Klez virus strikes the PC world.

chemistry_geek

chemistry_geek

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A funny little thing happened today. My friend and his wife purchased a Dell Pentium 3 a while ago. I tried to convince them to go with Apple, but they couldn't justify the price of a Power Mac G4 ($1700 without a monitor @ the time) vs. Dull 1.3 GHz P3 with monitor & printer ($1200). Anyway, I sent them this email today:

There was another serious security hole found in Internet Explorer.

Here are the links to explain the security hole: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/020604/microsoft_security_flaw_1.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/05/148244&mode=thread&tid=109

This affects all versions of IE. So far, M$ has not made a patch to correct the problem.
Click to expand...

Their response was:

Hey Niles, you think that is bad, well Microsoft IE also has a vulnerability
for the "Klez" virus and guess what we got. As a matter of fact, we
received 2 Klez viruses via e-mail, you don't even have to open the
attachment, as soon as Outlook Express accepts the mail you get it, however
if you open the attachment you get a double dose. We received 2 infected
e-mails with the worm virus in it, screwed up our computer for awhile, this
virus affects the registry system so your computer will start up but after
that it freezes but works in safe mode, it makes it impossible to reformat
your hard drive because nothing works. It wrote itself into the system
restore files and if you know anything about computers you nkow that those
files cannot be deleted, touched, or anything. Just be careful because
according to Microsoft antivirus software cannot help you. I got another
infected e-mail yesterday but Norton anti-virus found it. It is sent
randomly to computers who use Outlook Express, yippee.
Click to expand...

My response to their unfortunate experience was:

Here is the link to solve your problem the RIGHT WAY:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore


Here is the quick and dirty solution for your woes:

http://www.mozilla.org/releases/

Hope you get your computer fixed soon. I've never had the experience of getting a virus with my Apple - ones of the perks I suppose. You get what you pay for.

Good luck,
Niles
Click to expand...

Now they're trying in vain to back up their files to CD to wipe the HD clean and reinstall Windows Me. I suggested zeroing the HD before installing, just to be sure. And my friend's wife NEEDS the computer for college classes taught over the internet through distance learning.

[Snicker, snicker, snicker]

I try to preach the Gospel of Apple and it falls on deaf ears.

BTW, their argument for not getting the Apple: "It's not compatible with Windows and it costs too much." - BAH!
 
he he

as mad i once was that m$ stole the major market share from apple, it is things like this that make me glad it all worked out the way it did.

and be careful Niles - we don't want to sell apples to tooo many people or the whole situation will just get reversed. Keep the good new about apple to your close friends and family - you know, the ones least likely to listen to you:D :rolleyes:
 
Things like that are why I tell my father I use a Mac. Well .. that and the fact that his PC I'm using now (inbetween-macs) seems to crash at least twice a week.
 
anybody got the shakira's photos virus on their PC yet? It just hosed my clients exchange server.

Why, oh why, do people double click on vbs files?

R.

:p
 
Gawd. On a Windows computer, I refuse to open ANY files with TWO extensions such as britneyspearsnude.jpg.exe because it is NOT a jpeg file *rolls eyes* WHY don't people check the extensions FIRST?
 
The default setting for Windows is to hide the extensions for "known" extensions. So exe would normally be hidden and the filename would look like whatever.jpg -- of course, jpg should also be known, so it would be hidden also.

When I'm working in Windows, I reset it so that it shows all extensions. I also reset the default behavior of vbs (Visual Basic scripts) to open in a text editor instead of being run. I can still run a vbs file by right clicking on it, but if I'm stupid and double click, well... at least it won't be as bas as it could be.

The other thing to note is that Outlook (and maybe Outlook Express) automatically opens attachments for you when you open the message. Great security feature, huh? Only Microsoft...
 
I predict that in ten years, M$ won't be as powerful and smug as it is today. I think that Linux (or some other UNIX variant) has a real chance of making inroads to the home and average user. Four major companies developing Linux have agreed to produce a "United" Linux distribution that would make each one compatible with one another, mostly for business users and gamers wanting to download or install software on one or more distributions. Germany just signed a HUGE contract with IBM to replace a lot of PC's in the German government with PC's running Suse Linux (M$ was NOT happy with this one). The Peruvian government also passed a law requiring the government to give up M$ and use Linux because it fears losing control over its documents to a single company and its proprietary software. Once people get accustomed to working with an OS at work, they're more likely to "bring it home". Two other driving forces for Micro$oft's demise are its lack of security and affinity for propagating virus infections, and its licensing terms and fees. Linux is getting more friendly for the average user, with easy to configure installers.
 
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