On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:13:32 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 9/9/2013 9:50 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:14:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, and.. more to the point, now that they have something semi-decent,
>>
>> What, you mean MS Security Essentials?  You think a /reactive/ tool is
>> semi-decent?  One that isn't based on behaviour, but based on pattern
>> matching?
>>
> No, I meant the just adding in the "basic" functionality, without even
> the extra, "You need to pay us more money to fix the gaping hole, which
> it still won't fix.", that got added. The one that says, "This thing
> needs to alter your machine, are you sure you want that?" In a sense, I
> was semi-joking. But, only just. They are putting locks, and alarms,
> etc. on the doors, and bars that come down, so if something gets in, it
> can't get out (presumably, only.. not really), and leaving an unlocked
> pet door, a shitty email client, default functionality, etc. all in
> place, and their "solution" is, as you say, to make you pay more money
> for something that only reacts "after" the fact... Hell, I can download
> and install free tools to do that, and many of them watch the system for
> changes, and specifically tell me which key changes, and whether or not
> I want the damn thing to auto-run, or roll back the changes. So much for
> "reactive" tools.

MSE isn't an additional cost, it's just a download you can get.  I use it 
in my Windows VMs.  But I'm under no misapprehensions as to what it 
actually does or how useful it is.  It's like the chain you put across 
the door in a cheap motel room.  It's something, but it's not much.

> My point though is.. they can't even get the basics right, and, as a
> result, basic shit that you can do safely in *nix, is locked, in case
> your stupid enough to click something in an unprotected email, which
> redirects you to a bad site, using "by default" 1005 active scripting,
> to download a program, with no run restrictions, which will then, if the
> writer has the slightest clue what they are doing, or buys the right
> tool kit, will just disable everything it sees that might find it,
> and/or alters the "whitelists" for those things, to include itself, or
> any number of other things it **shouldn't have permission to do in the
> first place**. 

And yet *nix is not very popular on desktops.  Hmm, I wonder why (and I'm 
a Linux user).

> Yet, they can't even do something as simple as adding a
> NoScript like feature, into their web browser, which runs "everything"
> on the machine, including their shitty email client... But, they block
> security tools. You know.. the things you need to figure out why the
> frak your network is going spastic, or even just your machine, due to
> all the crap they let in the front door, but them Hotel California-d -
> anything can check in, but its not allowed to leave. lol

Well, finally, you've got some actually technological suggestions for 
things they can do.  Well done. LOL

> You can argue all you want about my not having "solutions". The issue
> here is just how bloody stupid the one things they added, and never
> removed, 3-4 OS versions ago, actually is.

You really overestimate the abilities of the average PC user.  Most users 
don't want to be bothered with whitelisting or other stuff like that - 
they just want to use the damn thing.  Most users don't have the need you 
apparently do to do "approved unorthodox diagnostic work".  They just 
reboot and get back to their Word doc.

Jim

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