Linux and Spywares - lack of reading

Gerald Thompson geraldlt at gmail.com
Mon Feb 14 21:44:57 UTC 2005


Rajev Mhasawade wrote:

>Hi all,
>Well after being criticised for my irrelavant question i need help this time! :)
>How do i keep off 'spies' from Linux?I visit this site
>(indiafm.com)regularly which downloads a cookie (or something which is
>identified as 'DirectHit' by Spybot) and identified as 'medium threat'
>by Spybot.
>I tried and tried but couldnt get any firewall like Zone Alarm.All
>they have is confusing interfaces hard to decipher anything!Plz
>suggest something..
>Rajev
>  
>
Hello Rajev;

I have noticed you posting to the group several times, and even one time 
starting a flame war by saying "Linux Sucks".  In all of this it really 
doesn't look like you have actually done any reading about Linux.

You say Linux has no SLA like Microsoft
- yet Suse, Red Hat, Mandrake, and several other distro's all sell SLA 
products.  RHEL is a distro that includes SLA.  SEL is a distro that 
includes SLA.
- Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware are not SLA distros - they are 
free comunity supported distros.
- Fedora - leading edge packages, very good selection of packages
- Debian - ultra stable, very good selection of packages
- Gentoo - hardware customizability
- Slackware - technical, stable, and customizable

Now you are posting about spyware on Linux
- but you seem confused between spyware and cookies
- I just delete all my cookies every day, problem solved.
- as for spyware on Linux, unfortunately there isn't any yet.  Also even 
if there was you would probably have to be logged in as root for it to 
install.
- there are rootkit viruses that do show up from time to time on Linux, 
but you can usually only get infected with a rootkit virus if you don't 
do your security patches regularly.
- if you are really concerned you can just install clamav.

I am going to post this for you again, I am quite sure that others on 
the group can come up with even more links:
- www.fedorafaq.org
- www.tldp.org
- http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/
- http://www.linuxquestions.org/
- http://www.linuxlookup.com/
- http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/categories.html
- http://www.tldp.org/guides.html

Seriously, you need to read this online FREE book:
- http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

You can also read this:
- http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/index.html
- http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html
- http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Dictionary/html/index.html
- http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/index.html
- http://www.tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/index.html

I cannot stress enough to you and all other new users that it is highly 
recommended that you read up on your questions.  I know the amount of 
information on the internet can be fairly daunting, but that is why 
people like me post links for you.  Add these to your favorites and see 
if some of your questions are answered in the manuals.

Also if you have trouble with a certain package, like mplayer for 
example, try going to mplayer's web site 
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html

I know I am probably preaching to the wind here, but its not that I am 
saying newbies shouldn't ask questions, what I am trying to say is that 
newbies should take the time to read up a bit first.  Check web sites to 
see if you can find your answer; even if you can't, at least you will 
have a better idea of how to ask your question.

Gerald




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