Sophos Anti Virus

[Antonio Olivares]

--- On Sat, 5/15/10, jdow <jdow at earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: jdow <jdow at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: Sophos Anti Virus
> To: "Community support for Fedora users" <users at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> Date: Saturday, May 15, 2010, 11:45 AM
> From: "Bruno Wolff III" <bruno at wolff.to>
> Sent: Saturday, 2010/May/15 07:56
> 
> 
> > On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 07:12:49 -0400,
> >  Wm_Frank Pont jr <fpont at ureach.com>
> wrote:
> >> I have many programs which g++ has produced and I
> own.  These could
> >> be the target of a virus.  It would be easy
> for me to wipe all of my
> >> executables and re-make them but I just realized
> that unlike many
> >> LINUX folk, I am somewhat virus vulnerable ...
> maybe with quotes around
> >> the word.  Worms, Trojan horses, phishing ...
> are possible. We should
> >> not hide behind a Superiority complex until some
> strange anti social kid
> >> nails us.  We already have a lot of
> safeguards in place.  But it seems
> >> that we are a trusting community.
> >
> > Antivirus is not the right solution. It doesn't really
> work since 
> > blacklists
> > can't be up to date or all inclusive. And they suck up
> a lot of resources.
> >
> > The correct response is to avoid executing foreign
> code, and sandbox when
> > processing untrusted data and especially untrusted
> code.
> 
> Bruno, you are outside in subzero (F) temperatures. You are
> wearing a
> teeshirt, jeans, and flip-flops. Would you accept a nice
> warm winter
> jacket that has a hole or two in the elbows and one pocket
> ripped off?
> Would you accept boots that were cracked and leaky? Would
> you like to
> add worn out socks to the boots?
> 
> Even if you are outside on that same day wearing a woolen
> sweater, a
> winter jacket, warm woolen pants, and flip-flops would you
> accept the
> boots and socks even if they had holes in them?
> 
> Apply the thought process to anti-malware. If your machine
> and your work
> is not valuable to you then forget anti-malware and plan to
> reinstall
> someday, practice safe browsing, play footsie with Nigerian
> spammers,
> and so forth. It's your prerogative.
> 
> I rather like to trade the flip-flops for the holey socks
> and worn out
> boots for that little bit extra warmth if I'm going to hike
> a mile or
> two.
> 
> {^_^} 
> 
> -- 

Like all the analogies and thoughts here, but I agree with Tim and with Bruno.  We have selinux running, we have protection.  There are multiple solutions out there, there is the firewall, there are routers.  I like these kinds of threads because people put forth their ideas and piss other people off, but like Tim says, this is not windows, we can be safer and we can rest assured that we will be careful not to shoot ourselves in the foot :)  

For one thing we can't avoid in life:

Death and Taxes :(