Answer Guy Central

An amazing idea: the worst threat to security in your computer may not be a virus, or a piece of stray mal-ware. It’s your operating system.

Or so says Brian Krebs, blogging for The Washington Post. And he’s probably right.

The issue, says Krebs, is that most of the bad stuff that tries to infect your computer does so by mucking around in your operating system, and that your operating system gets harder and harder to protect over time. This is true.

Further, Krebs argues that Windows users have the biggest problems, because it’s Windows being targeted by a huge percentage of virus writers. This is also true.

What’s fascinating (and please remember that this is not truly a Windows issue; Macintosh and Linux computers get viruses, too) is his solution: you can completely avoid having sensitive data stolen by doing something that is becoming more and more simple: don’t type anything or use shopping or banking web site on a computer  unless you boot that computer from a clean, protected, pristine CD or DVD-based copy of the operating system.

This is almost a brilliant idea. Human nature being what it is (lazy) and technology understanding being what it is (low), the idea means very little here in the real world. But with Virtual Computers becoming more and more prevalent, it’s an idea that will lead to real solutions, and soon.

THAT’S Business Change.

Let the nasty notes fly . . .

So this week Apple releases Snow Leopard. It’s the latest and greatest version of the Macintosh OS, otherwise known as OS X Version 10.6. And I have to tip my hat to them; it’s a great release for many reasons, and at just $30 it will be a great seller (And should be!), even though you might not notice the differences from what’s in Macintosh OS X version 10.5.

Volumes have been written already, and my pal David Pogue at the New York Times has covered this subject as exhaustively and accessibly as anyone. I recommend his take on the subject highly.

But for me the real issue is one that gets discussed . . . oddly every time it comes up. Apple has taken steps to address it in Snow Leopard, and it goes to our topic of business change:

Macintosh Computers Are No More Safe From Viruses than Windows Computers

Not a popular position to take when Apple fans are in the room, and one that Windows users stopped caring about a long time ago; they simply deal with the reality of viruses, spyware, and other such nuisances as part of their day.  But one of the things that Apple is acknowledging in Snow Leopard is exactly that: Macintosh computers are virus-susceptible, and steps need to be taken to protect them.

A tip of my hat to Apple for taking steps on your behalf, and I’ll be fair: big raspberries to Microsoft for making you deal with the subject (almost) all by yourself. The real message for you, though, is this:

If you’re going to believe what you read, make sure your reading material is coming from sources you can trust.

Uh-Oh. that’s not gonna make me many friends . . .

Hello again.  I’ve been quiet for a while. Well, my old pal Fred Langa over at WindowsSecrets.com posted an article this week that has me juiced.

Some background:

One of the many things that adds up to “me”, professionally, is a decade or so in the press. I wrote, edited and published IYM Software Review, did some freelance for PCWorld magazine, spent five years on radio, TV and the ‘net as The Computer Answer Guy, and mixed in the middle somewhere did two years as Awards Chair, then two more as President of The Computer Press Association.

Fred’s one of the oldest (sorry, Fred) and smartest technology writers around, and he and I first met a cold February morning in 1993, at my home. We were judging the CPA awards there that year, and he was one of the hearty souls who braved an ice storm to do his thing with us.

Since it’s part of the paid-subscription version of WindowsSecrets I can’t show you Fred’s article, although this link will bring you to the the free version of this fine magazine. It covered two topics that are always at the top of my thoughts, though, and that’s what this post is about.

Fred recently visited the home of one of his readers to play techno-weanie. It’s a great story involving motorcycles, yellow leather, and a love of North America. And it boils down like this:

1. Symantec’s Security Suite is a very powerful, very useful piece of software, and you shouldn’t use it
2. People shouldn’t take care of their own computers

Now to be clear, Fred didn’t say any of that except the part about power and usefulness. But in reading his post that’s what I hear. Does it align perfectly with a couple of things I’ve always said, and that PC-VIP‘s clients are covered against? You bet. Now, hear me out:

The Symantec tools are among the most effective at what they do. They’ve been around for twenty years, get tweaked and updated all the time, and while they miss the occasional piece of malware (like every choice in their sector or the software business) they are overall quite solid at protecting users from the bad guys who are always trying to slide under our security doors on the Internet.

And they are too B L O A T E D to be a good idea. I never recommend this product suite, and over the years have spend many hours wrestling with computers that came with it preinstalled. There are other options out there that perform as well as or better than Norton, and don’t have the debilitating effect on your system of this over-designed nightmare.

Let’s move on, though: Fred was at the home of a reader he describes as fairly technical. And this man was running Norton, not aware that it was the culprit in the problems he was having with his computer, which had slowed to a crawl. Later in the article Fred reveals that the man didn’t know the use of PrtScr key on his keyboard.

I believe that the reader Fred was visiting was way more tech-savvy than most, and frankly, way more so than people want or should need to be. And yet he was being hobbled by the behavior of a piece of software that came pre-installed on his computer, and was unaware of one of the oldest and most useful tricks in the book that people like Fred have been writing for decades.

Computers are too hard to use.

I’ve been saying that for longer than I’ve know Fred Langa. It’s why PC-VIP exists. And every now and then I’m reminded of how true it is.

Anyone else have a problem with this?

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