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Comment True story (Score -1) 232

Some people really believe in this stuff. I once fixed a virus-laden computer for a new age bookstore. Before calling me, someone tried placing crystals on the monitor base so the "healing energy" could fix the problems. I have to admit, the monitor worked perfectly. Maybe if they had placed them on the tower instead?

Submission + - Wyoming teen who built fusion reactor disqualified from science fair (trib.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "A Wyoming high school student who built a nuclear reactor in his dad's garage was disqualified from the International Science and Engineering Fair this month on a technicality."

His crime: competing in too many science fairs.

Comment Re:Maybe a few bugs (Score 2) 36

The answer about mapping inaccuracies from their blog post:

Why are there so many attacks and yet so few different attackers (red dots)?

This is just an issue of precision in geo location lookups. We identify the red dots by their GPS location and many IP addresses map to the same GPS location, even if the corresponding machines are actually not really close to each other. So one single red dot can represent many different attackers.

As a sidenote, IP geolocation is not 100% accurate, either. In the past we had US systems being mapped to asian countries and similar problems.

Comment Re:Consumer Reports (Score 1) 515

Buying a refrigerator? Great, look at Consumer Reports. For antivirus? No. CR is not credible in this area Their testing methodology is flawed. As are most "professional" reviews by ZDnet, PCMag, CNet and the like. Likewise, never trust YouTube reviews from virus collectors or hobbyists. Look at AV-Comparatives, RAP, ShadowServer, MRG.

Comment Free advice from a repair tech about free AV's (Score 1) 515

Avast is hands down the best of the freebies, surpassing Avira a couple of years ago. Multiple system guards, GMER antirootkit technology, sandboxing of suspicious files, incremental updates, boot-time scanning, much more. More like a paid AV than any other free option. If you set the full or quick scan options correctly, that is, to populate the persistent cache AND to update it, you'll see scan times get faster and faster. Most importantly, consistently very high marks in independent tests. Look at AV-Comparatives, VirusBulletin RAP, and ShadowServer's Zero-Day stats and draw your own conclusions. In my real world results, Avast is measurably better at blocking web threats than Avira, and blows away AVG and MSE. In fact, MSE would be my LAST choice. Expect to be infected if you are running MSE. Along with Avast, install the free version of MalwareBytes and run a regular one-time scan with HitmanPro. Keep Adobe, Windows and Firefox/Chrome patched, Ditch JRE or keep it patched. You'll be good to go. Oh, and don't forget to run Kaspersky's product removal tool after you uninstall from Add/Remove Programs, and before you install Avast.
Microsoft

Submission + - Did Microsoft Know About the IE Zero-Day flaw In Advance? (techweekeurope.co.uk) 1

judgecorp writes: "Microsoft issued an emergency patch for a flaw in the Internet Explorer browser on Friday, but there are hints that the firm may have known about the flaw two months ago. the notes to Microsoft's patch credit the TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative for finding the flaw, instead of Eric Romang, the researcher at Metasploit who made it public. ZDI's listings show its most recent report to Microsoft on 24 J uly, suggesting Microsoft may have known about this one for some time. The possibility raises questions about Microsoft's openness — as well as about the ethics of the zero day exploit market"

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