Mandatory Reading for all of you

[Sheepdog]

While I was waiting at the airport, I picked up September 06's issue of Consummer Reports, and they had a very good section on Internet security. They talked specifically about viruses, spyware, spam, and phishing, and gave good reviews on popular products to defend yourself with in the "arms race." I strongly recommend you pick up this issue, read it, and as applicable consider the antivirus/spyware applications they review. I'm actually going to dump Norton myself (it terribly bogs down your computer) and pick up their bests in show. Which ones? Well, you'll have to read (I happen to like Consummer Reports' company model, so I want you to support them with your cash ).

They also talk about laptop security. What dissappointed me was that they didn't review any encryption products-- BIOS and Windows passwords can be circumvented, and though BIOS passwords are getting harder to undermine in newer laptops, if they want your private data they'll find a way. But if you encrypt your data, it's harder to get, especially if it's hidden away.

My recommendation for encryption is <a href="http://www.truecrypt.org/">Truecrypt</a>. Open source, for Windows and Linux, and works well enough for me. Basically, you use it to create a volume of disk space that is encrypted, which can only be accessed by a password. Although you can encypt a disk partition with it, it is easy enough to create an encrypted image file, which your operating system will see as if it was an extra drive when you have it "mounted." The image file can be named so anyone else would think it was just, say, an mp3 or game save file. Very cool.

[Iluvatar]

That is some interesting stuff. I like the security recommendations.

However, I do not like Consumer Reports. I subscribed for about 10 years, and although some of their product testing was useful, a great amount of it was either flawed or very biased. I stopped subscribing because the flawed or biased stuff started getting more frequent and it wasn't worth the subscription. Most libraries subscribe to consumer reports, so you can go into the reference section and read it for free. I would take their research with a grain of salt, and never just accept it as gospel (pardon the pun!).

I disagree that Norton bogs down your machine, I have used a number of diagnostics that are freely available on the net to watch cpu and memory utilization and disk access - while Norton is running - and with Norton shut down. The effect is negligible, at least on my machines. Its important to schedule the full system scan in the middle of the night when no one is using the machine! I'm a bit of a maniac about managing performance on computers, and have been involved in that for more than 25 years. I am the first to delete programs that deteriorate performance, but I haven't figured out how to make people get rid of Windows yet.......

[Sheepdog]

heh, good idea about checking at the library, i didn't think of that.

WRT Norton, i guess it could be the version i'm using (NIS 2006), but it's bad for me. not all the time, but there are times when my system is bogging down, and so i'll check in Taskmgr, see a process taking 99% of the CPU, do a quick google, and sure enough, it's a component of Norton

[Raptor]

heh, good idea about checking at the library, i didn't think of that.

WRT Norton, i guess it could be the version i'm using (NIS 2006), but it's bad for me. not all the time, but there are times when my system is bogging down, and so i'll check in Taskmgr, see a process taking 99% of the CPU, do a quick google, and sure enough, it's a component of Norton

That was one of the reasons I switched to Zone Alarm. Although it's frustrating to learn how to use at first, it's a good anti-virius program.

[luv1another]

uh and sheepy what if that magazine doesnt even come out in other peoples countries like say Oz

[Sheepdog]

move to the states, and then you can get one

[luv1another]

or just visit

[Dave G]

When I'm running XP on my mac, I use Spybot to guard the registry and Spysweeper for the other nasty stuff. Spysweeper guards about 250, 000 different trojans, viruses, and cookies, and I haven't come across anything it can't take down.

[Tickle Me Mercury]

When I'm running XP on my mac, I use Spybot to guard the registry and Spysweeper for the other nasty stuff. Spysweeper guards about 250, 000 different trojans, viruses, and cookies, and I haven't come across anything it can't take down.

When I'm running Vista through Parallels, I use the "Parallels Security" but is slows down the virtual machine horribly.

If a person knows what they are doing on a Windows machine, then I think the "real time" protection is a waste of resources. Just run a scan once a week and manually scan downloads from non-corporate sources.

also:
Even though the OP is 2 years old, TrueCrypt should still be recommended. It's now available for the Mac as well, and I believe with GUI interface for linux.

Also, MAc has some built in encryption capabilities as well. Not sure what Windows has to offer, and I'm sure some flavors of linux have it built in.

[Sheepdog]

Win 2000 and XP Pro have encryption for directories and files. It's a part of the NTFS spec. I don't know which versions of Vista have it.

I prefer something like Truecrypt though because unlike NTFS encryption it doesn't depend on your login password.

All sorts of encryption options are available for Linux. I use encfs, myself.

[Tickle Me Mercury]

Win 2000 and XP Pro have encryption for directories and files. It's a part of the NTFS spec. I don't know which versions of Vista have it.

I prefer something like Truecrypt though because unlike NTFS encryption it doesn't depend on your login password.

All sorts of encryption options are available for Linux. I use encfs, myself.

Truecrypt is also cross-platform.

You can read/write to a truecrypt volume using any platform.

[Sheepdog]

Truecrypt is also cross-platform.

You can read/write to a truecrypt volume using any platform.

Yes. that is hugely valuable for folks who use multiple platforms, like many of the expatriots from Windows here.

[Salty]

... Spysweeper guards about 250, 000 different trojans, viruses, and cookies, and I haven't come across anything it can't take down.

I'm curious to learn just how many trojans and virii you've come across that you needed Spysweeper to take down.

I never understood the paranoia revolving around cookies. If it makes you feel better, set your browser to reject cookies from third-party sites. But they aren't the Big Bugaboo some people make them out to be.

[Dave G]

I'm curious to learn just how many trojans and virii you've come across that you needed Spysweeper to take down.

I never understood the paranoia revolving around cookies. If it makes you feel better, set your browser to reject cookies from third-party sites. But they aren't the Big Bugaboo some people make them out to be.

It isn't cookies...I could care less about tracking cookies.
I installed XP using Parallels on my mac. I did not immediately set up my defenses. What could happen in an afternoon, right?
Within an hour I had 5 malwares. A couple trojans and several viruses. Plus the cookies. Don't ask me how they got there, I only did some cursory internet connections to get familiar with winblows again. I didn't have Spysweeper set up, so I had to delete and reinstall XP. Then I set up Spysweeper and Spybot first thing.
I still have a trojan or virus about half the time. Again, I don't know where they come from. I use Spybot for my "firewall". It keeps the registry safe. I scan with Spysweeper now and just delete them as they come.