From: Peter H. Coffin (hellsop_at_ninehells.com)
Date: Sun Sep 21 2003 - 19:08:01 PDT
On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 09:50:53PM -0400, Eric L. Strobel wrote:
> somewhere near the temporal coordinates of 9/21/03 9:33 PM, the entity known
> as Peter H. Coffin transmitted the following from hellsop_at_ninehells.com:
>
> >> Same here! I don't know what I would do if my computer was always under
> >> attack by one or the other virus du jour...
> >
> > Keep current with the patches from your OS vendor, hopefully...
>
> This whole patching thing reminds me of the movie 'Young Frankenstein', you
> know when there's a problem and the good doctor asks Igor (that's eye-gor)
> where he got the brain. The reply went something like... "It was marked
> Abby, Abby Normal."
>
> BTW, for those poor afflicted Windows folks that strive to keep their
> patching current... Just exactly how do you spend the copious amounts of
> free time in the remaining 23 minutes of your day? ;-)
As I ranted about elsewhere about an hour ago, the last three or four
major outbreaks are ones that could be *prevented* by applying the fix
that Microsoft pushed out through the Windows Update notification a
whole week prior to the virus showing up. All it takes is someone
setting their machine up "download and install in the background" and
getting in the habit of rebooting every couple of days. Once those
patches are in place, the viruses CAN'T do their thing automatically,
and reasonable care about not going clickyclicky on files from random
strangers is sufficient to prevent problems. It's not the choice of OS
that's the problem, it's a combination of inexusable laziness (by not
bothering with the updates that are all but literally HANDED to the
users on a silver platter) and hype by anti-virus vendors claiming that
the users are safe and secure with their SpecialAV software, leading to
the users not bothering with the updates, becuase "the antivirus will
take care of it."
--
"Meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain"
--
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