Windows woes

[BCS]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Dave wrote:
> 
>> In article <e0io88$22jc$2 at digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...
>>
>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>>
>>>> At this point, it was apparent that tech support had no idea why 
>>>> this was happening, and I was beginning to worry there was either a 
>>>> rootkit installed, or there was just creeping corruption going on. I 
>>>> gave up on Microsoft tech support, and decided to reinstall Windows.
>>>
>>> Turns out, I did have a trojan rootkit on my system. arrgh!
>>

How did you pick up on this?

>>
>> Any idea how that happened / made it onto your system? (it has me 
>> worried that
>> virus scanning didn't pick it up).
> 
> 
> I have no idea how it got on. Being a trojan, I must have run something. 
> I'm usually very careful about not running anything I am not sure of, 
> careful enough that this is the first virus/trojan I've had in 10 years.
> 
> I'm almost to the point of using a separate sacrificial machine for web 
> surfing.

Next time you upgrade a computer, use the old one (or get one from a second hand 
store). I have seen computers for about $20-30 (US) that would do just fine, 
particularly if you can turn off all that useless #@$%# that you won't need to 
run Fire fox/T-bird

Georg Wrede wrote:
 >
 > Actually, if I ever install Windows on a machine, (anybody's,) I do it
 > from the (or a) CD, install ZA, configure it, and only then connect the
 > lan cable.
 >

I have heard stories of people who did that and still got hacked befor they 
could download all of the new patches.