Re: [tlug] Anti-virus software is a scam

[Pier Fumagalli <pier@example.com>]

Actually when you say "here are the files you can open on your
computer and YOU CAN NEVER GET A VIRUS FROM THEM. EVER. Image files
(.jpg, .png, .gif)" I think you missed out some of the wonderful flaws
of Windows:

See, for example here http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/965206

I know for sure that this method was used to circulate some trojan
horses (IOW, you visit a webpage, Internet Explorer crashed, boom,
you're infected).

There are a number of those: any time your browser, email client,
notepad, ... crashes "potentially" it opens up a bug that can be
exploited. And it's not only windows: recently a bug in the PDF
interpreter of the iPhone allowed people to execute arbitrary code on
the device (and hence, the remote jailbreaking "feature" of the phone
- but it could have been a virus, exploit, trojan, ...).

So, if one of those exploits is used to "inject" in a user's system a
known virus, here's when an Anti-Virus might come handy, as it'll be
able to recognize the bogus code pattern even if it doesn't know "how"
it got there...

     Pier

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 19:21, Dave M G <dave@example.com> wrote:
>
> TLUG,
>
> I've written a thing on my blog that might be kind of controversial,
> that anti-virus software is simply not needed.
>
> If anyone is interested in taking a look, I was hoping to get some
> feedback on the technical points I make.
>
> For instance, I say that you can never get a computer virus from certain
> file times, and I explain why Linux is more secure than Windows.
>
> Hopefully, I haven't said anything factually wrong in those regards.
>
> Here is the link:
>
> http://autotelic.com/anti-virus_software_is_a_scam
>
> Please take a look and if you have any comments, either send them to me
> privately or even here on list. The comments on the page won't work yet
> because the page isn't "public" yet (meaning only that it isn't linked
> from the top page in any way yet).
>
> --
> Dave M G
>
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