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Pirated Windows and Worms


Bombardier

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An age old catch-22 illuminated once again by the recent Sasser outbreak among members of our Security forum: a large number of PC's run pirated copies of Windows XP, which aren't able to apply security patches because of invalid CD keys. Should these infected PC's be allowed to grab timely critical updates, simply to help lessen the impact of worms web-wide?

Many users say pirates who can't find workarounds should "reap what they sow", but their infected pirated Windows boxes impact non-pirates everywhere.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/43503

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a link to the forum where this is being discussed:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,10170100~mode=flat

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Well there are many other ways of destroying the virus, so I'm guessing in many cases, a pirate machine would pass the virus on, but then would be OK from the clean-up. So, may as well stop them from spreading it.

MS appears to allow windows updates to illegal copies. Look what a pain they made it for people to get SP1. Imagine they did that for every update.

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you can still patch

you just have to manually download the patches you need--go to symantec.com and find the security bulletin #s that apply to whatever worm (blaster, sasser, gaobot etc), then follow the links to the bulletins and download the patches individually

it isn't that hard really, you just can't use windows update (which i can't anyway, since i have no internet explorer)

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For now just avoid the SP2 betas, although I dont know why folks with a borrowed version would install a beta update. A death wish perhaps? It does appear that with the SP2 update that Bill is going to try and kill any pirated copys of XP pro. When the finished update does come out, i will wait, and let others test it, as I just installed SP1 not long ago. I really dont like to rush into anything.

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It does appear that with the SP2 update that Bill is going to try and kill any pirated copys of XP pro.

Bill may try, people will always find a way around it and update anyways.

Truth be told behind very closed doors, Bill may not want the "pirated" copies of Windows XP to go away. There are an estimated large % of some countries that run a pirated version of Windows (such as some people in China). They element here is the fact that they are running windows and not another OS.

Bill knows the worldwide marketplace. It probably is no secret that alpha builds of Microsoft's new OS Longhorn keep somehow "leaking" to the internet. It's also quite a sight to see as early as five minutes after people get the word that a new release of Longhorn has leaked, that people start frantically trying to download a copy and use it.

Are they pirates? Maybe. That would be the ultimate pat on the back for my corporate ego. For thousands to millions people to want your product so badly, that they "frantically" want to download it and use it. The same situation happens every time Linux maker Lindows announces a "free Lindows OS" download day. The response is so overwhemling that Lindows servers are under a heavy load all day.

I mean come on. Lindows is Linux. There is a lot of free linux on the net 24 hours a day. Hype and undergroup hype really sparks people's curiosity.

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ahhhhh, what browser do you guys suggest? I'm kinda fed up with IE too, I noticed my anti virus found a trojan associated with IE, my realtime protection came up as soon as I opened it today.

Edited by desdemona
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ahhhhh, what browser do you guys suggest? I'm kinda fed up with IE too, I noticed my anti virus found a trojan associated with IE, my realtime protection came up as soon as I opened it today.

Me, I'd use Mozilla.

Not the Firebird/Firefox, just the plain old Mozilla browser 1.6.

It has always been a great browser for me.

Edited by Bombardier
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ok, I've seen it then, it shows sometimes but the last few I just saw an empty box with an X and user posted image

Edited by desdemona
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ahhhhh, what browser do you guys suggest? I'm kinda fed up with IE too, I noticed my anti virus found a trojan associated with IE, my realtime protection came up as soon as I opened it today.

Opera

http://www.opera.com/

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ok, I've seen it then, it shows sometimes but the last few I just saw an empty box with an X and user posted image

I wouild also suggest Opera. The safest and bug free client. You could read the opera forums or ask me for help. This browser is very easy to make to fit your stardards. Mozilla is very buggy for me at least

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Bombardier, all i can say is that the beta version of SP2 apparently disables certain operating systems using generated serials. This has been tested, so for now Im just going to be even more carefull about what I install. I havnt even installed media player 9 yet, and have no intention of doing so in the near future. I just want to make sure that nobody rushes into an install that can cause problems.

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Firefox/Mozilla was buggy for me too... I liked it, but it just didnt function as well as it should.... Opera has never given me any problems and is pretty nippy even on dial up.

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Firefox/Mozilla was buggy for me too...  I liked it, but it just didnt function as well as it should.... Opera has never given me any problems and is pretty nippy even on dial up.

thing is i hate all the crap on the internet--flash, all the activex and java crap, what have you

i like firefox because the plugins are not installed by default (like mozilla, ie, or opera) and then i only have to look at what i want to

a trip to zp with an ordinary browser is all the example i need to give--flash ads, annoying java crap, activex underline link scumware etc. with a default install of firefox it's all gone

Edited by nate
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to tell you the truth, the last firefox was almost perfect except the download client. I never completed a dl with that thing. The new Opera beta works perfect and if you read a couple of threads in the opera forums then you'd realise it much more customisable that firefox...

If you want to try out the strength of each browser then yes, ZP is the perfect place for it.

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