[Vision2020] Spam, Bots, and Porn

[KRFP]

Paul Rumelhart wrote:
> I'd also like to see Microsoft nailed for making 
> their systems so easy to hack into and be taken control of.  
>   
The only way to nail Microsoft is to stop using their products (with the 
possible exception of their keyboards and mice, which rock). 

The problem is a lot worse then you might imagine. The holes that 
Microsoft intentionally left in its OS to serve our corporate masters 
are being exploited in many ways, spam is just the tip of the iceberg.  
Some estimate that up to 80% of Windoze machines (that aren't behind a 
serious corporate firewall) are infected with bots (short for robot).  
Have you ever had a Trojan Downloader virus that was alive on your 
computer for oh say a minute before your  virus checker found it?  Are 
you silly enough to use Internet Explorer?  Outlook?  or Windows Media 
Player?  Do you surf the net without a javascript blocker? (do you even 
know what I mean?) Then it is likely that you have bots on your computer.

Of course one of the main uses of these bots are to use your e-mail 
program and your bandwidth to send out lots of spam.  But they do other 
things, there are hacker masters out there with huge armies of computers 
that they use for denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, i.e. they pick a 
website and have all the computers make requests at the same time, they 
even fragment the requests so that each one makes the server work 100 
times more then it needs to.  Once they have a web reputation they don't 
do these attacks they just threaten to do so, and include a dollar 
figure and a Swiss (or Cayman Island??) bank account number.  The IP's 
just pay it because it is cheaper then suffering the attack. This of 
course just goes into the expense column of the IP's balance sheets 
driving up costs for all of us.

They also use your e-mail account to send fake user reviews for a fake 
sellers on e-bay.  Then they "sell" products which are never delivered.  
I hate this one because I'd like to be able to trust the user reviews.

They of course search for your personal information.  And by the way, 
keyboard monitoring bots are common, and a password really stands out in 
a string of keyboard input.

And now for the biggie; I recently found out that they set up file 
repositories and back-door file servers on peoples computers.  Why would 
they need to store the files on your computer?  Because they don't want 
child pornography on their own computers if they are going to risk 
selling the stuff.  Thats right folks, by using Microsoft Windows you 
are risking having child pornography stored on and distributed from your 
computer, I think I can leave the moral and legal implications of this 
to your imaginations.

But there is hope! It's name is Linux.  I still have a Windows install 
because I like to play games, but I have now disabled the lan port (in 
Windows) so that I don't need to worry about it anymore (fortunately I 
don't have a taste for on-line games).  Linux is much easier to use, you 
can find your programs because they are sorted by type, not by 
corporation. It can be flasher then Vista or OSX if you want (if you 
have a 3D graphics card), in fact Vista stole many of it's new flashy 
features from Linux (typical, they stole windows from Macintosh in the 
first place).  Installing your software is a breeze, and I don't use the 
term "your software" lightly, once you download it is is yours, not the 
corporation's licensed to you (wiki: "GPL").  Oh yeah, did I mention 
that it's free?

There are many different types and flavors of Linux, and choosing 
between them can be confusing.  I chose Ubuntu Linux for two reasons: 
First, Ubuntu is an African term meaning "Humanity to others" or "I am 
what I am because of who we all are", which is a philosophy I can 
totally get behind.  And also because it seems to have the most 
development action, I think due in large part to that philosophy.


Dave
Resident Geek
Radio Free Moscow

(wow, I should get up early more often, I actually wrote like a whole page!)