Reluctantly moving into Vista

Yeah, I’ve put it off as long as I could… too long, perhaps. Now I’m getting calls to support this thing, so I’d better get my act together.

So far, so good, with a gew glitches.

Importing email records from Outlook Express (OE, under Win XP) into Vista’s Windows Mail program is a bit problematical. It appears that Vista is VERY particular about how you follow the procedure. Also, mysteriously, MS seems to have decided that each user account under Vista only deserves a single email account in Windows Mail. If you want to have three separate accounts (with three separate inboxes), like you could in  OE, you have to set up three separate logins for Vista, and set up the Mail program for each mail account. So, as many have complained, now you have to logout/login between SYSTEM accounts to access your different email accounts in an organized fashion. Of course, aside from linux people snickering, there are constructure suggestions such as using Mozilla Thunderbird or Incredimail. But these solutions may not fit all users well.

Security… appears to be better with Vista. Since all users operate in “user land” instead of “administrator land”, it makes it that much harder to get stuff inadvertently installed onto your system. On the other hand, it does make it painful to install stuff you do want. And more painful still to keep using things (having to click yet another dialog to insure that, yes, I really want to do this). Seems like MS might have made this a little smoother using some technologies we’re already familiary with. More on this as I fine-tune my Vista-bule.

Since more and more are getting Vista-ized, anybody finding good resources for newbies and/or more advanced users?

Certainly, everyone should be aware of:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748998.aspx , with its more technical writeups of various Vista features; and, of course,

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/default.mspx

with general help information.

What else have you seen out there?

Mimicry – crapware’s new (old) gig

A new trend in crapware (malware – spyware, adware, trojans, whatever you want to call them) is the use of mimicry: programs that appear to be one thing and turn out to be something different. The key difference in this new generation is that the appearances are now quite deceiving.

Recent reports include:

1) A facebook trick in which the user is sent a message suggesting that (s)he should go look at a video (of him/herself, or something else). When the user attempts to view the video, a pop-up appears that looks exactly like the RealPlayer update notice, indicating that RP needs to be updated. Clicking on the update button results in download of undesirable software, and does NOT update RP at all. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7773000/7773340.stm )

2) Notices (in infected systems) indicating that your system is running slowly as a result of infection, and suggesting clicking on the notice or downloading a product to resolve the issue. ( http://www.enigmasoftware.com/support/antivirus-2008-antivirus-2009-xp-antivirus-2008-infect-winlogon/ )

While 1) occurs to a user online, and can be the trigger for an initial infection, 2) usually results from an existing infection.

So, what’s different in these scenarios from past experience? It’s in the appearance. The various notices appear identical to legitimate, expected system notices. The bad guys are copying icons, artwork, and presentation to make their crap look like something normal. This is rather insidious, as it becomes more difficult to ascertain whether your  system is truly infected with something, or whether your system is attempting to inform you of a real problem.

So, what’s the bottom line, here? How can we defend ourselves?

Standard recommendations include:

- caution when browsing or checking email

- routine scanning with both antivirus and antispyware software

- keeping everything (virus definitions, spyware definitions, Windows) updated

(For more commonsense internet safety, see, for example, http://www.onguardonline.gov/ , or http://security.rit.edu/dsd.html ; there’s lots of information about internet safety out there. Google is your friend! )

These things help. But they’re not enough. Systems will still get mysteriously infected, whether by inadvertent clicking on a pop-up, drive-by download, or some other means. One of those means is when you are trying to clean your system up. There are no small number of crap products that claim to fix your system but actually do nothing, or, worse, actually put more crap onto your machine. Before you download and/or purchase protective measures, definitely check here:

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

One defensive measure I’ve experimented with in Windows is a freeware called Sandboxie ( http://www.sandboxie.com/ ). This program runs your browser (and/or whatever other programs you identify) in a protected environment. It creates a private registry, private file system, etc., all of which can be trashed completely at the end of a session. It fools software into “thinking” that it is installing in the real system, while, in reality, it’s installing only in Sandboxie’s protected area. Sandboxie’s license appears to grant free use of the product indefinitely for individual users. It explicitly forbids use in a commercial environment, except for evaluation purposes. If you decide to purchase a registration key, apparently more sophisticated features of the product are unlocked for you. Read the information on the website, including the license, so that you know what you’re getting yourself into – I’m no lawyer!

This is just one suggestion – one approach. I’m not endorsing the product; I’m using it as an example. It starts you down the road toward Virtual Machines (VM), for which I’ll provide more info in a future post. When you start thinking about protection of your system in this way, you’re thinking about a different kind of body armor from antivirus and antispyware – something that can provide more comprehensive protection, perhaps. On the other hand, maybe this one does the trick for you.

[Note - I intentionally avoided going into alternative systems such as linux, freeBSD, Mac, etc. This particular post is targeted toward Windows]

This article has just scratched the surface of these issues. The problem remains a serious one, and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. We have to stay on the defensive with our systems; either that, or disconnect them from the Internet, making them expensive paperweights. More and better products are in development, as the arms race between the good guys and the bad guys continues.

Any other suggestions? How do you protect your system?

Yeah, I was slacking…

Hey, it happens.

Hopefully I’ll be more attentive both to this blog and to my website (http://www.necodeworks.com), which also needs significant revamping.

So, I’m back!

Xubuntu on a diskless laptop

After trying several different USB-installable linux distros, I am currently using Xubuntu on my Gateway MX6920. It seems to be working quite well.

Criteria for my linux distro selection were:

1. preferably Debian-based; I use lots of different applications, and didn’t want to deal with doing builds (e.g., as I would routinely need to do for a Slackware-based system) or finding out that there were issues with some of the apps I wanted.

2. USB-bootable; the distro must install to a USB drive – preferably 2 Gb or smaller. This would allow me room to expand on a 4 Gb drive, which are cheap!

3. small desktop environment; XFCE or similar. KDE eats too much memory for my tastes in the restricted environment I’m using. Gnome is a bit smaller, but is growing.

4. preferably preinstalled or easily installed OpenOffice suite. Although most of the linux distros easily accommodate OO, I was hoping somebody had optimized an install to one of these small systems.

I previously tried Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/), which I found to be a reasonable system. Unfortunately, Linux Mint didn’t work very well on my laptop. In particular, I had problems with the WiFi – sometimes it would work, and other times it wouldn’t. I never did sort out why. I just moved on…

…to DreamLinux (http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/). I liked DreamLinux. It had a decent array of applications, and seemed to work pretty well with my laptop… until the darned WiFi started acting up again – in the same way the Linux Mint had. Sounds like a driver problem, eh?

Since I had some prior exposure to Ubuntu, I decided to give Xubuntu a try (http://www.xubuntu.org/). So far, this is my preferred system.

So, why all this USB stuff? I acquired the laptop with a blown hard drive. Being too cheap to purchase another drive, I decided to experiment with the system a bit. I removed the drive completely, and started messing with live CDs instead.  Unfortunately, CDROM drives are slow, noisy, and they eat battery.

So, I went to the next step – boot from a USB stick. I found my battery life increased from 1 1/4 hours out to about 3 hours compared to the liveCD approach. And, the system boot fast (45 seconds) and runs fast.

So far, I’m happy with this new toy. Time will tell whether I stick with Xubuntu, or see what else there is out there. And, of course, I can always just load up a different USB stick and give my laptop multiple personalities.

Feel free to comment on my system or yours!