 |
| |
|
|
aneeshm
|
 |
Indore , Madhya Pradesh
Jul 2001
time: 11:07
|
|
Link
As it requires registration , here is the text :
quote:
SAN FRANCISCO, July 15 - Add personal computers to the list of throwaways in the disposable society.
On a recent Sunday morning when Lew Tucker's Dell desktop computer was overrun by spyware and adware - stealth software that delivers intrusive advertising messages and even gathers data from the user's machine - he did not simply get rid of the offending programs. He threw out the whole computer.
Mr. Tucker, an Internet industry executive who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, decided that rather than take the time to remove the offending software, he would spend $400 on a new machine.
He is not alone in his surrender in the face of growing legions of digital pests, not only adware and spyware but computer viruses and other Internet-borne infections as well. Many PC owners are simply replacing embattled machines rather than fixing them.
"I was spending time every week trying to keep the machine free of viruses and worms," said Mr. Tucker, a vice president of Salesforce.com, a Web services firm based here. "I was losing the battle. It was cheaper and faster to go to the store and buy a low-end PC."
In the face of a constant stream of pop-up ads, malfunctioning programs and performance slowed to a crawl or a crash - the hallmarks of spyware and adware - throwing out a computer "is a rational response," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a Washington-based research group that studies the Internet's social impact.
While no figures are available on the ranks of those jettisoning their PC's, the scourge of unwanted software is widely felt. This month the Pew group published a study in which 43 percent of the 2,001 adult Internet users polled said they had been confronted with spyware or adware, collectively known as malware. Forty-eight percent said they had stopped visiting Web sites that might deposit unwanted programs on their PC's.
Moreover, 68 percent said they had had computer trouble in the last year consistent with the problems caused by spyware or adware, though 60 percent of those were unsure of the problems' origins. Twenty percent of those who tried to fix the problem said it had not been solved; among those who spent money seeking a remedy, the average outlay was $129.
By comparison, it is possible to buy a new computer, including a monitor, for less than $500, though more powerful systems can cost considerably more.
Meantime, the threats from infection continue to rise, and "the arms race seems to have tilted toward the bad guys," Mr. Rainie said.
The number of viruses has more than doubled in just the last six months, while the number of adware and spyware programs has roughly quadrupled during the same period, said Vincent Weafer, a senior director at Symantec, which makes the Norton computer security programs. One reason for the explosion, Symantec executives say, is the growth of high-speed Internet access, which allows people to stay connected to the Internet constantly but creates more opportunity for malicious programs to find their way onto machines.
Mr. Weafer said an area of particular concern was infections adept at burying themselves in a computer system so that the cleansing programs had trouble finding them. The removal of these programs must often be done manually, requiring greater technical expertise.
There are methods of protecting computers from infection through antivirus and spyware-removal software and digital barriers called firewalls, but those tools are far from being completely effective.
"Things are spinning out of control," said David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale.
Mr. Gelernter said his own family's computer became so badly infected that he bought a new one this week. He said his two teenage sons were balking at spending the hours needed to scrub the old one clean of viruses, worms and adware.
Mr. Gelernter blames the software industry for the morass, noting that people are increasingly unwilling to take out their "software tweezers" to clean their machines.
Microsoft executives say they decided to enter the anti-spyware business earlier this year after realizing the extent of the problem.
|
1) Make a OS which can be easily compromised out of the box in 12 minutes
2) Make a solution to the problem you created yorself
3) Profit !!!
quote:
"We saw that a significant percentage of crashes and other problems were being caused by this," said Paul Bryan, an executive in the company's security business unit. Windows XP Service Pack 2, an upgrade to the latest Windows operating system that has been distributed to more than 200 million computers, includes an automated malware removal program that has been used 800 million times this year, he said.
At least another 10 million copies of a test version of the company's spyware removal program have been downloaded. Yet Microsoft executives acknowledged that they were not providing protection for people who have earlier versions of the company's operating system. And that provides little comfort for those who must navigate the perils of cyberspace.
Terrelea Wong's old computer now sits beside her sofa in the living room, unused, except as a makeshift table that holds a box of tissues.
Ms. Wong, a physician at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in South San Francisco, started getting a relentless stream of pop-up ads a year ago on her four-year-old Hewlett-Packard desktop computer. Often her entire screen would turn blue and urge her to "hit any key to continue." Sometimes the computer would freeze altogether.
After putting up with the problem for months, Ms. Wong said she decided last November that rather than fix her PC, she would buy a new one. Succumbing to the seduction of all the new bells and whistles, she spent $3,000 on a new Apple laptop.
She is instituting new rules to keep her home computer virus-free.
"I've modified my behavior. I'm not letting my friends borrow my computer," she said, after speculating that the indiscriminate use of the Internet by her and her friends had led to the infection problems.
Peter Randol, 45, a stockbroker for Charles Schwab in Denver, is at his wits' end, too. His family's four-year-old Dell computer has not been the same since last year when they got a digital subscriber line for high-speed Internet access. Mr. Randol said the PC's performance has slowed, a result he attributes to dozens of malicious programs he has discovered on the computer.
He has eliminated some of the programs, but error messages continue to pop up on his screen, and the computer can be agonizingly slow.
"I may have no choice but to buy a new one," he said, noting that he hopes that by starting over, he can get a computer that will be more impervious to infection.
Buying a new computer is not always an antidote. Bora Ozturk, 33, who manages bank branches in San Francisco, bought a $900 Hewlett-Packard computer last year only to have it nearly paralyzed three months ago with infections that he believes he got from visiting Turkish news sites.
He debated throwing the PC out, but it had pictures of his newborn son and all of his music files. He decided to fix it himself, spending 15 hours learning what to do, then saving all his pictures and music to a disk and then wiping the hard drive clean - the equivalent of starting over.
For his part, Mr. Tucker, the Salesforce.com executive, said the first piece of software he installed on the new machine two weeks ago was antivirus software. He does not want a replay of his frustrations the last month, when the attacks on his old machine became relentless.
"It came down to the simple human fact that maintaining the old computer didn't pay," he said.
|
Looking through the trash for fuly functioning computers just got a lot more profitable , as people who read this article and then throw away their PC , never having considered doing it before , will increase . 
Let me predict the course of this thread :
Agathorn : PCs and Windows sux !!!11!! Apple rulez !!!1!
Asher : Apple sux0rz , and I work for IBM so I know more than anyone else on this forum about this ( specially teh commie scum moderator UR ) .
aneeshm : I've never had a spyware problem on my PC , at least on Linux .
Asher : Linux has many deep rooted faults , most of them don't really affect the end user , but let me bask in the theoretical technical superiority of Windows , and you can't say anything 'coz I work for mighty big blue and my skillz rulez .
Having finished that , can we jump directly to the reasoned debate part ? Please ?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
aneeshm
|
|
Indore , Madhya Pradesh
Jul 2001
time: 11:07
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Asher
MS Anti-Spyware is free.
Your unimaginative trolls are getting tiresome. Perhaps if Indian computer geeks were more creative and original you'd get jobs other than menial geek labour. |
It was a joke . You need a sense of humour .
And anyway , I can predict MS' strategy on this . As soon as Longhorn comes out , they will release all further versions of AntiSpyWare only for Longhorn ( after Longhorn starts getting infected ) . If you have an old system , you're screwed . In other words , you have to upgrade .
Another thing - this was not a troll . It was an article about the general cluelessness of the average user . I do have XP running , and when I first got it connected to the internet to patch it to the latest , it got infected . I had to do a lot of manual cleaning to even get it to download ZoneAlarm , AdAware , and SpyBot . After it was secured to my satisfaction , however , it has not been infected .
My point is that what I had to go thorough is what a lot of normal users have to undergo , which shouldn't be happening in a well-designed system .
And about the blanket comment about Indian techies - it was unwarranted and baseless nation-bashing . AFAIK , that's against the forum rules . I'm giving you a chance to retract that statement , or I'll report you .
*sigh*
My dream about skipping to the mature deabte part was sadly not to be . Anyway , I find it strange that getting a new PC is easier than a clean reinstall .
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Asher
|
 |
Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by aneeshm
Saying that all people from nation X do not to job Y correctly , and lack Z character trait , and then saying that it was a joke does not cut . I'm not trying to get involved in a flamewar , so please keep your responses civil . |
I don't see how it's any different than saying British people cannot cook and lack good hygeine, or Canadians are hockey-loving beer drinkers.
quote:
About the support thing - only the worst get helpdesk/support jobs . Even I get frustrated when I deal with support personnel here . Community college is an exaggeration , they wouldn't cut it in my highschool . |
These aren't "help desk/support" jobs -- these are AIX kernel, linker, and loader L2/L3 support, which is a very technical position that requires a degree at the very least.
I'm not talking about the people who answer phones, I'm talking about the people who supposedly have computer science degrees and can troubleshoot and fix defects in an extremely complicated operating system. They're supposed to be software engineers.
Until last year, they were based in Austin, TX and were great...now they're useless. We have to do their job for them basically. 
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
LDiCesare
|
|
La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:37
|
|
I've always considered that hardware malfunction and inability to upgrade the machine to something better was the only real reason to get a new computer.
Asher, when you say quote:
I deal with outsourced Indian workers on a daily basis (AIX support is in India these days), and my frustration level is quite high. These people wouldn't even cut it in community college. |
How much of their lack of skill is due to lack of knowledge and loss of know how on that peculiar code? And to communication difficulties (different hours, sametime and phone aren't still worth a face-to-face meeting where you can draw a sketch on a sheet of paper)? We have some problems similar to yours, but I am not sure it's due to lack of ability from the Indians. I'd say turnover, lack of knowledge of the code they have to maintain (noone explained them the intricacies) and communication problems are more problematic than the skills of Indian engineers.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:37.
Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
19-07-2005 20:24
@ baseless nation-bashing being against the rules
|