-=> DARYL STOUT wrote to KURT WISMER <=-

[snip]
 DS>   I have both the F-Prot and Sophos websites marked for the same
 DS> reasons. Except for F-Prot for DOS, I don't know of any other virus
 DS> protection for DOS...and every so often, I get a user with an old
 DS> system logged onto the BBS. For them, I have copies of the DOS version,
 DS> and the virus data files online for download.

yeah, well, i think f-prot for dos may be on it's last version...

the good news is that you don't need to use the latest and greatest of
any anti-virus product if you're protecting a dos machine - as far as
anyone can tell new viruses aren't being written for that platform so
the old versions of anti-virus products should still work just fine...
also, the current population of dos machines is such that it can't
really sustain much of a virus population in the wild...

 DS>   Plus, if I boot up Windows XP in safe mode, I can do a system virus
 DS> scan with DOS. And, F-Prot for DOS is free for non-commercial use. I'm
 DS> a registered user of F-Prot for Windows, and will definitely renew when
 DS> it comes time for it. I saw that they are beta testing a new version of
 DS> F-Prot for Windows right now as well...but, I'm going to wait for the
 DS> official release...the data files are certainly doing their job.

ummm... i hope when you boot xp into safe mode you actually use the
command line scanner that comes with f-prot for windows (fpcmd) as
f-prot for dos is known to miss directories/files on newer operating
systems...

 DS>   The Sophos information link is good...I see where Microsoft issued a
 DS> patch "out of cycle" for that VML vulnerability "out
of cycle". I think
 DS> already 6 trojan horses, etc. were circulating to exploit it. It
 DS> would've been "suicide", IMO, for M$ to wait until the
next "cycle
 DS> date" came around to release a patch. According to comments on the
 DS> Sophos website (as best as I can recall it), "Microsoft has to be
 DS> smarting from another vulnerability find".

microsoft has to be smarting that a 3rd party organization created a
patch for the vulnerability before they did...

 DS> Browser wise, the wife and I
 DS> use the Opera web browser...and from what I've seen, it has had the
 DS> fewest security issues of any browser.

yeah, it also receives the least ammount of attention... in fact, the
two are probably related... there were some stats released recently that
showed mozilla firefox actually had more vulnerabilities reported over
the last 6 months or so (i think) than internet explorer - but firefox's
code is available for anyone to look at and there are a lot of people
looking at it (whereas people looking at IE have to look at it like a
black box)... those same stats said that FF's vulnerabilities were
closed faster than IE's...

things like that make the connection between security and vulnerability
count very tenuous at best...

opera is a *safe* browser, if for no other reason than it doesn't have
enough market share to make it a big target... we can't really judge the
relative security because it just hasn't received the same amount of
scrutiny as IE or FF...

 KW>come to think of it, i also used to use mcafee, but that was a long,
 KW>long time ago... also thunderbyte anti-virus and integrity master (i
 KW>wonder what ever happened to wolfgang stiller)...

 DS>   When McAfee changed to an "online scan only", got rid
of their DOS
 DS> version, and upped their price, that's when I switched to F-Prot.

??? online scan only? that doesn't sound right... as for the dos
version, i believe they do have something called "stinger" which is
supposed to address the stuff that's actually wide spread in the wild...

[snip]
 DS>   I use MailWasher Pro as my spam filter, and it really helps. But, I
 DS> had to kill the original email I had, as it got spoofed for spam. I
 DS> also get a bunch of spam from spoofing off of my website and web
 DS> domain, but I have a note clearly posted that "no emails originate"
 DS> from that domain. I purposely disabled that one to avoid spam...but
 DS> every so often, something shows up. I just "blacklist and
report it"
 DS> with Mailwasher Pro, and it never actually enters my mailbox reader,
 DS> per se.

well, i still get spam at the addresses i had before i knew what to do
to avoid spam in the first place (rather than dealing with it after the
fact) but now that i make extensive use of disposable email addresses
and web-form contact forms instead of leaving my email address on my web
pages i find i don't really get spam at my newer addresses... i'm not
sure any of that would help prevent spam to a domain, though...

 
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.43