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Author Topic: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?  (Read 10844 times)

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Vonique

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    Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
    « Reply #15 on: January 09, 2009, 06:52:22 PM »
    I have a Linksys Wireless-G router.

    patio

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    Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
    « Reply #16 on: January 09, 2009, 06:59:20 PM »
    I think the Philosopher got it right if you think about it...
    " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

    soybean



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    Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
    « Reply #17 on: January 09, 2009, 07:02:39 PM »

    BC_Programmer


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    Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
    « Reply #18 on: January 09, 2009, 07:03:19 PM »
    unsafe surfing and lack of common sense almost always overcome even the best security solutions.
    I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

    Geek-9pm


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    Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
    « Reply #19 on: January 09, 2009, 09:07:05 PM »
    Quote
    Elaborate, please.  If you think it's wrong, state why
    I thought I did that. It is a very broad coverage of a major issue with a few platitudes. Firewall, anti-virus, common sense are all important. But you can not sya "nothing to worry about", as if the danger would be so much less. ANs "safe Surging"? What is "safe Surging"? Is that like "Safe Sex"? Nothing to worry about? Do you tell your children "practice safe sex and you will have nothing to worry about."

    Just one majhor example. DNS Spoof.
    Many have tried hard to tell people about the DNS danger. The IT poeple would just shrug it off  thinking that you will have a warning before it happens. That is like not locking your house at night because your cat will meow as soon as a thief tries the door and you will have time to call 911.
    So we start getting reports from people saying that Google was hijacking. But there was nothing wrong with Google. Their PCs got hijacked.{Don't ask me for the sources, it was in all the IT rags  and is even in the mass-media.} People don't pay attention because they "had a firewall, and anti-virus and use common sense." It is "common sense" that makes people put there house key under the door mat?
    Pardon me for using trivial illustrations. It is much more serious that a thief in you house. This wicked erosion of open communication can undercut the all trust and confidence still left in the world. It can get to the point where you will not ever even know what happened to you.
    Yes,this sounds like a rant. And it is. People are just too complacent. Me too. It is hard to believe it could happen to me. But I have already ad to close one back account, drop one credit card and change the account number on another. And this was related to Internet fraud. My banker told me to close the account, but didn't offer any idea of how to get my money back. The credit cards companies did better, they did give me a refund on part of the fake charges. And these were things that had nothing to to with conventional security measure. These crooks had real, legal SSL and all that stuff. Did not stop them form stealing.
    There is now a large Black Market for tools to defraud people with on-line business of any kind. The organized crime people will sell you proven kits and tools to crack security, get fake SSL, spoof major companies, mislead, deceive, cheat and steal and stay out of jail.

    Take a guess at  how much stuff the very best anti-virus software can find?

    OK, lets make it like a game.

    The is a mine filed the size of a football filed. you have to walk all the way across. you have a mine detector that can detect mines. There are over 400 mines you might step on if you walked a random path across the filed. But your mine detector can warn you and give you an alert. Now then, what level of error would you allow for the mine detector and think that there is "nothing to worry about?" And lest say that you have body armor that will protect most of your body. So one or two hist is allowable. Maybe. OK?  Now what do you want the mine detector to do? What does "common sense" now tell you? 
    Of the 400, or maybe up to 600 mines that you might step on, how many shall the mine detector find? (int, it is not enough for the detector to find mines that you could uncover with just a sharp stick. It has to find the ones you don't know are there.) Pick a number from 100 to 600.  Of course, on average, you would only hit 400. But with a lot of blind luck, just 100. But 600 is the max if you went in a mostly straight line across the filed.
    On my nest post I will give the answer based on the performance level of best bet possible anti-virus software available to the public. And I will give the reference from an authority source. (If anybody cares..) :(


    BC_Programmer


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    Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
    « Reply #20 on: January 09, 2009, 09:23:49 PM »
    not to shamble our metaphor, but a mine detector is just a metal detector. all mines have metal and metal detectors always detect metal.



    basically geek, your saying they should be absolutely paranoid about everything they do anywhere on the internet? If somebody asks their real name, or Date of birth, they should cower in a corner and sob quietly?

    "DNS Spoof" is a form of malware. It infects the computer through the most common vector, as you say, "the carbon based unit".

    This is the common sense /safe surfing.

    Take my search for a particular wireless driver for my laptop. in my search I encountered many sites high up on the rankings, and most of them ended up downloading a 20KB executable for a driver I KNOW should be at LEAST 10MB.

    Running that installer in SandboxIE, I discovered it installed 2 dll's in the System32 directory, added a SVCHOST spoof in system32 with invalid characters in it's name, and then displayed a generic setup error.

    There were MILLIONS of red flags on the site, which piqued my curiousity as to the validity of the site. Mainly the insistence that I install "PC WIZARD" or some driver detective program, by placing links to them high up on the page, forcing me to scroll down to find the "real" download, which was a trojan.

    Trojan software is the most popular attack vector because it is the most successful. Security software helps, but it is only a part of the solution. careful searching and user discretion when downloading foreign executables is the best way to avoid infection, or the secret installation of keyloggers and the like that would be used to steal personal data.


    by "nothing to worry about" I believe he pretty much meant, "nothing you should lose sleep over".
    I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

    Vonique

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      Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
      « Reply #21 on: January 10, 2009, 07:11:43 AM »
      On second thought, geek, maybe I should just go to the bank. Whew!

      Thanks, Von

      Vonique

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        Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
        « Reply #22 on: January 10, 2009, 07:14:45 AM »
        I meant to add, thank you to soybean. I will check that reference as soon as I get over the paranoia I have developed since geek's post.

        Thank you, Von

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        Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
        « Reply #23 on: January 10, 2009, 10:19:36 AM »
        Quote
        "DNS Spoof" is a form of malware. It infects the computer through the most common vector, as you say, "the carbon based unit".
        Sorry, My Bad.
        I meant to say DNS Attack, which is hard to detect.
        Even Google does not understand Do 'DNS' and it trys 'DOS of DNS' and gives you another issue. Not the same thing. The precise term is now "Major DNS attack". That means it is just just you, but all the people ib the same ISP are viewing absolute bogus HTML pages at the same period of time that could last a minute or more.
        Sorry I slipped on the terminology. This is an attack on the DNS cache of the server and can not be detected by the corbon-based unit unless he is very wise and has amazing instincts. (He appears to others as paranoid.) This was reported in the mass-media becasue there was such a person who remembered that earlier the Google logo was different and that Google does not change the logo in the daytime. Or something to that effect. It as a sharp eye person who saw it and if was found out. Other times that sort of thing is under reported and there is no way of knowing how much money was made by organized crime. Unless they put it on there tax returns.
        Pardon me. I have hijacked this thread. The original issue of connection speed or PPP method has small bearing on the new context here.

        patio

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        Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
        « Reply #24 on: January 10, 2009, 12:22:26 PM »
        And since you've successfully scared the OP into walking to the bank you may want to give a few suggestions on how secure sites can be managed without issues...
        " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

        BC_Programmer


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        Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
        « Reply #25 on: January 10, 2009, 12:30:45 PM »
        there is no reason to be paranoid that another party knows what your google-searching, unless of course it is questionable material.

        and no DNS attack will have proper Certificates. It's a completely different IP address being provided by the compromised DNS, but there is no way any certification establishment (verisign, etc) is going to provide it with the exact same credentials as the site it would be trying to emulate. As such, SSL would be out of the question, which means the original suggestion to make sure the sites are using SSL is still 100% valid.
        I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

        patio

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        Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
        « Reply #26 on: January 10, 2009, 12:37:47 PM »
        I guess those details were unimportant in his mini rant on how unsafe the web is.
        " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

        Vonique

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          Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
          « Reply #27 on: January 10, 2009, 01:38:43 PM »
          I'm not really going to walk to the bank. But I would like to find the safest way to do online banking transactions. It wasn't really geek that got me paranoid. I'm paranoid by nature when it comes to that stuff because I'm a widow and single parent of three small kids and I can't take any chances when it comes to my small nest egg. I hear some awful stories about hackers wiping out bank accounts. It makes me shudder. I've already lost my job and have to protect what I have left until I get another one.

          Thanks everyone who responded. Some really interesting posts going on.

          Von

          patio

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          Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
          « Reply #28 on: January 10, 2009, 01:50:43 PM »
          A Good Read

          This will get you started on what can be done and there are other precautions to take as well...
          More later.
          " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

          Geek-9pm


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          Re: what is the safest online connection? Cable line or dial-up?
          « Reply #29 on: January 10, 2009, 05:17:55 PM »
          Quote
          and no DNS attack will have proper Certificates. It's a completely different IP address being provided by the compromised
          This is not clear and can be misleading. DNS, IP and SSL are each a topic for discussion. Can somebody explain this to him?