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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Platform-Independent Technical Gibberings - hardware and "Internet"

Not everyone has a spare £100 or whatever it is. Also the hardware requirements of newer Windows exceed the specifications of many PCs and laptops in current service which are quite capable of providing good performance for the tasks people demand of their computers for as long as that hardware continues to function. People don't want to just throw away perfectly serviceable hardware that they've grown accustomed to using.

That's why "just upgrade" is not necessarily a satisfactory answer.
 
Fair enough although second hand tech can got pretty cheap. MS have released XP POS ready due to pressures from equipment suppliers. Due to the stuff I work on the issue has been discussed at length and the conclution is that as long as you can pass a penetration test and meet the security standards there is no imidiate issue.
Id carryon running XP with decent AV for the normal user it should be fine IMHO.
 
If AV were satisfactory why would anyone bother with any Windows security fixes?

Also, corporate installations are quite different from home PCs as they have a team of "professionals" maintaining a build and securing and maintaining the network and machines on which they run.
 
AV does not address all security vulnerabilities, even with the best AV Windows is full of exploits that can be used to carryout allsorts of nasty stuff.

I think it depends on what you are using the Windows device for, the security requirements of a home PC that is only used for mail and browsing aren't the same as one used for financial transactions. IME the best defence against Virus attacks are activity based systems no ones that rely on the latest update, the virus only gets on the list because it's successfully infected a device, probably many.

I'm not talking about corporate devices in the way I think you are but then our interpretations of things does seem to differ a little, I deal mainly remote devices in hostile environments, I do run AV but it's not the primary protection, that is done by a specialised white list / activity monitor.

All that said I generally don't run fancy AV on home machines, I was running ESET but it got on my nerves so aside from the MS stuff I don't bother. I've never had anything other than the odd bit of malware in years.

But in the case of XP the webinars and stuff I've been on do flag a significant risk due to the prolific knowledge available on compromising it, the situation is new and predicting the dangers is nothing more than conjecture. POS Ready is supported until 2019 but I haven't tried running it up on a standard desktop as yet, it's just a slimmed down XP with updates made not to work for the old XP.
 
I am aware of your specific technical niche so when I said corporate installations I did so fully conscious that your corporate installations aren't desktops or servers ;)
 
True but they are Windows devices running pretty much normal XP, these days I do get involved with the back end stuff as little having recently been involved in setting a VPN service for said machines.

I'm no coder, and my networking knowledge is limited having started out as a electronics engineer, that said these days you have to keep learning and picking new stuff up both industry specific and tech in general as it moves so fast.

I moved to Win 7 at home a while back as I had problems with some machines on XP and some on Win 7, I've always liked MS even though they get a hard time by some and my professional use of it goes back to scientific instrumentation running DOS but my knowledge of these things is all self taught and likely not very rounded.

The current situation with XP will be interesting to watch, OSs have gone obsolete before but this is different, the numbers of devices running must be huge and not all have the hardware to run Win 7. My feeling is there will be an increase in all kinds of malicious attacks on XP as time goes on as they will become a softer target and installs and devices are sloppily setup. I had a brand new £3000 device fail a penetration test in less than 2o minutes recently due to well know keyboard shortcuts being available during bootup and don't even ask me about the results of the VPN system servers, they were a joke.

If I didn't have the funds to upgrade I'd still just carry on with XP, so many others will that significant attacks will be reported pretty quick and I guess 3rd party AV and malware applications will continue to be updated, I hate to throw away serviceable stuff, hence using the old EEEPC as a music player.
 
Allein said:
I think it depends on what you are using the Windows device for, the security requirements of a home PC that is only used for mail and browsing aren't the same as one used for financial transactions.
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Just to return to this, home PCs are used for financial transactions - online banking - and are more vulnerable to attack than dedicated systems, precisely because they are also used for general browsing and email, thus are exposed to more "attack vectors".
 
Putting aside your login password which would need a keylogger to obtain, all the rest should be considered in the clear., as it is in alomost all oyher environments were you make a transaction.

(apologies if you know this bit) When you use say a PIN Pad in a shop, your PIN is verified offline on you card so without some real hardcore dark tech it's safe but the transaction, including your card number is almost always in the clear, the new stuff going in has Point to Point encryption but this is still in then minority by a good margin. The main week points are CNP ( Card Holder not present) over the phone, that and straight forward identity theft none of ehich will be cured by an OS.

Attacks on online banking that use logins hacked from individuals are rare, where as attacks on supposedly secure backend systems have been relatively common, about 2 years ago in the states a well though out fraud was carried out on pre paid cards, the actual attack lasted just 45mins (despite what the press said) and netted over $40M in cash and I've dealt directly with a few smaller scale but novel attacks myself exploiting aspects of the transaction system that exist for good reason, cardholders money was never at risk in those.

OS exploits that are used in any significant numbers against random Home OCs are pretty rare IME, I've never see one, just annoying malware and stuff that maliciously wrecks our machines.

I have no issue with MS making XP obsolete , the same happens with hardware all the time and people soldier on until they are able to replace them, these days a 7" tablet can be purchased for a £100 and Bluetooth keyboard for £30 failing that a second hand desktop would a good option, I think I paid £70 delivered for the DEL desktop I got for my daughter and £5 for the screen. Without wishing to sound flippant about some peoples lack of funds most could save that up within a couple of months or so.
 
i'm considering buying a new computer. I haven't had a prebuilt computer since I was a kid, and always had awful experiences with them then. However I can't be bothered to put one together -- can anyone recommend a site or manufacturer that is good?
 
So basically as I might use online banking and we're not starving basically we should just pay for windows7? I'm not being flippant.

I really do use a PC just for the web and for writing shit in word. I don't even really use ITunes anymore. Spotify annoys the fuck out of me. And I'm really techie thick but we do have a genius son (gf's) to rely on for support. When he's not mad busy working. Which is always.

Wodja reckon?
 
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StoneHappyMonday said:
So basically as I might use online banking and we're not starving basically we should just pay for windows7? I'm not being flippant.

I really do use a PC just for the web and for writing shit in word. I don't even really use ITunes anymore. Spotify annoys the fuck out of me. And I'm really techie thick but we do have a genius son (gf's) to rely on for support. When he's not mad busy working. Which is always.

Wodja reckon?
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If your genius son is recommending Ubuntu and is willing and able to support it, and you're up for a bit of a novelty, switch to Ubuntu. My dad uses Ubuntu, he's 82, he's smart but so are you. You're slightly grumpier than he is, but I reckon the Internet will handle it :)

While I'm alive and online I will help anyone with questions about Ubuntu and open source systems generally. Even you ;) Because I think it's a better approach to the system. Like science.

Open source software is like science in that it is the wealth of human knowledge. If you're into science and humanity you should be into open source. It's not anarchism, but it has similarities to anarchism.

But the most important thing for you is that you make an informed choice, don't you think? Make an informed choice and accept responsibility for the consequences, don't just do what the Internet tells you :) But you can listen to people on the Internet and use the information you get that way, just like we're doing with drugs.
 
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Aye of course. my informed choice is being informed by you, Atm (sorry, don't get on with your new name bud) and J, who is my gf's son. And Imma trying to make the decision.

We are both a bit miffed that we only found out about this through J, and only then because the PC broke down the other day and he mentioned it. Have we missed the full page ads in national newspapers (or even national newspaper websites) from Microsoft re XP?
 
StoneHappyMonday said:
So basically as I might use online banking and we're not starving basically we should just pay for windows7? I'm not being flippant.
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Aside from me and knock's quibbling which is more about entertainment than information, for the average home user I would go for Windows 7 at the mo.

But for the love of all that is good in the free world don't fekin pay for it, if you have need of a copy the PM function is probably the best route;)
 
it was probably because i was in a deep mess with phenazepam when i got a new windows 7 pc, but i got into fuck of a mess with it. It makes things extremely easy for hackers to remotely log onto your pc, if you dont lock down the the local neighbourhood settings, set up a windows password, create a pswd rescue disk, change the router pswd etc. I just left everything on the default settings, which was a big careless and expensive mistake.

The hacker(s) wreaked havoc on my machine, they even put their own pswd on the bios, so even locked me out of that. It cost me £50 to learn that all i needed to do was take the battery out to reset it, but pc world charged me £50 for that tidbit of knowledge.

I know your not as daft or chaotic as me, but some caution is needed with this O/S; it is very big on network sharing, and you can all too easily find yourself sharing your PC, even worse someone else gives themselves higher access rights than yourself and really fuck everything over.
 
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mydrugbuddy said:
it was probably because i was in a deep mess with phenazepam when i got a new windows 7 pc, but i got into fuck of a mess with it. It makes things extremely easy for hackers to remotely log onto your pc, if you dont lock down the the local neighbourhood settings, set up a windows password, create a pswd rescue disk, change the router pswd etc. I just left everything on the default settings, which was a big careless and expensive mistake.

The hacker(s) wreaked havoc on my machine, they even put their own pswd on the bios, so even locked me out of that. It cost me £50 to learn that all i needed to do was take the battery out to reset it, but pc world charged me £50 for that tidbit of knowledge.

I know your not as daft or chaotic as me, but some caution is needed with this O/S; it is very big on network sharing, and you can all too easily find yourself sharing your PC, even worse someone else gives themselves higher access rights than yourself and really fuck everything over.
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Without the details of what happened it's difficult to comment, the remote desktop function has been in Windows for a good while and I'm not aware of any intrinsic issues, if you're ever really concerned that you PC is under attack just pull the internet connection.

AFAIK Windows 7 is certainly no more susceptible to attack than XP and I'd go so far as to say it is more secure, it's newer for one thing, I run 3 Win 7 PCs at home and haven't had any problems other then a bit of annoying malware.

Windows tends to suffer to it's massive distribution which leads to an equally massive army of people searching for vulnerabilities and in some cases exploiting them.

It's easy to knock Microsoft but without Windows and the IBM PC standard we may well not be enjoying the astounding compatibility of peripheries and parts and software we have today.
 
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All i have is my own personal experience to go on. I may have been hacked whilst using other operating systems, but with windows 7 i could see it all happening right infromt of me with someone else creating their own account on my machine and lowering my own account permissions whilst raising theirs. As i was clouded by phenazepam it took longer than it would otherwise have done for the penny to drop that i needed to disconnect from the internet to boot them off, rather than having a real time fight with them over security permissions and stuff. Earlier operating systems that didnt have all these guest/administrator/user account features didnt have all these potential vulnerabilities that i was not at all prepared for.
 
Sounds like they made a remote desktop connection to your machine, this is a function within XP and Windows 7 ( not sure when it was introduced) I use it to access my desktop from the laptop and it is commonly used to access servers in industrial applications.

It's not really the functionality that is the problem its the fact that someone managed to get the permissions to access your machine, my guess is you gave it to them through some kind of scam. As I said I don't know what actually happened but then if you were full of Phenaz I doubt you do either.
 
there is a fuction "search for local connections" so apparently all someone needs to do is cruise slowly around residential areas in their cars with a laptop until they pick up an unsecured connection. It is as easy as that. I found this out after the horse had bolted so to speak. Anyway im back on my older pc, and have password protected my router and windows logon, and locked all the settings right down.

I also periodically check that all the settings are still as they should be, but that new computer that cost about £600 and ive spent £100s of pounds in repairs on still doesnt work. I ought to actually channel my bupe energy whilst ive still got it, as it wont be for much longer, and attempt one last rebuild on it. If it fails again i can only conclude that the main hard drive must be fucked. I dont actually believe in voodoo curses and stuff like that, but that machine does make me wonder, with the endless costly problems it's had.
 
Allein said:
Aside from me and knock's quibbling which is more about entertainment than information, for the average home user I would go for Windows 7 at the mo.

But for the love of all that is good in the free world don't fekin pay for it, if you have need of a copy the PM function is probably the best route;)
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except I disagree with you and genuinely think people should stop using proprietary operating systems.
 
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