:13 PM
Quote

blobrana wrote:
So M$ has releasing a configuration change (http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/5/5/e55bbf16-ae16-4d58-8f75-3233ec146255/Windows-KB870669-x86-ENU.exe)  for Windows XP, er, available on Windows Update.
(Those poor soles using Windows XP SP2 RC2 need not apply to this update.

Hmmm, just seen this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3889353.stm) wee article and remembered what you've been saying about SP2...

Quote
A major update to the Windows XP operating system will be available to download from August, two months later than originally expected.

The update, called Service Pack 2, is intended to make the operating system from Microsoft much more secure.

:roflmao: :roflmao:
Quote
The company, based in Redmond, US, said it needed extra time to ensure the proposed software changes were stable.

:lol:

They never cease to amuse :-D