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Trust Your AV?



 
 
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  #16  
Old January 6th 16, 01:07 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Johnny B Good
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Posts: 273
Default Trust Your AV?

On Sun, 03 Jan 2016 17:51:16 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Roger Blake wrote on 2016/01/03:

Live wrote:

Viruses are now officially to be considered dead – until further
notice.


The typical non-technical user has no knowledge of the distinctions
between different types of malware and refers to any unwanted crap that
manages to get into their PC as a "virus" - even if they themselves
installed it.


My experience with ransomware and zombieware (installed by others that I
have to cleanup) is that the user was lured into installing it. They
hit a site that tells them they are infected. The boobs believe it and
install the malware. The major security vulnerability of a general-
purpose OS is the user. Because computers are sold to everyone,
gullibles are included (and the same reason why spam continues).


Logically speaking, the blame for the spread of malware can be aimed,
fairly and squarely, at MSFT's door. :-) As a matter of fact, there's
even proof of this culpability in the default fileview options of "Hide
known file type extensions" (eg exe, com, scr, dll, and so on) that have
been present since at least windows95 (if not earlier) - a gift to the
trojan writers if ever anything from MSFT could be called such a gift.

The problem of malware exploded when the idiot consumers gained ready
access to internet services via their "designed for idiots" windows
encumbered PCs in the late 90s.

When you redesign your product so that *even* an idiot can use it then
compound it by dumbing it down so that *only* an idiot would *want* to
use it, you land up with billions of 'Marks' just waiting to be conned by
one internet scammer or another.

Up until the advent of win98 and winME and winXP, MFST's main target
market demographic had been the corporate and SME, user group (blessed
with at least some training) and home user enthusiasts with at least
*some* clue as to what a computer OS was all about (storage and
manipulation of data - the 'D' in DOS standing in for the data storage
part of the acronym). This focus shifted in the late 90s to the more
lucrative market demographic of "feckin' clueless consumers", lucrative
because they numbered in the billions rather than mere millions and,
better still, could have the wool pulled over their eyes with consummate
ease.

Never mind that gullibles are included in the 'marketing to everyone'
paradigm, gullibles pretty well defines MSFT's target market which they
have pursued so relentlessly as to completely **** off their former
market demographic simply because we're now such an insignificant
fraction of a percent of the total market that they simply don't give a
toss any more.

--
Johnny B Good
Ads
  #17  
Old January 8th 16, 10:25 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ken Springer[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,817
Default Trust Your AV?

On 1/5/16 5:07 PM, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jan 2016 17:51:16 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Roger Blake wrote on 2016/01/03:

Live wrote:

Viruses are now officially to be considered dead – until further
notice.

The typical non-technical user has no knowledge of the distinctions
between different types of malware and refers to any unwanted crap that
manages to get into their PC as a "virus" - even if they themselves
installed it.


My experience with ransomware and zombieware (installed by others that I
have to cleanup) is that the user was lured into installing it. They
hit a site that tells them they are infected. The boobs believe it and
install the malware. The major security vulnerability of a general-
purpose OS is the user. Because computers are sold to everyone,
gullibles are included (and the same reason why spam continues).


Logically speaking, the blame for the spread of malware can be aimed,
fairly and squarely, at MSFT's door. :-) As a matter of fact, there's
even proof of this culpability in the default fileview options of "Hide
known file type extensions" (eg exe, com, scr, dll, and so on) that have
been present since at least windows95 (if not earlier) - a gift to the
trojan writers if ever anything from MSFT could be called such a gift.

The problem of malware exploded when the idiot consumers gained ready
access to internet services via their "designed for idiots" windows
encumbered PCs in the late 90s.

When you redesign your product so that *even* an idiot can use it then
compound it by dumbing it down so that *only* an idiot would *want* to
use it, you land up with billions of 'Marks' just waiting to be conned by
one internet scammer or another.

Up until the advent of win98 and winME and winXP, MFST's main target
market demographic had been the corporate and SME, user group (blessed
with at least some training) and home user enthusiasts with at least
*some* clue as to what a computer OS was all about (storage and
manipulation of data - the 'D' in DOS standing in for the data storage
part of the acronym).



Except that the "D" in DOS is for Disk, not data. :-)



This focus shifted in the late 90s to the more
lucrative market demographic of "feckin' clueless consumers", lucrative
because they numbered in the billions rather than mere millions and,
better still, could have the wool pulled over their eyes with consummate
ease.

Never mind that gullibles are included in the 'marketing to everyone'
paradigm, gullibles pretty well defines MSFT's target market which they
have pursued so relentlessly as to completely **** off their former
market demographic simply because we're now such an insignificant
fraction of a percent of the total market that they simply don't give a
toss any more.



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 42.0
Thunderbird 38.0.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
  #18  
Old January 9th 16, 02:40 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Trust Your AV?

Ken Springer wrote:

As a matter of fact, there's even proof of this culpability in the
default fileview options of "Hide known file type extensions"


I find it a bit funny, how Microsoft will not fix certain
things, in their development process. Some brain dead
features just seem to migrate from OS to OS.

Presumably they have a reason for doing that, but I cannot
fathom what that reason might be.

Say for example, I have

dog****.txt
dog****.exe

and I'm in a freshly installed OS. I see

dog**** --- funny indecipherable icon
dog**** --- slightly different funny indecipherable icon

and somehow I'm supposed to use my 20-20 vision
to tell that one is a text file, the other is an
EXE, and I shouldn't double-click the EXE by accident.

It makes it hard to quickly glance at a folder,
and "hit" the right one on demand.

They could still have their funny icons, plus have
the extensions exposed. But release after release,
it's still the same way by default.

Boggles the mind.

It would be really really interesting, to have their
GUI design guru, explain how this is a good thing. Shurely
the other staff have complained by now.

It's like the various "sort order" features
in File Explorer, the inability to have File Open
dialogs preserve a user's preferred representation
and so on. Designs preserved in scrupulous detail
since the dawn of time. Never any "accidental improvements".
They must have this really old employee, past retirement
age, who reviews each OS.. and makes sure File Explorer
is busted in exactly the same way :-)

Paul
  #19  
Old January 9th 16, 03:50 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Bucky Breeder[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 526
Default Trust Your AV?

Paul posted this via :

Ken Springer wrote:

As a matter of fact, there's even proof of this culpability in the
default fileview options of "Hide known file type extensions"


I find it a bit funny, how Microsoft will not fix certain
things, in their development process. Some brain dead
features just seem to migrate from OS to OS.

Presumably they have a reason for doing that, but I cannot
fathom what that reason might be.

Say for example, I have

dog****.txt
dog****.exe

and I'm in a freshly installed OS. I see

dog**** --- funny indecipherable icon
dog**** --- slightly different funny indecipherable icon

and somehow I'm supposed to use my 20-20 vision
to tell that one is a text file, the other is an
EXE, and I shouldn't double-click the EXE by accident.

It makes it hard to quickly glance at a folder,
and "hit" the right one on demand.

They could still have their funny icons, plus have
the extensions exposed. But release after release,
it's still the same way by default.

Boggles the mind.

It would be really really interesting, to have their
GUI design guru, explain how this is a good thing. Shurely
the other staff have complained by now.

It's like the various "sort order" features
in File Explorer, the inability to have File Open
dialogs preserve a user's preferred representation
and so on. Designs preserved in scrupulous detail
since the dawn of time. Never any "accidental improvements".
They must have this really old employee, past retirement
age, who reviews each OS.. and makes sure File Explorer
is busted in exactly the same way :-)

Paul


One way to resolve your stated example (puppiepoopoo.txt vs.
puppiepoopoo.exe) is to navigate to "Folder Options" dialog
and make a simple adjustment on the "View" tab.

Use File Explorer, click "View", click on "Options" then click on the little
drop-down icon. On the resultant "Folder Options" dialog, click on the
"View" tab. In the "Advanced settings:" frame, literally on the first
screen, you can check/uncheck (select/de-select) the following options:
"Display the full path in the title bar"; "Show hidden files, folders, and
drives"; and, specifically, UN-check "Hide extensions for known file types".

I leave "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" checked; but I
regularly uncheck it to do some maintenance or investigation tasks, then
recheck it when I'm done...

Likely the reason they do it the way they do it is because if they didn't do
it the way they do it, a whole lot of new users would inadvertantly be
deleting essential system files or accidently cut-and-paste them to Lord only
knows where, etc., etc., etc... But, it's easy enough to adjust.

Admittedly, I used to be able to access "Folder Options" in the Control Panel
prior to Windows 10, IIRC, however, I used it so much and accessed it so many
ways, that now it's rather rote routine.

Also, when I upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 8.1 Pro, it retained
most of my preferred file option settings, so not much of an issue here.

--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^;

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"

.... and I approve this message!
  #20  
Old January 9th 16, 04:04 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Trust Your AV?

Bucky Breeder wrote:

One way to resolve your stated example (puppiepoopoo.txt vs.
puppiepoopoo.exe) is to navigate to "Folder Options" dialog
and make a simple adjustment on the "View" tab.


And how many times have I had to do that, Bucky ?

Like, a gazillion times. Until I'm sick of doing it.

That's the part which I object to. Having to
do this over and over again, like a trained
chimpanzee.

Think of all the Geek Squad people who have to
fix this over and over again, every day.

Paul
  #21  
Old January 9th 16, 04:21 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Bucky Breeder[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 526
Default Trust Your AV?

Paul posted this via :

Bucky Breeder wrote:

One way to resolve your stated example (puppiepoopoo.txt vs.
puppiepoopoo.exe) is to navigate to "Folder Options" dialog
and make a simple adjustment on the "View" tab.


And how many times have I had to do that, Bucky ?

Like, a gazillion times. Until I'm sick of doing it.

That's the part which I object to. Having to
do this over and over again, like a trained
chimpanzee.

Think of all the Geek Squad people who have to
fix this over and over again, every day.


I don't think we're talking about the same thing...



There's a series of directions on how to get to the Folder Options applet
or dialog... It's called "File Explorer Options" in the Windows 10
Control Panel. Once this applet renders, you click the "View" tab and you
make the changes, the changes stick. At least they do on mine. Until I
navigate back and make more changes...

And if you're talking about retaining the settings when you upgrade to a
newer Windows OS, they've always continued forward with me.

I guess YMMV...

--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^;

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"

.... and I approve this message!
  #22  
Old January 9th 16, 08:02 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,756
Default Trust Your AV?

On 01/09/2016 07:40 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

As a matter of fact, there's even proof of this culpability in the
default fileview options of "Hide known file type extensions"


IIRC, this problem has been in EVERY version of Windows, and on by default.

I find it a bit funny, how Microsoft will not fix certain
things, in their development process. Some brain dead
features just seem to migrate from OS to OS.

Presumably they have a reason for doing that, but I cannot
fathom what that reason might be.

Say for example, I have

dog****.txt
dog****.exe

and I'm in a freshly installed OS. I see

dog**** --- funny indecipherable icon
dog**** --- slightly different funny indecipherable icon

and somehow I'm supposed to use my 20-20 vision
to tell that one is a text file, the other is an
EXE, and I shouldn't double-click the EXE by accident.


Also, you can get an email attachment:

dog****.txt.exe

Where the extension (there is NEVER really more than one extension) is
EXE, but you see

dog****.txt

And think it's safe so you run the malware.

Note that Windows won't remove the TXT here since it knows that isn't
the file extension.

[snip]

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present." --
Roger Batson
  #23  
Old January 9th 16, 08:06 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Johnny B Good
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default Trust Your AV?

On Fri, 08 Jan 2016 14:25:31 -0700, Ken Springer wrote:

On 1/5/16 5:07 PM, Johnny B Good wrote:


Up until the advent of win98 and winME and winXP, MFST's main target
market demographic had been the corporate and SME, user group (blessed
with at least some training) and home user enthusiasts with at least
*some* clue as to what a computer OS was all about (storage and
manipulation of data - the 'D' in DOS standing in for the data storage
part of the acronym).


====snip====



Except that the "D" in DOS is for Disk, not data. :-)


Yes, but "Disk" is so much more succinct than "Storage medium which
contains the programs and data organised in container files". A computer
operating system is essentially all about data manipulation and its
organisation. From the operator's point of view, an ergonomically
efficient File Manager is *the* main essential feature to the make up of
a good OS, something that rapidly started to disappear after win2k.

--
Johnny B Good
  #24  
Old January 10th 16, 04:45 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,449
Default Trust Your AV?

On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 13:02:58 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 01/09/2016 07:40 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

As a matter of fact, there's even proof of this culpability in the
default fileview options of "Hide known file type extensions"


IIRC, this problem has been in EVERY version of Windows, and on by default.


I don't think the feature was always enabled by default, but I don't
remember when it started. XP, perhaps?

  #25  
Old January 12th 16, 03:14 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Johnny B Good
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default Trust Your AV?

On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 09:45:02 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 13:02:58 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 01/09/2016 07:40 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

As a matter of fact, there's even proof of this culpability in the
default fileview options of "Hide known file type extensions"


IIRC, this problem has been in EVERY version of Windows, and on by
default.


I don't think the feature was always enabled by default, but I don't
remember when it started. XP, perhaps?


As I've already mentioned upthread, it definitely started with win95. I
don't think it predated long filenames. Long filenames *and* hidden file
name extensions are the worst possible combination you could have from a
security point of view.

--
Johnny B Good
 




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