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On 07 Oct 2008 18:42:25 GMT, Cosmos <Whosat@osama.com> wrote:
> Recently several Small exe programs have been posted to this newsgroup
> Please be aware that running an executable program (files finishing with
> .exe) gathered from newsgroups such as this one however trustworthy the
> apparent poster name may appear to be Is, in MHOP extremely dangerous.
> I find it even more curious that another poster purporting to be the
> vanguard of safe conduct online has chosen to draw attention to these
> posts, and praised the poster.
> These posts may indeed be benign, I scanned one out of curiosity and it
> passed my virus scanner,
> Personally I would not touch them, Efficient Trojan Key-loggers exist and
> only need 5k of code to render the tightest of encryption security
> worthless.
> BE Warned!
> Cosmos
The first of these "small exe programs" -- jigsaw puzzles -- carried the
warning message
: This executable presents a jigsaw puzzle to be solved on-screen
: using mouse and (optionally) keyboard; both this puzzle and
: the program that created it, JigsawPuzzle2 from tibosoftware.com,
: tested virus-free on my system, and Google has nothing negative
: to say about either the program or the company, but still...
: System Administrator discretion is advised.
and every one of its successors should have included the same; be
assured that all further puzzle executables will certainly do so.
Well spoken, Cosmos: 10 points to Ravenclaw.
And... Bad Ronin! Bad! Bad! 100 points from Hephaestes!
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An aside to those reading this who are comfortable with installing
operating systems:
The safest way to play these puzzles, as well as to run all the
slideshows and so forth that others have contributed to The Fort,
is to create a standalone Windows system which is connected to
neither the Internet nor your local access network (LAN).
The easiest way to do this is put up some version of Windows --
Win98 runs these puzzles just fine -- on a hard drive mounted in
a standalone computer and transfer potentially dangerous proggies
to it using floppy disks or CD-ROMs; no matter what sort of
malware such programs might install, they can't call home, and
they can't infect anything else. If the box begins to behave in
a suspicious manner, just boot DOS from a floppy, wipe the hard
drive with FDISK, and reinstall Windows -- or just do it the first
of each month (or whenever), on general principles.
If this standalone computer is fitted with hard-drive mobile racks,
it can be easily used to run multiple operating systems -- Linux,
for example -- with any desired number of additional (pluggable)
hard drives, providing similar disaster (accidental or otherwise)
isolation for Innocent Bystanders.
Mac users are invited to see what US$100 will buy, in the way of
complete IBM-PC systems in the 500-MHz/500-Mb class, on eBay...
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