Is your personal computer a member of an international crime syndicate?
by Volker Weber
Before you laugh, consider this: computer security experts believe that at least 10% of home PCs have been recruited into robot networks, or "botnets," under the control of criminals.
Barry would come to a different conclusion than I do. Tomorrow I will convert another computer to Ubuntu. I just cannot trust an elderly lady with a Windows machine anymore.
[via Barry]
Comments
If I am asked to advise someone who is new to computing, on a home purchase, without hesitation I point them the way of Linux or Macintosh because their lives are likely to be so much easier.
But for someone whose past experience of computing has been exclusively in Windows - for whom 'computer' practically means Windows - perhaps someone who insists they are too old to learn new ways of doing things - it is a much harder call, I think. Just a couple of weeks ago I was in the position of trying to convince a home user 'of mature years' to take one of the other options, but she went for Windows on grounds of familiarity.
Of course, the new computer came with Vista, which has opened up a whole new can of worms....
Reduce complexity. I have been successful in reducing the icons on the machine to the bare minimum. Browser and email in most cases. I have done that on some old Windows machines as well with some good results. The only problem is, I cannot bother some people with maintenance at all. They could not deal with pesky popups telling them about possible security problems. It just has to work as expected. Elderly people cannot handle the exceptions that we would never even think about.
This kind of setup is quite easy in Ubuntu. That is why I keep doing that. Once the machine is setup, there is hardly any maintenance at all. Once a quarter I run some updates and that's about it.
@Nick - One thing that helps is if you can convert them to cross-platform software first. I moved my parents to a Mac, but only after moving them to Firefox and Thunderbird on Windows for a year. I booted up the Mac and my computer-phobic father said, "I thought you said this would be a little different? Everything works just the same."
Of course, my dad didn't raise any fools: I smiled and said, "Yes, Dad, you're right. I was confused."
In my late job I am accountable for 15 people using WinXP pro on ThinkPads ... ALL (!) clever and awake people ... but asking them to do maintenance can only be done by giving them step by step procedures, ZoneAlarm messages almost always mean that they come to me, asking what they should do, etc. ...
As far as I'm concerned this has nothing to do with age or intelligence - it only has to do with what people want to focus on: I want to drive a car, I don't want to be an engineer to be able to drive it. Same is true for the computer ... AND - it is possible. Just not with Windows.
@Rob MAC need less support than other systems.
My colleague has told me last week "Since i have a MAC my wife need less support. The system is more intuit than the Windows OS..."
@Martin Yes, I completely agree. That's why I converted my parents from Windows to Mac. I was just pointing out that if the applications they rely on don't change much (if at all), then it's even easier to switch.
Heading back to the original topic of zombie Windows computers... I fully believe that the estimate of 10% of such systems have been turned into spam-spewers and virus-spreaders. A few months ago, I visited a nephew who asked me if I could figure out how to get rid of the viruses on his system. It was fully infested, and the system speed reminded me of an IBM XT.
I ran one of the online tools, which had to remove 48 (count them 48) separate infections. Doing so took overnight. By the time I left, he had a free anti-virus tool and the bare-bones setup of a firewall, but I warned him that he needed to get Real Security.
My brother watched his "baby sister" do all this technical stuff, utterly mystified by it all. And he's typical; my brother may know everything about how to fix a car, but computers are magic black boxes. Sam knows that he's going to have to get a computer, but he's been dragging his feet for several years. At one point, I turned to him and said, "You know how you said you wanted my help with computers? You're getting a Mac."
Yes, Macs are far easier to administrate. Especially for the Family Tech Support! Sometimes I think it's because computers are still too hard for ordinary people to use. Sometimes I think it's because we got our wish; remember how we promised to make computers "so easy an idiot can do it?" Now we have idiots using them! Seriosuly: Several years ago, Peter Norton told an audience of computer user group officers that there was something inherently wrong with the fact that user groups were necessary. "You don't see user groups for shag carpets, do you?" he asked.
@Esther:
Huh, 48? That's nothing, my record stands at 181!!
I remember that quote from Peter Norton, but I don't buy the analogy. A carpet (you hope) gets laid down to cover your floor, and does nothing more - you don't expect intelligent interactions from it, and you don't expect to modify it, upgrade it, or add new features. Nor should it be expected to connect to the big, bad internet. Hence no need for user support.
The shocking thing for me is not the ordinary users who are ignorant of how infested their computers are, but the 'knowledgeable' users. I have a friend who is a manager of IT training for a large US merchant bank. She has this job partly because she has a post-graduate qualification in programming and systems analysis. Her husband also took C training courses. When I visited them they asked me have a look at their PC - it was so infested they could not use it for more than a matter of seconds before IE would start up and automatically take them to hard-core porn sites. And since they had 2 girls aged around 10, the family had reached the point where they couldn't even use the computer at all. I told them to just get a Mac. They just re-installed XP.
Then again, I have the friend (an IT manager with a MCSE) who was surprised when I told him I used OS X and Linux because Windows was too dangerous to use - he said he had no worries about viruses or malware. Six months ago he found that his credit card details being used in bogus transactions involving high-value purchases from Amazon.
I've used Firefox for web browsing and Notes for email for years, with no anti-virus/malware protection at all. Periodically I will run a scan against my system, and I've never found any problems. When I have to run IE, I will do so within Virtual PC, with it set to discard any changes.
