My last go around with a worm in my home network convinced me that I was running the wrong software for an OS. Since it got into the MBR of every hard drive in the system, the task of zero writing every one of those hard drives added up to a lot of time down. I had all the protections. Anti-spy ware, hardware firewall, software firewall, trojan hunters, anti-virus, and on and on. What none of the removers would do is remove what they weren’t written to detect. New signatures are written often but it has to reach a certain level of infection before that occurs. I could find mention of the worm but I could not find cures, solutions, nor recommendations to eliminate the pest.

At that point I asked myself what I was doing wrong. My answer came to me that I was using the wrong OS. It is unforetunate that Microsucks has been as successful as it has in eliminating competion. Since the choices of modification or altering the OS is nil on major levels (being as it is locked down); there is no chance of altering its habits when it comes to user level.

Finally I tried linux. While I am not an expert with Linux, I learn a little every day about it. What I can say with all certainty is that since that day, I have not been infected with a malware of any sort. Do I still have all those anti this and thats for an OS? Yes of course. Do they ever show up anything? Never. About the worse I see is cookies. I don’t regret the change as security is more of an issue for me on the net than any other topic.

Best of all, any of those malware detectors are free for linux. There is no annual renewal fee, no major profits to be made by businesses. There is also no hidden time costs with what it takes to run those applications on a constant basis as I used to have to do with Windows.

Many will say they can’t live without Windows. That linux doesn’t have game support or intercompatiblity with other business apps that use Windows exclusively. No problem on my part. I no longer have those security issues.

The government and the cartels are NOT the solution but rather, they are the PROBLEM. Most government mandated programs run only on Windows therefore forcing most businesses to run this operating system. If the government was serious about protecting the online envoronment, it would make sure that any program it requires people or businesses to run to be open source and available to the operating systems written by those other than Microsoft. Until governments (U.S.A. included) embrace free market capitalism, the Internet will never be safe. Home users who do not have to use government mandated software should use Linux, BSD, Solaris, or MacOS (BSD Derivative). Anyone that I know of that uses these operating systems have never had a virus.

Until people realize that “Virus Scanners” serve no purpose other than to detect known exploits for known security problems, they will not realize that any computer that needs to run a virus scanner is badly designed. While it is one thing to have tools to alert users of potential problems when installing software, viruses that get in without manual intervention from the computer owner are exploiting software flaws that should simply be fixed.

I haven’t been personally infected with a virus since the early 1990’s. That is when I switched from running an Amiga computer to running various Free Software operating systems such as BSD Unix (on that Amiga) and then Linux. While I obviously still need a firewall and keep my software patched as bugs are fixed, I no longer have to worry about design flaws that are easily exploited and never fixed as is the case for Microsoft users.

Suggesting that the ISP should have any part in this is also part of the problem, not part of the solution. The Internet is intended to be a network where the endpoints are smart, and the network itself is dumb. It is wrong to have intermediaries like ISPs doing anything other than routing packets — issues such as security of your endpoint must happen at your endpoint, otherwise the basic functionality of the network is diminished. Just as we don’t want to be stuck with 8-track tapes forever in the future (oh — they are already gone), we don’t want to be stuck with ISPs creating filters to “snapshot” the current functionality of the Internet and not allow it to advance without their permission.