Thursday, May 22, 2014

NOW THEY TELL ME

The latest news flashed before my eyes so quickly I had to stop in my internet tracks, back up, reacquire the target and move to the kill.
Antivirus "is dead," says Brian Dye, Symantec's senior vice president for information security. "We don't think of antivirus as a moneymaker in any way."
Well if only they could get my fine Windows XP laptop to accept this reality and finally move on. Every time I boot the machine it goes through a forced loop to perform a virus scan and, after notifying me that I'm a delinquent who doesn't care a whit about computer security, wants to reach out to the Symantec Mothership and download the latest and greatest version of their virus scan for a mere bazillion dollars.

The thing is, I figured out about 7 years ago that it's over. I doubt the speed of hack has increased but the penetration is nearly 100% in spite of all the aftermarket attempts to limit the damage. Yes, I view populating this realm on par with the old European style of battle. We're going to march into the gunfire people until we get taken down. We're going to regret it when it happens, shift to our computer backup, reboot, and we're going to march on. We're going to close up the files and move on over the wreckage of the previous ranks.

Still and all, it never happened to me. Maybe I'll be a cyber general someday.

2 comments:

Buck said...

I read that AV article a few days ago and thought "Hmmm." As a former IT guy, I KNOW there's virtually (heh) no way to stop someone who really, rilly, wants to get in. That said, I keep my AV software up to date, mainly coz it deters the amateurs. I'm not big enough to attract the attention of the pros, thank the Diety At Hand. Or so it would seem.

HMS Defiant said...

I got a quote and a clip for you that I think will make you laugh. Stand by.