Opinions, Etc., 12.22.04

Archive

No time to do a real intro today, unfortunately. I have to pull a full day at work, then head to Kansas City to catch a flight to Chicago. I was trying like hell to get this thing in last night, but fell asleep instead, thus certifying that this column is boring me to tears as well. Glad that I could share something with the audience. I’ll just get on with it…

THE PIMP SECTION

Grut does a “Best Of”, but it’s funny as hell, so I’ve forgiven him.

Rogers looks at the NFC playoff picture, but the Bears aren’t involved, so I don’t care.

Stevens has the DC news, while Maillaro covers Marvel as usual.

Fortunately, we’re not relaxing over the holiday week. Next week, though, is up for grabs.

THE ANTI-SPYWARE SECTION

Remember, this all started because the slugs at Enigma Software dared to advertise their piece of shit SpyHunter at 411 (one of the reasons why I decided to leave, honestly). So I’m responding every single column with proper anti-spyware information. And guess what? People are actually taking this to heart. They’re asking me for help if they’re infested, or they’re writing me telling me that their browsing experience is less annoying thanks to the stuff I’ve been putting up here three times a week for a few months now.

(And as I understand it, there are some unscrupulous browser toolbar people trying to advertise here at the Pulse. Well, don’t click on that ad, whatever you do. We’ll still get the money from the impressions, and your system will stay safe.)

Big, big Kudos to the guys at the Spyware Warrior Forum for pointing out to everyone the extent of criminal activity participated in by Enigma Software, makers of the bane of advertising on that site, SpyHunter. Slimeballs extraordinare, aren’t they? And in case you need more info about what flaming bags of shit they are, try here. Suzi’s Blog has a great list of other flaming bags of shit that promote anti-spyware programs that are spyware themselves. Consult it if you have questions.

(On a side note, those SpyHunter ads started over at Reality News Online, and BFM, a contributor there, spotted them. He told the webmaster, gave him those links that I cited above, the webmaster read them, the blood drained out of his face, and he contacted his ad provider. No more ads for Enigma products on RNO, thank you. So guess what? If you provide the info, there are sites who will listen.)

One of the leading vectors for spyware is so-called free programs that contain this shit in order to “pay the bills”. No one deserves that kind of treatment. If you’ve got a question about whether or not a certain program contains spyware, head over here. It’s a nice alphabetized list of programs that do contain spyware and should be avoided at all costs.

Here’s a list of the programs you really need to help you get rid of menaces, and, more importantly, prevent them from occurring in the first place:

Spybot and AdAware. The ONLY two spyware removal tools to trust. Do NOT buy any spyware removal tools, because none of them work better than these two, and all of them except these two are suspect.

SpywareBlaster. Will nuke thousands of different potentially malicious ActiveX controls, and now has the ability to prevent a number of non-ActiveX methods of installing spyware for people who use Mozilla/Firefox.

SpywareGuard. From Javacool, like SpywareBlaster. It’s a real-time scanner for spyware. A decent first line of defense.

IE-SpyAd. Throws numerous ad-related URLs into IE’s Restricted Zone, where they won’t display or affect your system. Bookmark this one, since it’s the only one that doesn’t have an in-program update.

A few people have recommended also installing the Sun Java Virtual Machine, since it’s Windows’ buggy, half-assed implementation of the JVM that allows a lot of spyware to install (less so within the past month and a half than before). I STRONGLY recommend that you visit here and update your version of Java.

So many people have asked about a free anti-virus program that I’m also going to recommend AVG. Totally free, and works really, really well, as well as commercial anti-virus programs. Frequent database updates, good heuristic detection, everything you want in an anti-virus package.

Another program that I’d like to add here is a little tough to work with for noobs if it goes buggy (you need to know a little something about your Networking settings in order to debug if something should go wrong). Protowall is a supplement to your firewall or NAT system. It hooks directly into XP’s networking system to block any and all traffic that comes from URLs on a list maintained by the program (all protocols, not just TCP/UDP). It’s mainly designed for anti-P2P purposes (which will appeal to a great many of my readers), but it contains lists to block spyware and ads. Its blocklist can easily be updated using its supplementary program, Blocklist Manager. I have Protowall running and a Blocklist Manager icon on my desktop, and I use Blocklist Manager to update the blocklist every couple of days. You will have problems getting to some sites unless you shut down Protowall temporarily, like ESPN or Sports Illustrated, but it does have a tray icon you can right-click and shut down in a few seconds. It’s the third layer of anti-ad material for me, with IE-SpyAd and AdSubtract running alongside it. Warning, though: it only works with XP. I’d recommend its predecessor, Peer Guardian, for other MS OSes, but it isn’t being developed anymore, and there were still bugs in it when development stopped. You can get Protowall and the Blocklist Manager (which will also work with Peer Guardian) at Bluetack’s site.

Of course, only download them from the links provided above. And only download those programs; don’t fall for the ads that are shown at various websites.

With AdAware and Spybot, check for updates using their internal update function at least once a week. Run them at least once a week or whenever you think you might have problems. Remember, the new version of Spybot has browser protection capabilities, so have that run at startup and leave it running. Check for updates to SpywareBlaster once a week. It only needs to be run once initially in order to establish protection. Then, after it downloads updates, just click on the line that says “Enable Protection For All Unprotected Items” and kill it. It doesn’t need to be active. For IE-SpyAd, bookmark the site and check for updates twice a week, since it has no kind of internal updater. Since all it does is add Registry entries, it doesn’t eat up anything. Run the Blocklist Manager every couple of days to make sure that you keep up on the latest banned URLs.

If you’re having trouble with spyware or a browser hijacker, or think that you do, head over to the SpywareInfo Forums, where the pros there can help you diagnose and get rid of stuff. I was promoted to Full Helper status there and ended up joining ASAP, the Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals. Look for their symbol.

The Ravin’ Cajun asks me to recommend a good client-side spam filter for MS mail programs running under Windows. Now, this is something I don’t have experience with because my ISPs have always had good spam filtering, plus, I use Thunderbird, which handles the remainder quite nicely, thank you. Some readers wrote in and recommended SpamBayes, which is totally free and supposedly works very well, so I’ll add it on to the anti-annoyance list that we’re building up here.

Now that 1.0 has been released, I feel good in recommending Firefox as an alternative to IE. Go grab a copy and see what you’re missing.

LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BARBAROUS

From Reuters:

The White House says it expects a full investigation of prisoner abuses in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after new FBI memos described detainees facing beatings and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears.

“If there is abuse that occurs, we expect it to be investigated fully and people to be held accountable, and measures taken to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

He said the Defence Department was investigating “a number of allegations that have been made,” and added: “We expect them to get to the bottom of it.”

The White House was responding to newly released FBI emails that reported some military interrogators, posing as FBI agents to avoid being held accountable, used torture techniques. One told of an interrogation at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in which a detainee was wrapped in an Israeli flag and bombarded with loud music and strobe lights.

The emails also described detainees at Guantanamo being shackled hand and foot in a foetal position on the floor. They were kept in that position for 18 to 24 hours at a time and most had urinated or defecated on themselves.

On one occasion, an FBI agent reported having seen a detainee left in an unventilated, non-air conditioned room at temperatures probably well over 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius). “The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night,” the agent noted.

The memos covered a two-year period that ended in August, well after a scandal erupted in April about abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Photographs from Abu Ghraib, showing U.S. soldiers taunting and humiliating naked prisoners, sparked worldwide condemnation.

The Bush administration has also been accused of abusing prisoners in Afghanistan. A number of military personnel have been charged.

The FBI memos were made public on Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act.

One heavily redacted June 25 FBI memo, titled “URGENT REPORT” to the FBI director, provided details from someone “who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees” in Iraq.

“He described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorised interrogations,” the document stated. The memo also mentioned “cover-up of these abuses.”

As I said when Abu Ghraib first hit the news, it made me sick to my stomach hearing about the abuses that occurred, and ashamed that I’m an Army veteran. Now it turns out that the military was using even more despicable tactics, even after Abu Ghraib became public. Posing as FBI agents? Loud music, strobe lights, and an Israeli flag? Being chained up in the fetal position? This is now getting f*cking sick.

I’m even more ashamed at having served, if that’s possible. This makes Abu Ghraib look like a goddamn tea party. I wonder how much of this is contributory to the fact that Marines seem to be bumping themselves off at a record rate. Hell, if the Marines feel ashamed of this stuff, it’s officially nauseating.

Just another condemnation of the Junta and the atmosphere it’s created since September 11th. And 51% of people voted for them. Glad to see that we’ve proven to the rest of the world that we’re not only stupid, we’re as bad as the people we illegally overthrew in Iraq.

BITE THIS

From Reuters:

Apple Computer Inc. has sued three men for illegally distributing test copies of the next version of its Mac OS X operating system on a file-sharing Web site, court records showed on Tuesday.

The lawsuit is the second in as many weeks by the maker of the popular iPod digital music players and iconic Macintosh personal computers to thwart the release of its software and details of its unannounced products.

Apple claims in its suit that two different versions of Mac OS X, code-named Tiger, were made available on the Web on or about Oct. 30 and Dec. 8 of this year.

The company has said it will ship Mac OS X “Tiger” in the first half of 2005, after previewing it to the Mac community at a trade show last June.

Apple makes test versions available to certain software developers under strict confidentiality conditions and lets them test the prerelease software and develop or change their own programs to work with the software.

The company said in its lawsuit that the two different versions were made publicly available by the men, who were members of the Apple Developer Connection.

“Members of Apple Developer Connection receive advance copies of Apple software under strict confidentiality agreements, which we take very seriously to protect our intellectual property,” the company said in a statement.

According to the suit, the men released the software on a Web site that employs BitTorrent file-sharing technology, which is used to rapidly distribute large files of electronic data%2
C and is also widely used to distribute pirated copies of motion pictures via the Internet.

This is a new twist. And you thought the MPAA was the only entity that was madly raging against BitTorrent. Actually, I saw these torrents up at the late, lamented SuprNova. Fortunately, I have no use for MacOS and didn’t bother downloading it. I kinda feel glad for Apple that they’re taking their own beta testers to task, but the pirate in me objects vociferously. Information should be free, and so should software. So f*ck Apple and their overpriced hardware and their overrated OS.

PAIN KILLERS

From CNN:

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to users of the over-the-counter pain reliever naproxen Monday after federal researchers found an increased number of heart attacks and strokes among users.

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with naproxen over the years. Back in 1999, I decided to try something different for my knee pain, since Tylenol was doing shit and I couldn’t get a doctor to prescribe the good stuff. I decided to try naproxen, since it was the only thing OTC that I hadn’t tried. Soon after I started to take it, I started to get severe stomach pains. Naturally, I thought that the naproxen was irritating my stomach and I stopped using it. Unfortunately, the stomach pains continued. Turns out that it wasn’t the naproxen after all; I tested Heliobacter pylori positive and was about a week away from a full-blown ulcer. Antibiotics and Prevacid prevented that from happening.

About a year ago or so, I came into a supply of prescription-strength naproxen. I was hesitant at first due to my previous experiences, but decided to plunge ahead. It did help my knee pain. Well, I don’t need it now thanks to my hoarded supply of Vicodin (which I’ve been dipping into heavily the past couple days due to knee pain so bad I want to take my knives from work and plunge them into my patella). However, it’s a good alternative to think of. Let’s see, the non-prescription strength is 200mg per, if memory serves. The scrip style was 500mg. Easily enough done. The problem is that Aleve is waaaaay overpriced. You’ve got to find the generic stuff. Or get a prescription.

To hell with heart disease and strokes. It’s worth it to live pain-free.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to do so. I have to deal with my mother for the rest of the week. As I said last week, no Smackdown Short Form this week for that reason. I’ll be back on Tuesday. Until then, have a good holiday weekend.