|
Pop
Quiz
|
|
 Boy Scouts of America Troop 129's Monkey Patrol were not in
their tents fast asleep. Instead they had taken it upon themselves to sneak
out and brave the dark woods to hike to the nearby Girl Scouts of
America encampment where they were greeted with hot, sticky-sweet,
S'Mores.
This behavior was not condoned by the Boy, or Girl, Scouts
of America or their Parents.
The adults responsible did their best and used their best
judgemnet but just fell short of the goal. It happens.
Pop Quiz #1: Parents, would you rather have your child
attend a party at;
A) A home with a gun collection.
B) A home with a swimming pool.
The vast majority of parents answered B. Fact of the matter
is accidental death by drowning in the United States is 4 times more
likely than that of death by accidental firearms discharge*. You can
argue it any way you want and that's the point.
Your PC has undoubtedly become a major factor in how you
live and when it has a problem, you have a problem. Viruses, Spyware and
Adware can make your life miserable.
Pop Quiz #2: Parents, is it more dangerous to have your
children using your computer to;
Your initial thought might be porno is more dangerous
but this is Cocktail Talk and it is more dangerous to download music.
You can argue it any way you want and that's the point.
The top Virus, Spyware and Adware threats are free
music dowmloaders Limewire, Grokster, and KaZaa. Not porno. Porno is
big business, arguably the world's oldest business, and you're not likely
to catch anything through internet porno.
Its almost unfair to label them as "top" because
the other free music softwares are just as dangerous. But they are the most
popular and reach the most homes. Limewire alone resides on over 1.5% of
PCs worldwide with over 250,000 downloads a week.
Reading this description of Grokster makes it pretty clear how you're
at risk;
"Grokster allows its users to share all types of digital files
via the Internet with millions of other users. This version of
Grokster can be used for free with accompanying ads." Millions
sharing, that's scary, like a kid in public school during Flu Season scary,
or couped up in a stale smelling airplane scary.
Allow me to point out the phrase "accompanying ads". The
following partial list reads like the "begats" in the Old
Testament but it shows just how many "accompanying ads" there can
be.
Active Delivery, CasinoOnNet, ClipGenie, CommonName, Cydoor, DelFin Media
Viewer, DownloadWare, eUniverse, FavoriteMan, FlashTrack, Gator, IGetNet,
IGetNet/ClearSearch, IncrediFind, IPInsight, Look2Me, Lycos.SideSearch,
NetworkEssentials, NetworkEssentials/SCBar, PeopleOnPage, RVP, SAHAgent,
Search-EXE, SearchEnhancement, TOPicks, VX2/e, VX2/f, and Webhancer
OK, you're not convinced. What about this warning from the biggest PC
Security organization on earth?
"Any peer-to-peer file swapping program, such as Grokster, KaZaa, and
Limewire, in an organization, can degrade network performance and consume
vast amounts of storage. May create security issues as outsiders are
granted access to internal files. Often bundled with Adware or
Spyware."
Of course thousands of songs use vast amounts of storage.
Granting access of our PC to people in China and other countries
that don't even recognize our Copyright Laws is foolish. The relentless
pop-up ads for teen chat and love connections are anoying and
embarassing.
The free download pop-ups that people click OK on just
to get their music fix are even more deadly. Do you really need 6 differnt
menus along the top of your web browser? Google Helper, MSN, Yahoo, they
all try to piggyback on a wanted download. The bad ones usually happen when
you agree to "speed up your download" by downloading something
you've never heard of before.
PC is an acronym for "Personal Computer" and
maybe you shouldn't turn anyone loose on yours. Its OK, good, even
great, to have a PC that's used just for dangerous things. A PC that will
muck-up, crash, and lose things peiodically. Its actually a great way to
clean house, to start with a clean slate. This is called a DMZ PC which
sits outside your Firewalled fortress and is controlled. Not the PC
you use to pay your bills and run your business.
I prefer vinyl, maybe you prefer digital**, but thats your call, and
that's Cocktail Talk.
|
|
|
Craig Phillips
CN Consulting, Inc.
* United States Government statistics on the top 113
causes of accidental death per 100,000 is 0.3 for Accidental Firearms
Discharge and 1.2 for Accidental Drowning.
The were no statistics available on Accidental
Drowning or Firearms Discharge while surfing porno.
** Sorry Chris, "maybe you prefer
leather" was funny though. Thanks for that.
|
|
