Re: Why is Win Explorer accessing the Net?

From: Pete (pete_at_terminalsurfer.dyndns.org)
Date: 12/23/03 

Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 17:37:00 +0000

Leythos , over to you ... :

>In article <OBK945AA24640090001138@r2-dv8.anarchy.gov>,
>abuse@anarchy.gov says...
>> A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Lars M. Hansen
>> <badnews@hansenonline.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Interesting, because from years of experience, I've had little trouble
>> > with any Microsoft product, and a large portion of the troubles I've had
>> > have been human error (either by the operator or the installer).
>>
>> Lars, are you getting paid to defend M$?
>
>I think what you are hearing from Lars is what you would hear from any
>competent network/os person in the business, in fact, I'm sure of it.
>
>I have installed thousands of workstations and hundreds of servers in
>the last 20 years, I've also designed the networks and security plans.
>In all of those years not one of the machines or businesses has been
>compromised - I have had several machines crashed because someone
>deleted files or because an update didn't like a piece of hardware, but
>I've never had a virus take one machine or server down. I've never had
>one machine compromised via the internet...

One could say you've been lucky. But I'm sure your luck would have ran out
in 20 years had the software not been up to it, or your knowledge for that
matter.

Speaking as a lowly home user, one who is supposed to bork stuff up and
expose the rest of the Internet to my incompetence, I can say that I feel a
lot safer running Microsoft OS's, a major reason being because the GUI
allows me to see what is going on so much more than that of the Linux
distros I've used, both in terms of built-in applications and those from
third parties.

In the 6 years I've had a PC, I've only been infected once. That was the
second or third week I got my first PC, running Win98, and I had the
misfortune to subscribe to AOL. Yes, I know, but I was supernoob then, as
opposed to the semi-noob I like to think I am now. I got rid of *both*
nasties pretty soon after that, and have never been infected since. I
switched to Windows 2000, which was ace, and still is, and now Windows XP
Pro. This last version came with latest PC and I was ready to just
fresh-install Win2000 over it, but it actually kind of rocks.

>MS makes great software for the business and home, it's simple to
>install, easy to use, and on the average, has more features that any GNU
>or Open Source product available.

With MS software, and the myriad of excellent applications from third
parties, I spend my time using my computer, not submitting reports to
bugzilla.

>If you don't know how to secure something it only takes about an hours
>time to research it to figure it out.

If you mean home users too, then I agree. I'm no expert, I never will be at
anything, but I've got my PC pretty ship-shape, and always strive to keep it
that way. I don't mean to imply I'm complacent though. Something will catch
me out one day, but I'm willing to bet on it being my fault, rather than the
software.

>As Lars said, I can count the times on two hands when MS was at fault,
>but I can't count the times a user was at fault if I was using all the
>hairs on my head.

Yes, when something borks here, it's usually my fault, say ... 8 out of 10
times my fault.

>I can also make the above statements for CPM, AIX, HPUX, Linux, and
>several other languages.

I can't, as I'm mainly a Microsoft user. I don't doubt the other OS's you
mention are very powerful, in the right hands, but MS wins hands down for
me. With just a little effort, and a bit of vigilance, I get a rock-solid PC
that runs so well, it kind of gets a bit boring. :)

A testiment of reliability from a home user can, by some, be seen as a
contradiction in terms. But there it is anyway.

Now what was the question again ?

Regards,

Pete.

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