And they call me crazy for *STILL* using OS/2......

my main OS/2 workstation had 290 virus infected files, containing about a dozen different viruses, worms and trojans

Well, since I've never installed any AV software on my OS/2 partition, I couldn't tell you if I have any viruses or not. What I can say is that since the vast majority of these things are VBS, W32, or HTML, I feel fairly well protected because:

1) VBS doesn't work on OS/2 and (as far as I know) never will. Maybe it would run under Odin? I don't do Odin, so I wouldn't know.

2) W32 code doesn't run on OS/2 either, unless you have Odin installed, and I am certainly not about to do that. If I need to run W32 code, that's what I have a W98SE partition for.

3) I use PMMail/2 which automagically strips all HTML from incoming email. Anything that makes it past that usually comes up as garbage (or in some cases just blank) in the Read window and I delete those things without bothering to look at them. Similarly, I can always see the complete file name under OS/2. This makes file attachments that come up as Britney_Spears.jpg.vbs pretty damned obvious to anyone with 3 functioning brain cells. Double file extensions should send up flares as big as SCUD missles even if you don't update your AV software as often as you should. That's how I knew my GF hadn't bothered to update her NAV software since I installed it for her. One of the emails she sent me last year had warning signs all over it as soon as I saw it.

Now, in fairness, she didn't know she had done it because she had the preview window in NutScape set on by default (still does.... *boggle*) and the code just started emailing people in her address book. Fortunately for her, I was only the second person to get the email sent to me, so I managed to nip it in the bud before it got way out of hand. Final tally was about 10 people she gave it to instead of the 50 or so it might have been.

I'm also quite happy about the fact that a good majority of these things like KAZAA, etc that contain SpyWare don't run on OS/2 either. I've only run into one instance where a web site tried to initiate a file download and since OS/2 is kind enough to let me know such things, it wasn't much of a deal.

All in all, \ufffd'm not worried in the least about most of this crap that infests the W32 world. Most of the time, I just laugh.

Post #42,738 by n3jja 6/18/02 9:45:01 AM 6/18/02 9:45:42 AM Reply	And they call me crazy for STILL using OS/2...... Edited by n3jja June 18, 2002, 09:45:42 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #42,739 by Andrew Grygus 6/18/02 9:51:15 AM Reply	At last count . . . . my main OS/2 workstation had 290 virus infected files, containing about a dozen different viruses, worms and trojans - and that's just because my email trash bin gets auto-emptied of old deletes. Since no infected files are likely to be transferred to my one lonely Windows machine, I just ignore 'em. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #42,759 by n3jja 6/18/02 12:53:21 PM Reply	Interesting.... my main OS/2 workstation had 290 virus infected files, containing about a dozen different viruses, worms and trojans Well, since I've never installed any AV software on my OS/2 partition, I couldn't tell you if I have any viruses or not. What I can say is that since the vast majority of these things are VBS, W32, or HTML, I feel fairly well protected because: 1) VBS doesn't work on OS/2 and (as far as I know) never will. Maybe it would run under Odin? I don't do Odin, so I wouldn't know. 2) W32 code doesn't run on OS/2 either, unless you have Odin installed, and I am certainly not about to do that. If I need to run W32 code, that's what I have a W98SE partition for. 3) I use PMMail/2 which automagically strips all HTML from incoming email. Anything that makes it past that usually comes up as garbage (or in some cases just blank) in the Read window and I delete those things without bothering to look at them. Similarly, I can always see the complete file name under OS/2. This makes file attachments that come up as Britney_Spears.jpg.vbs pretty damned obvious to anyone with 3 functioning brain cells. Double file extensions should send up flares as big as SCUD missles even if you don't update your AV software as often as you should. That's how I knew my GF hadn't bothered to update her NAV software since I installed it for her. One of the emails she sent me last year had warning signs all over it as soon as I saw it. Now, in fairness, she didn't know she had done it because she had the preview window in NutScape set on by default (still does.... boggle) and the code just started emailing people in her address book. Fortunately for her, I was only the second person to get the email sent to me, so I managed to nip it in the bud before it got way out of hand. Final tally was about 10 people she gave it to instead of the 50 or so it might have been. I'm also quite happy about the fact that a good majority of these things like KAZAA, etc that contain SpyWare don't run on OS/2 either. I've only run into one instance where a web site tried to initiate a file download and since OS/2 is kind enough to let me know such things, it wasn't much of a deal. All in all, \ufffd'm not worried in the least about most of this crap that infests the W32 world. Most of the time, I just laugh.
Post #42,779 by Andrew Grygus 6/18/02 2:01:07 PM Reply	Out of curiosity . . . . I occasionally scan my OS/2 workstation drives over the network from my Windows machine. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #42,786 by n3jja 6/18/02 2:52:30 PM Reply	Ah... I occasionally scan my OS/2 workstation drives over the network from my Windows machine. In my case, my OS/2 machine is my Windoze machine. It's also my DOS machine and my Linux machine as well. I just love the sight of Boot Manager in the morning (and the afternoon, and the evening...). ;-) I guess I should probably scan the Novell server and see what's there. I don't expect to find much, since I've been on her about updating NAV often, but one can never tell. If enough things show up, I'll just have to ban her from the MP3 collection; or at least make it Read-Only for her. ;-)

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