Researchers warn of infectious websites

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Ok, I'll comment on these:

I think Outlook is an excellent program (haven't been invited to beta test Gmail yet)

Well, I don't. It's bloated and slow. And so is it's Mac equivalent, Entourage. And it's another easy target for hackers and viruses.

I think Access (while I hate it because im a developer) is an EXCELLENT, easy to use application for people just starting out working with databases

It's OK. There are better ones. And they chose not port this to Mac for some odd reason. But Mac people use Filemaker anyway.

I think EXCEL is a wonderful application

This is the one killer app in the Microshaft arsenal that no one does better.

Ditto for Frontpage 2003 if you know NOTHING about web development

Frontpage is a mess and another example of Microshaft putting proprietary crap in their programs that cause problems for the rest of the web world. Frontpage tage are the bane of my existence.

And from a developer's standpoint I think Visual Studio.net is hands down the best development IDE available. Id be willing to bet that Numa would even agree with me on this one. I'm not saying everyone would agree that vb.net or c# are the best LANGUAGES...im just talking about the IDE.

You got me on this one. I'm not a developer and haven't used it.

Titan, you ever used Microsoft Map Point? or Visio? Both EXCELLENT EXCELLENT programs as well.

Haven't used these either.

So to say the NEVER do anything close to perfect is unfair IMO

Maybe. But the biggest Achilles heel to all of these is that they primarily run on Windows. That takes points off right away.

[BamaGrad03 0]

Titan, have you seen the office 2003 products? I think they are a VAST improvement over years past. Especially FrontPage and Outlook.

I don't use Frontpage...I do everything in VisualStudio. But many of the issues people have had with Frontpage in the past are just that...in the past.

Numa my point is Microsoft has ALL of these things...not just a web browser...so if a company comes along and improves on MS's browser, big frikin deal...thats all they do. People spend so much time nitpicking MS all the time and don't look at the big picture.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Titan, have you seen the office 2003 products? I think they are a VAST improvement over years past. Especially FrontPage and Outlook.

Frontpage still doesn't hold a candle to a regular, standards compliant web authoring program like Dreamweaver or GoLive. Outlook is better but still not as good as other options, IMO. About 75% of my office runs XP with Office 2003 so I encounter it on a regular basis. The Mac users in the office have about a tenth of the problems that the Windows users do on a "per capita" basis.

I don't use Frontpage...I do everything in VisualStudio. But many of the issues people have had with Frontpage in the past are just that...in the past.

I'd still rather not be locked into a program that does things with web pages that no other program does. You create a web site in Dreamweaver or (for you real techies) just using code in a word processor, anyone can work with it later. Create it in FrontPage and anyone working on the site thereafter not using FrontPage is cursing your name.

Numa my point is Microsoft has ALL of these things...not just a web browser...so if a company comes along and improves on MS's browser, big frikin deal...thats all they do. People spend so much time nitpicking MS all the time and don't look at the big picture.

That's not nitpicking. The problem is other companies come along and do all kinds of things better than Microshaft. But M$ uses their leverage with Windows to make it difficult and/or expensive to switch to those better programs. There are better and more secure browsers and email clients. There are better database programs. There are better presentation programs. There are better web authoring programs. There are better operating systems. But when someone is so entrenched and big, it's difficult to get a "fair fight" with them on many levels.

I do look at the big picture and think we'd all be better off if Windows market share fell to around 65-75%, Mac OS moved up to about 10-15% and Linux about 15-20%. It would be just enough to get Microsoft's attention and break their stranglehold on programmers and the market in general and maybe make them be actually competitive again based on the quality of the actual product they produce. They have been cruising for years and their bugs, security holes, and other issues are the price we all pay for it.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

I use two Spyware Removal Programs. Both are free!

If anyone needs any help running these, please let me know, and I'll be glad to help.

Hope this helps...

OK - I installed Spybot and ran it - found lots of stuff that came up in red, and I told it to KILL. I asume that was the appropriate thing to do? There was some mention of things showing up in green or blue or something, that they were system stuff(??) and I am not sure how to deal with those, but since none have come up yet, I haven't had to make a potentially bad decision! Thought I would ask first!!

There was even a sex site spyware thingy that came up - before anyone starts on the jokes about "Jenny must be cutting off the since she had the baby", let me assure you that he has no reason to complain, and I know for a fact that he did not download any porn. I actually have a legitimate theory and question about how the sex thing got on the computer: I use a hotmail account for email, and as everyone knows, you get tons of porn spam. One time I opened a "not porn" piece of junk mail, then deleted it. Hotmail automatically opens the next piece of mail, which WAS a porn email, so is that a possibility on how the sex spyware got on there?

[TitanTiger 20,499]

If you've ever used a peer-to-peer file sharing program like Kazaa to download music, film clips or other stuff off other people's computers, you could have downloaded a virus, spyware, or other bad stuff. Gotta be careful with those programs. Plus, Kazaa puts spyware on your computer just by installing it. So do some "password organizer" programs like Gator.

[BamaGrad03 0]

Also if you have every done anything online that verifies your age (ie used a credit card) to show you as over 18...they can sell your info (sometimes) to adult spammers.

[CCTAU 3,327]

Go here and read some of the nightmares that are going on.

Malware Removal

There are also many links to many different tools. In conjunction with Spybot, I would definitely download and run Ad-aware.

If you get the coolweb search, good luck. CWShredder might work and might not work.

If you get it off of your machine and some of the things still seem to be messed up, you can hit start....run...and type in sfc /scannow to replace any corrupt or incorrect XP registers.

Like I said, read over the tips on the website above and be careful.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Apparently, this latest flaw in IE was something they had fixed with a patch back in IE 5.0 and has now reappeared. Geez Louise, Redmond...get your act together. Some security researchers are taking the unprecedented step of recommending that people adopt an alternate browser to avoid vulnerabilities:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-5253112.html

See, part of the problem is how integrated IE is with the Windows OS. Microsoft did this to avoid antitrust issues with their practice of bundling IE with new PCs, but it opens users up to a host of other dangerous problems.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Here's one guys perspective on Microsoft, Windows, missed opportunities, and so on. He worked at Microsoft for several years and I think offers a unique perspective:

...I began using Microsoft products 23 years ago, at age 11, and I worked for Microsoft from 1991 to 1999 as a technology manager. For many years, I was a Microsoft loyalist. While aware of Microsoft’s shortcomings, I always believed that the Soft did its best to improve products over time, as it did with Windows XP. But recently, I’ve had a crisis of faith. Perhaps I’ve rebooted Windows one too many times...

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0422...s_microsoft.php

[Guest AuNuma1]

Nice find Titan. I mean, this guy is a former MS employee and not some linux tool (anti-MS) so even BS has to agree with some of the stuff this guy is talking about. Especially the part about MS's market share going no higher.

Perhaps I’ve rebooted Windows one too many times.

It's even written into server documentation as a daily operation!

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Geez Louise, what do they do in Redmond to earn all that money? I swear, I'm beginning to think Windows is actually a cruel joke disguised as an operating system.

Microsoft Patch Leaves Holes Open

Wilbert de Vries and Paul Roberts, WebWereld Netherlands

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

PC World Magazine

Microsoft's effort last week to fix a vulnerability in the Internet Explorer Web browser and end the latest series of Internet attacks doesn't address another closely related and dangerous vulnerability, according to a security specialist.

Dutch security expert Jelmer Kuperus published code on the Web last week that he says can be used to break into fully patched Windows systems using a slightly modified version of an attack called Download.Ject that Microsoft patched last week. The new attack targets a hole in a different Windows component than the one addressed by Microsoft's software patch. Using a similar attack, malicious hackers could break into even patched Windows machines, Kuperus says.

Microsoft confirms that the company is aware of the exploit code, but does not believe any customers have been attacked using the Shell.Application exploit, a spokesperson says.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116796,00.asp

Another Internet Explorer flaw found

By  Robert Lemos

CNET News.com

July 7, 2004, 5:32 AM PT

A computer science researcher has highlighted the shortcomings of Microsoft's latest patch for its Internet Explorer browser by identifying another way that online vandals could run malicious programs on a Web surfer's computer.

Microsoft on Friday released a fix that's designed to protect computers from one of three flaws that, together, could be used to digitally slip past a PC's security through the browser. This weekend, however, a security researcher identified another flaw that could serve the same purpose and that isn't fixed by Microsoft's patch.

"They chose to address only one part of the problem," said Jelmer Kuperus, a computer science student in the Netherlands who posted the code for the work-around. "They should have seen this one coming."...

...The most recent flaw is not new--security researchers first discussed the issue in January, Kuperus said. It had originally been considered minor, but the flaw is significant because it can be used in conjunction with the two other vulnerabilities, which were found at the beginning of June. Together, all three add up to easy access to Windows computers running Internet Explorer.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-5259374.html

IT experts critical of IE workaround

By Bill Brenner, News Writer

07 Jul 2004 | SearchSecurity.com

Microsoft's workaround to address security holes in Internet Explorer may successfully block future attacks. But it fails to fix the browser's core problem and may actually interfere with programs that have worked fine to date, some information security experts said yesterday. They added that the company must respond to flaws more quickly than it has in the past...

..."The real problem I see with Microsoft is their failure to communicate and especially their failure to fix these security holes in any kind of timely manner," Copley said via e-mail."In the case of these bugs, they have gone almost a year without fixing them. This bug was a major bar-lowerer. It made it easy to run executable code. We said this over and over again. I think they still would not have fixed it if a number of people with some voice hadn't made an issue over it."...

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/origi...i991676,00.html

I really think that nothing is going to change at Microsoft until the lemmings that stick with them through all this demand better and penalize M$ in the wallet when they don't.