Stupidity as its own reward.

[reddragdiva]

"Doctor, I get viruses when I do that."
"Don't do that, then."
"But it's tooo haaard! You're just an arrogant IT geek! I WANT MY CRACK!"

Anyone still browsing with Internet Explorer or still reading their email with Outlook or Outlook Express and who does not have a corporate gun to their head deserves everything they get. 'Email virus' means Microsoft virus and nothing else. I have no sympathy whatsoever for people who try to justify their stupidity after their machine has been sodomised. Perhaps they think they're fooling themselves.

(I would be interested to know why these people start screaming abuse like junkies in danger of being cut off when you point out they've done it to themselves.)

Remember: people using Microsoft email programs are the fuckwits facilitating the spread of Sobig and flooding even those of us who do know better with attachments the size of a planet. I was greeted this morning with one hundred and twelve Sobig.F block messages. DON'T BE ONE OF THOSE FUCKWITS.

And if you browse with IE and dare whine about popups, porn links on your desktop and Start menu, massive security holes and how it takes the whole machine down with it when it crashes ... well.

Mozilla Firebird is about the finest web browser going. If you don't like that, or have less than 64MB memory, try Opera. For email, Mozilla, Netscape 7.1 (which is pretty much a nicely-packaged Mozilla 1.4 - best way to start if you're not technically confident) or Mozilla Thunderbird have the Best Spam Filtering Ever. And Opera and Eudora are also perfectly nice and not susceptible to viruses. Stop fucking yourself over.

If you get an email virus and you voluntarily use Microsoft email software, I will point and laugh at you, and encourage all others to do the same.

Any questions?

Update: Here is how to transfer your OE messages to Mozilla or Netscape, and here is how to set up the l33t spam-filtering in Netscape 7.1 or Mozilla 1.4. For Firebird or Thunderbird, all the support is on the Mozillazine Forums.

Update 2: Next week will be even worse. If your inbox has been flooded, call your ISP and tell them they need virus filtering on the mail server.

Update 3: A wonderful rant from NewsForge. "Dear Outlook users: Please remove me from your address books." And the complete explanation of the psychology of Windows defenders.

Comments

[neenaw.livejournal.com]

Yes. What do you recommend I send my e-mail with instead? I use Opera for browsing, but the mail client sucks tits.

[reddragdiva]

Eudora is pretty nice really. Mozilla Thunderbird is an 0.1 release, so don't expect lots of shiny things - but it has the Bayesian Spam Filter, which really is that bloody brilliant. (Get Steve to rant at you about it.) If Thunderbird is a bit lacking in shiny things, the full size Mozilla is a bit fat but usable.

[lnr]

"Home users can avoid infection by updating their anti-virus software and by being suspicious of unexpected e-mail messages they get from people they do not know well." (says BBC).

That's not paranoid enough if you ask me.

At the moment I'm using IE every so often becauses windowsupdate won't talk to Mozilla, and if you're stuck running windows for whatever reason it's wise to keep it up-to-date with critical patches at the very least, or you get stuck with things like the Lovsan/Blaster RPC worm instead.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Of course, all servers need patching...
So you can summarily patch all your Solaris machines that normally require mind-numbing amounts of trouble ticketing, maintenance planning, etc,
cough

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I take exception to that.

I use OE, and I am satisfied that I am perfectly safe. I have been using OE for many years and have never been infected. I was already prepared for the current crop of viruses well in advance.

The problem is not with the software, it is with the users. Whether you can expect the average user to have a clue is another matter entirely.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Eudora++ but it can't cope with LJ comment emails - the click here to post your reply button doesn't work.

[mofette.livejournal.com]

yes

I was planning to ask later on next week when I'm at my own house with a fast internet connection, but I'm fed up with outlook express, as it won't let me reply to lj comments [I'm not daft enough to get an e-mail virus, or get one through irc. I quit]. I use windows as the things I use my computer for haven't got viable alternatives in linux, and I don't use my computer in the right way to use linux.

I want to export all my mail to the new programme, and it would be great if it can run by itself, not in an explorer window.

Any ideas?

So, then...

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

... is it wrong of me to point and laugh at the Windows Support Caste for being suckers based on their chosen line of work? 'Cause, um, I do. :^>

Incidentally, there is a gun to my head, but I ignore it. (Metaframe makes Outlook go good enough to accept appointments I've already seen through mutt's IMAP client, thanks. Look, ma, no Windows PC in cube!)

In general, I agree with reddragdiva's web suggestion (bearing in mind that all web browsers, like all operating systems, suck; but all web browsers really suck in that "could have done a better job over a free weekend" kind of way while operating systems are a touch more complex), but browsers make, in my experience, categorically bad mail and news readers.

Going on the assumption that nobody actually reads Usenet in its native environment any more, I'll stick to mail. I like mutt a lot, but if you don't live on a command-line, forget it. I often advocate Eudora as the Best GUI Email Client Out There. Hey, look, it does IMAP with SSL and STARTTLS for SMTP these days too.

The spam filtering thing... I strongly believe that this belongs on the server side. I'm probably eventually going to be doing IMAP from somewhere where I'm paying by the minute (ahem, cell phone), so I'd really rather never download mail that's actually trash. SpamAssassin does this decently, and communicates with various Bayesian softwares, Razor, Pyzor. If you're still getting spam (I am, but I haven't done the Bayesian training step yet), go make a white list.

There is, in this day and age, very little excuse beyond laziness for not having control over your email server or at least sending and receiving email through an email server owned by someone with a clue whom you know personally. (And yes, if anyone reading this can claim they know me personally, go ahead and ask.)

virus advice

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

"Home users can avoid infection by updating their anti-virus software and by being suspicious of unexpected e-mail messages they get from people they do not know well." (says BBC).

Uh huh.

'Cause nice people don't catch diseases.

*rolls eyes*

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

+ when enough people actually start using alternative clients virus writers will expend money in writing stuff that exploits them.

mail readers

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I uses to use Eudora, and it downloads all attachments into a seperate folder. The only aggravation was the risk of accidentally clicking on something while deleting it.

the_axel convinced me to try Pegasus and it's lovely -- I can set it up under several different user ID's, and it's very virus-resistant.

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

Huh.

I have trouble conceiving of a universe in which I live where that could possibly matter...

... oh, I see. You say it's rendering an HTML email (the real mistake), and then the link doesn't work (probably lj's fault; never seen one of those emails).

Stop letting your mail user agent ever perform any pre-processing on an email message beyond displaying the text characters that actually got sent to you. If the email client doesn't try to do anything clever with the data contained in the email, it doesn't matter how many buffer overflows are sliding around its innards; they can't be exploited by a remote attacker. If it does anything at all, it's probably vulnerable.

You can still tell Eudora not to render HTML email... right?

Once you're looking at the text MIME part that I'm hoping still exists in that email, rather than the HTML part, just copy and paste the link.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

There ain't no fucker gonna exploit my e-mail client. (VM, various versions, on various GNU emacsen.)

[sparklielizard.livejournal.com]

Same here. I use both of them because they do what I want, and well, in my opinion. If anything, I am probably more clued up on security than a lot of people using alternative packages because they assume they are safe.

I too have never had a nasty, in fact when the entire office here got infected with Welchia yesterday, nobody was using either of them. Complacency with the firewall was to blame, so it didn't matter which mail clients/browsers we were using.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

I dislike MS for my own many and varied reasons, but I do get pissed off at the implication that any software (OS or application) that is not from MS is secure by default.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

[g] That's what I do.

Was just letting her know that there was an issue, in case she chose not to.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Aaaahhh Microsoft. I remember when I had Microsoft stuff... and things worked... aaah back in the day &c...

I have now spent about a week and a half trying to make email for linux!!! Argh. I would *love* even the *opportunity* for a virus...

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

yeah, but how many average pc users are going to use that?

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Find a friendly geek. Apply flirtation, offers of intoxicants, etc. as appropriate. Pay attention while zie does zir thing.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

In addition to OE I also use a thing called Ameol, which no-one outside of Cix will ever have heard of. But anyway, here are some links to software that I consider essential -

Personal Firewall: http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
The best anti-virus: http://www.sophos.co.uk
The free anti-virus: http://www.grisoft.com
Trainable spam removal: http://popfile.sourceforge.net
POP3/SMTP email server: http://www.pscs.co.uk/
Spyware removal: http://www.lavasoft.de

And if you have broadband then a NAT router of some sort is pretty much essential even if you're only connecting one or two machines.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

That's not my problem :)

[lpetersson.livejournal.com]

Giggle.
Very true. Largely.
But remember, all OS's suck. The just suck differently.
Same applies IMO to Webbrowsers.
And pop-ups don't bother me anymore. They all point to 127.0.0.1 on my machine...

[sparklielizard.livejournal.com]

Yep, I use AdAware (I think that's the Lavasoft one!), I have a paid for copy of Norton Antivirus, and I have ZoneAlarm.

I know ZoneAlarm has vulnerabilities but I imagine it would detect most trojans. As for being hacked into - well, there are plenty of muppets out there (including the company I work for!) who don't know how to operate a firewall properly that would be fair game first, rather than the effort of working out I have ZoneAlarm and using an exploit.

I only have the one computer connected to the Internet through a bog standard USB modem, so I've never really bothered with routers and the like. If I started running my own website on another machine (something I have been considering) I'd sort something out though.

As for anti-spam stuff; I've built up some good enough custom filters to get rid of most of the yucky stuff - I get over 100 a day of 'em!

[reddragdiva]

Microsoft is the only email client manufacturer to make a client that will automatically execute code in an email without user action. The others actually don't do this.

Email virus == Microsoft virus.

I eagerly await your list of counterexamples.

[reddragdiva]

Yeah, but it was Kitty, so he gave her a geek system ...