Malware now infesting my primary computer:
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
Malware ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, that's not really true. There are only a dozen or so vectors for autostarting software in windows. You can check them all(or if you're paranoid, boot to another platform and check the data manually). I can be pretty confident that the most recent time I only get infected with one piece of garbage through a flash exploit.
Just the OS (Score:5, Insightful)
I picked this option because sometimes the OS is trolling me. It's Windows 7, and it works fine, except some annoyances that I would categorize more like malware behavior than anything else.
For example, focus stealing: I fucking hate that. I type while looking at the keyboard and of course Windows Update pops up asking for a restart while I'm writing and space bar activates the OK button. Then svchost.exe stealing one core worth of CPU processing power exactly when I'm about to kill whatever boss in whatever game, and so on.
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> sometimes the OS is trolling me ... "Win95 is NOT a virus -- virus do something [useful !] "
There used to be an old Win 95 joke
> For example, focus stealing: I fucking hate that. I type while looking at the keyboard and of course Windows Update pops up asking for a restart while I'm writing and space bar activates the OK button.
Totally agreed that is annoying as hell. Apparently MS can't add a bit to the input queue / message queue to tag where the mouse move / click came from -- human or program.
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Yeah. I understand that software makers intentionally implement focus stealing to make their product "pop out", but I hate it with a passion. Every time a Yahoo Messenger contact opens a chat session with me, the damn window pops on top of everything (even games!). I once almost sent someone my e-mail password because I was logging in and he contacted me just then. It's a horrible implementation, but I'm not blaming Windows for it in such cases. However, the Windows Update stuff is pure Windows. And that on
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because the OS offers a base for other software to be used, it's not supposed to be an all-controlling entity.
Re:Just the OS (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, what?
The OS is supposed to be the entity that controls all the resources of your computer. That includes focus.
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Huh?
That's like exactly what the window management component is. Programs just care about themselves, and the window manager / OS manages them. A program isn't supposed to know what's going on with other programs / the OS .. it's supposed to just do it's thing, maybe provide some hints, and the window manager is supposed to provide the user the ability to switch between them / move them around / control which one is focused / etc..
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Thoroughly disagree with this. My OS empowers me to disable this non-feature and I would thoroughly utilize it if I had applications misbehaving like that.
Re:Just the OS (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm glad you asked. As far as I'm concerned, taskbar blinking is more than enough for me. At most (and this should be configurable), a small corner overlay rectangle with first few words of incoming text should appear, but without stealing focus.
Horrible behavior which needs to be avoided and Yahoo Messenger does it plenty:
- If you lose Internet connection and it comes back, re-connection to the server should transparently happen in the background. No pop-ups, no warnings, no focus stealing once reconnected. Yahoo messenger has this bad habit of having its main window appear on top of everything else after it reconnects, even if previous state was "minimized to system tray". It's simply great when it does that at 1 AM, while you are watching a movie and holding your asleep baby in your lap. Really helpful!
- If someone starts chatting with you, see above: NOT nice to construct the window on top, especially if my status is "Invisible to all" or "Do not Disturb".
Bottom line: don't put window on top, with or without focus stealing, when someone starts a chat, because there's no reliable way to know what the user is doing. Maybe they're presenting some report to a VP and the last thing they need is a "'sup, dude!" from buddy Joe, or even worse, some stupid/obnoxious/racy pic from Uncle Skuggle. Yeah, I know, the user should have closed all chat software and whatnot, but sometimes they forget. Point is, YOUR application should be discreet unless otherwise specifically configured.
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So true. Even in the minimal installation possible I get random notifications from Flash, Java, Updates, etc. When I switched to Linux 3 years ego I enjoy it how quite the system was. No random notification, no 5 widgets that notify you of updates, internet connection is seamless.
I see it almost every time in a presentation that some random crap shows up and shifts attention from the presentation to the notification. You can't help it because our eyes are trained to recognize movement and text. So if some r
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Or make the blinks customizeable. Even better.
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Out of curiosity, do you mostly object to the focus-stealing, or the popover effect? I'm working on a new chat product (basically video instant messaging, but we're getting more into text chat, too: http://www.quicklychat.com/ [quicklychat.com] ) and I'm still figuring out what the least-annoying way to start a chat (quickly) is. Right now, we put our window on top when someone chats you, but don't steal focus (except in our Linux version, one of several reasons that's not publicly available yet.) Good idea? Bad idea?
Bad idea. Some users use a strict "focus follows mouse", and if you pop your window to the front of the z order and it happens to be in the area the mouse is, it gets focus. This is even more of a problem in Linux, where far more users will have a "X mouse" environment.
The one rule all developers should remember, and which most of them forget is:
Never assume that your program or routine is the most important thing a customer runs.
Even if it's a countdown screen with an abort button for nuclear missile l
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KDE have the "notification and jobs", it looks like here: http://www.stealthcopter.com/blog/2010/02/utilising-the-notification-system-in-kde-or-gnome-in-bash-scripts-ubuntu-9-10-linux/ [stealthcopter.com]
It is using the Desktop Notification Specification [galago-project.org] from http://www.freedesktop.org/ [freedesktop.org]. I would suggest that you are using that on Linux.
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Just curious. iOS or Android planned after your initial Mac and Windows Rollout?
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My corporate IT department finally started supporting 32-bit Win7, but still thinks 64-bit is scary. So I'm limited to the 4GB that 32-bit Win7 knows how to manage (sigh. Can't even do >4GB of swap space.) One of my coworkers decided to work around it by installing VMware on the hardware and running a supported 32-bit Win7 in a VM and his own instances of Windows and Linux in other VMs.
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That is true.
From how I read GP's post, however, it seems the coworker installed VMWare ESX directly on the hardware (ie. it *is* the operating system and can assign memory however it wants), or installed VMWare inside some "unsupported" 64-bit OS.
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I doubt ESX[i] was used, you'd require another workstation to get a GUI. It's likely installed on on a host OS on the hardware.
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You can indeed have more VM ram in use than actual RAM. However it isn't recommended for most usages. What happens is that VMWare will spool RAM to the HD just like ... Virtual Memory does. There are instances where this isn't a problem, as the VMs themselves also do Virtual Memory ("swap"), and in fact VMWare has this thing called a Balloon Driver that swells VM ram usage forcing the guest OS to swap to disk for you, then reclaiming that ram for other Guests.
Yeah, I love VMWare. :-D
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The thing here is I shouldn't have to diagnose shit. The OS shouldn't hamper my main activity, often or rarely, unless it's a critical, CRITICAL thing it needs to do. Checking for Windows Updates is nowhere near critical, or in other words it's far less critical than my focus-owning software that I am using at the time.
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I couldn't care less what the theory says as long as practice contradicts it.
Yes, I know about priority setting under Windows, it's checked for Programs; it doesn't help. Checking for updates (in form of "critical security" ones or not) can't and shouldn't superseed the importance of a currently running application which needs most CPU resources and has focus.
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That's all you needed to say. Nothing else was necessary. Having to work with W7 is a daily struggle to accomplish what I want without having to constantly move my hands from one location to another or get menus to stop jumping around.
As to focus stealing, try dealing with Remedy. No matter what you do, it will take focus. It cannot be stopped. The programmers and designers of Remedy should be taken out back and shot, repeatedly, with a
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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1. Don't fuck with Windows Services. They're set that way for a reason. And no, I don't give two shits about some Windows optimization guide. Six months later, something wont work right and you'll end up chasing your tail only to figure out it's because of something you did six months ago and completely forgot about it. Trust me, I've seen plenty of "PC gamer" type people trip over themselves plenty of times doing this kinda crap.
2. The default time for Windows Updates to install is 3AM. A reasonable time for most people. But if you insist on working/playing at that time, sure, change it.
You obviously don't know Windows very well if you think it's a bad idea to turn off non essential (to your use case) services.
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Doesn't help id10t errors though. One of my friends needed space to install a game so he decided to delete the Windows directory. That's sort of like of virus, but self-inflicted...
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Clean that shit out.
80% of the services windows is running either don't need to be running all the time. OR should never be running because you don't use it.
Windows 7 is pretty damm tight when you remove the bloat and useless and extra crap they turned on by default.
Never ever had anything 'steal focus' on my win7
Why would you run windows update on their demand. And not yours.
1. An OS which needs cleaning is not really a smart one, is it?
2. I am glad you never experienced focus stealing. Maybe you didn't realize it. Outlook does it, pidgin does it, most antivirus products do it, yahoo messenger does it, etc., etc.
3. I am running Windows Update on demand. The problem is that I tell it to install updates, then when it finishes it pops that stupid restart notification and gains focus.
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It's not the updates themselves being irritating. it's the behavior of the OS that comes with them. But whatever, mate, I'm glad you have a zen life :)
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Because you have business apps that only run in Windows. Because you need to develop programs for Windows. Because you want to play games. Because you think Windows Media Player is honestly one of the best music programs out there.
Because you realize this isn't 2002 anymore and Windows doesn't actually suck anymore (although word has it they're fixing that in 8).
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None I know of (running Ubuntu 10.04) (Score:4, Interesting)
I run Ubuntu Linux (10.04, so I've got until April 2013 before I have to find an alternative), and am reasonably secure I think. So I don't think I've got any malware installed. Though Firefox has been crashing regularly since I updated to 14...
I don't have Adobe Flash, or Adobe Acrobat Reader, or any Adobe products on my machine. I do have MS Windows 2003 in a virtual machine, but rarely run it. I also only run software from the repositories (and only Free Software) rather than randomly downloading stuff from the 'net. I am also careful with my browsing habits, using NoScript and RequestPolicy (which, once set up, are surprisingly painless, esp. NoScript) for example.
Seriously though, there are three (and more!) great reasons why Linux based systems are inherently superior to MS Windows.
1) Lower usage by people who mindlessly click through things, leads to fewer bad peeps targeting the OS.
2) A wide variety of variation (not just in distribution, but also CPU-type, etc.) means that it is much harder to target with malware (though this also makes it harder for other proprietary systems to run, I don't really give a shit).
3) Even if you do get access to a Linux based system, the security model makes it easier to clean up afterwards (as all you have to do in most cases is just delete the user account and files that were infected).
Of course, Android is an example of a Linux based system that demonstrates that I'm not correct with at least the first point, and probably the other two points as well.
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re: Android vs. Linux as a whole
#1 you're right on. As someone said, there is no patch for human stupidity. The more users you have, the more dumb users you have.
#2 I don't see a difference. While both support a number of CPUs (Android a smaller subset of course), the vast majority of Android devices are ARM variants and the vast majority of Linux machines that users run arbitrary software on or otherwise can expose to malware are x86 variants. Yes there are plenty of ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC based applia
2% of Slashdotters are anon trolls (Score:2)
The ones with malware on their computer "not worth the chase."
None for many years (Score:2)
Never on the Linux partition, none for a very long time indeed with Windows.
The last infection I've gotten on a personal machine was in the MS-DOS days from an infected floppy, but F-Prot caught it before it could do any damage.
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Sorta cheap solution (Score:2)
Get a portable that takes EE3 RAM, one that takes up to 16 GB. Load that sucker up. Download the free VMWare player or Virtual Box. Install a Linux distro (I favor Zorin because I hate having to rewire my brain from Windows), and do all your surfing in the VMWare appliance, with Ghostery installed of course. And your favorite keystroke encryptor too. I've had zero problems with viruses or trojans since I started. I barely use the base OS at all now. Just Linux and Windows VMs.
My brand new computer came infected (Score:5, Insightful)
New laptop out of the box, turned it on and almost instantly a popup appeared, it was nagging me to upgrade, disrupting me from setting up my computer, bogged the machine down really bad, and at one point even asked for personal information AND a credit card number!
Fucking McAfee, no wonder normal people get crap on their system when their (absolutely worthless) virus protection behaves exactly the same.
Re:My brand new computer came infected (Score:5, Funny)
"That's a nice computer you have there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."
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"That's a nice computer you have there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."
That's Norton. McAfee is more like "Make me a sammich, bitch."
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That's Norton. McAfee is more like "Make me a sammich, bitch."
I sure hope they don't learn how to use sudo then.
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That's why the FIRST thing I do whenever I get a new laptop is a complete reformat, followed by a fresh install, preferably from my own media. My old Asus laptop had a "recovery disc" that let you pick-and-choose the software to install - I installed just the drivers (it is a pain trying to get drivers onto a machine with no working Ethernet or Wifi, let me tell you) and left McAfee and all the pointless "power management" software off.
My next Asus laptop didn't even include a disc. It included crappily-mad
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Their sole feature is high-end devices at low prices.
However, to get that, they have:
> Poor reliability (my laptop died of a fried mobo after mere *hours*, and I'm beginning to suspect the subwoofer is going out now)
> TERRIBLE customer service - the repair took a month and a half, and they didn't even return all the stuff I sent in. Queries regularly took over a week to get a response (and the response, uniformly, was "fuck off")
> Bad software, as already mentioned
> Mediocre design - this laptop
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Then again, four times over about six years is not a good sample size.
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No, I wouldnt wipe my ass on a HP let alone pay for one ... sigh ... its a Dell ... its a nice computer, but its a Dell, and cause work paid for it, its a Dell
I answered wrong (Score:5, Funny)
I selected "None of which I am aware", but then I realized - I've got Adobe software all over the place.
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You mean that as a joke insinuating poor quality of adobe software, but there's a hint of direct truth too, in that MOST infections these days go through flash or acrobat(if you have a real browser, anyways).
If you care about security: install flashblock.
Malware? (Score:2)
Malware? What is this "malware" you speak of?
Linux household here (other than an old AIX box and an HP-UX box that aren't running right now) with hand tuned iptables, rkhunter, SELinux and a healthy level of paranoia. Oh yeah, and that's with a server on a routable IP address and running my own mail server and webserver.
Cheers,
Dave
Re:Malware? (Score:5, Funny)
Linux Malware, like everything else Linux, is very very good. If you had some, you wouldn't know it.
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If I had malware I wouldn't be on Slashdot. (Score:2)
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If I had malware I wouldn't be on Slashdot.
If you _were aware_ that you had malware, you mean. Good malware wouldn't even let you know it was there. Almost every piece of malware I've come across has been really crap, and I can't help but think "I could write better than this"... but maybe that's because i've never noticed the good stuff?
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I find that an unfair premise. Most malware, other than spam zombie malware makes its money out of convincing you to buy crap. Particularly "malicious software removal" services.
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But there are more subtle ways of sell you things. How about a virus that uses a (publicly available) adblock server list to identify incoming ads and replaced them with ads that make the virus writer money. Wouldn't even have to be obvious depending on how shady the ad network is.
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I find that an unfair premise. Most malware, other than spam zombie malware makes its money out of convincing you to buy crap. Particularly "malicious software removal" services.
There certainly it lots of "obvious" malware, but there is plenty that isn't. Keystroke loggers for one, waiting for the moment when you type in your bank password etc.
I don't use Xorg or emacs (Score:3)
So I'm pretty sure my linux machine is malware free.
Dual booting (Score:2)
but one of the OSes is Windows 7, though I'm booted into Ubuntu now.
Warning! Warning! (Score:2)
Danger, Will Robinson!
Not at this moment, but I've been using a friend's computer recently, and it seems to want a HDD format.
New Computer (Score:2)
First website I clicked was slashdot. Except for the crap added in at the factory, it's verifiably gunge free
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Hmm, my first is the PC Decrapifier website if I don't already have it handy on a thumbdrive. Next is a free antivirus option. After that the browser of your choice. But that's just me.
No infections, just Virii in my Inbox (Score:2)
Ignorance is Bliss (Score:3)
facebook... (Score:2)
I'm confronted with malware only when I login to facebook...in the form of apps that have access to all my info.
EMET and ad blockers. (Score:2)
I setup EMET [microsoft.com] for all programs that hit the network, always use an ad blocker in my browser, and keep google's malware site warning turned on. If something is advanced enough to bypass all of that then it is probably advanced enough for me to not realize I have it anyway. Ignorance is bliss.
None I know unless you count the web (Score:2)
Almost all the popular web sites are malware. I'm not picking on Twitter in particular, just using it as an example. Last time I looked, the page you land on had several 100k of code. That's to display a dozen 140-character text comments. The horrible code:data ratio wouldn't be so bad, except that the code is fancy crap that takes several seconds to render, connect, and phone home God-only knows what to Central Command. All to display a dozen 140-character comments.
Once again, not picking on Twitter.
None! Linux! (Score:2)
Just like when I used to own an Apple computer... uh... never mind....
Just the OS (Score:2)
No, ma'am... (Score:2)
I am running iOS ... (Score:2)
Huh????
None at ALL - it's impossible.... (Score:2)
BeBox with BeOS... Immune to all Malware Baby!
Re:it depends... (Score:5, Funny)
You don't watch Porn in a VM?
Re:it depends... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean a condom for my monitor?
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Re:it depends... (Score:5, Funny)
You don't watch Porn in a VM?
Practising safe hex, are we?
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Re:it depends... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course the only way to be totally safe is to never switch on your computer. But a VM is an additional safety barrier because the vast majority of malware is not able to escape a VM (of course it also depends on your setup; if your VM networks with your host OS, then of course the standard network infection paths are open, so any worms might spread to your host this way; also you should be careful with files transferred from the VM to the host). Even better if your host and guest are different operating systems: Then only cross-platform malware can infect the host from the guest.
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I'd be willing to bet that by using the Alt+ trick on a Microsoft system or it's equivalent on other OSes a determined attacker could key in a useful binary with nothing more than a keyboard and a text editor.
If the keyboard wiring is accessible, either through the port being available or directly attaching to the wiring or the keyboard itself, I'm sure an attacker with a bored afternoon and a microcontroller could rig something up to automate or partially automate the process. The lock LEDs could even all
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Of course the only way to be totally safe is to never switch on your computer.
True, I'm *fairly* sure I have no malware at the moment, but with respectable sites being compromised with driveby downloads I can't really be sure.
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Even better if your host and guest are different operating systems
Well I would never want to browse "questionable" sites in Windows, so I guess I would need to run a Windows Host and Linux Client. I am just not sure I like the idea of that (running Windows at all I guess). Is there another option I am missing? I am not going to pay for Mac, don't want to use Windows, that leaves Linux and Linux...
FWIW I currently run Ubuntu and/or Xubuntu 12.04
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boot to a live distro and dismount any HDs or removable media works ok
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"I know my box is infected. There are no tools to help. I can no longer cleanse it manually in a couple of hours."
Run your OS in a VM atop a Linux host, snapshot it, and boot to a clean snapshot after backing up your info.
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Dust off and fdisk from orbit (Score:2)
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Why on earth would anyone knowingly use/run a computer with malware on it?
The same reason someone might bring a bomb on a plane to protect their own safety... what are the chances of there ever being _two_ bombs on a plane?