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Risks of being on pft

jimscott

jimscott

Tropical Fish Enthusiast
In a recent post FTG stated that this was her last post because of pc viruses. However, she also stated that she can be reached at the Sonesta Foal website, which obviously is obtained via the internet. That implies, whether rightly or wrongly that the website is safe and this one is unsafe. IS PFT safe? CAN you get a virus or trojan or worm or Spyware from being on the forums? I, personally, am not concerned about the bad stuff because of blockers, firewall, antivirus, and other software, but is there some misunderstanding on her part?
 
Well Jim,

i have been on the forums for a little while now, and have never had any security issues or problems arise from using these forums.  unless you want to count a continuing fascination with carnivorous plants, and the addicition that starts with that very first venus fly trap and doesn't ever really end!

peace,
tech...
 
I second technoracer. I've been active here since March of 2003, and even on my desktop, which has nearly no virus protection at all, I've not had any problems.
 
I third that. I have been here since March 2002.
 
I fourth that... It's not sites like PFT that are giving FTG the viruses, PFT is a private owned forum... its the sites like the foal forum, and those darn message boards on AOL, that are not privatly owned, that ahve all the adware/spyware/worms/trojans/worms all that poop
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i think she said her grandfather was the one tripping about it and made her stop coming here or something...
 
You can not get a virus or a "trojan" from simply viewing a forum.

Lets go over some basics.

Virus: You must actually download something, be it knowingly (i.e. you d/l some adult pics from a not so reputable site) or you click yes on one of those pop-ups. At any rate, it takes actual participation to contract a virus.

Trojan: See above for the most part, we are keeping it simple so I won't go into detal.

Now please take note, any UP TO DATE anti virus program will safe guard you from darn near any and all virus and trojans. Please read the UP TO DATE part of the last statement again. You should update your virus definations daily.

Worms: Now these are the sneaky devils. The last few have slipt into our OS's weakpoints (mostly in open ports yada yada) These require either updates of your OS, or most perferable a firewall. An easy free software firewall is zone alarm. Basically no set-up, and works flawlessly.

To end, there is no possible way that you could get a computer virus by surfing these forums.
 
  • #10
It's a good thing for my desktop that no one cares about Windows98 anymore
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My laptop is another matter entirely, but luckily MSBlast was handled easily enough and Norton took care of the last worm that hit it, after three days of frustration.
 
  • #11
And just to clarify---

we don't use any spyware or anything like that... this is a service that is not "commercial" in nature... so we dont' care what links you follow-- what site you go to from here or where you came from before you got here... which is often the basis of spyware, etc....

Just a blackboard .. to jot your thoughts on ... not real high tech ;)

I .. as well as Michael are fanatical about privacy issues. So, without a doubt, this forum is absent of any junk that would track you or invade your system.

And as casper said.. it's impossible to get a 'virus' from this place unless you proactively downloaded a file that someone sent you containing a virus.
 
  • #12
Thank you all very much. It's to bad we lost someone for wrong reasons, whether through lack of understanding or otherwise.
 
  • #13
I say kill da spamers!
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Oh shoot am I gonna be mailbombed now? Hush hush...
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cyber space is getting an increasingly dangerous place to be in - guess parents are getting concerned (about what kids can see on the web and becuz of the viruses sent be email etc)

Well we know that there are more advantages than disads in this communtity, so I say just pass it on and make the best outta the situation. If it were not for this communtity we would be called 'plant geeks', instead of 'plant nerds'...
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or 'plant pros', more likely. try persusion teenage style - sit there and be moody for a week - works on some parents like mine!
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  • #14
I have to disagree with you Wong. The I-net is not becoming a dangerous place. Its just that, there is a degree of knowledge one must have in order to use it properly. Just like a car, you have to check the oil, gas, coolant etc.. Your computer is the same way.

Personally, I wish they would make you get a license in order to purchase a computer. The reason these worms work so well is because of the vast ammount of un-protected computers. You see, this is how blaster worked. Your computer would get infected, the worm would then make your computer send it out blindly trying to affect someone elses pc. Now when you put that on a scale of millions of pc's (Simply because people where not aware how to protect themselves)

As for spyware, once again you have to either INSTALL IT YOURSELF (they can be sneaky nice guys here, when you install certain proggies like Kazaa it also installs a adware program called Gator) also clicking on certain pop-ups can install spy/adware. The other way is for your browser settings to be to lax. Very small programs can slip in as cookies. This doesn't mean you have to disable all cookies. For most of you, just set your browser to medium security and you will be fine.
 
  • #15
like you said, not all cookies are bad... but they DO add up if you dont delete them periodicly... friday night I found 560 cookies on my computer!

Gator is the worst... never click yes to an installation from the gator coroporation
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[b said:
Quote[/b] ]As for spyware, once again you have to either INSTALL IT YOURSELF
Click to expand...

Isn't that what trojans and back doors are 'fer?
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  • #16
Ad-aware, not to be confused with Adware, gets rid of spyware. This is from Lavasoft and Trashcan can give the quick link to it or just do a search. Zone Alarm, though it has its detractors and criticizers does a decent job as a firewall. Mcafee and  Norton antivirus, with its updates stays on top of the viruses. Panicware & popup Blocker keeps the popup away. Spamblocker stops the stupid unwanted email away from your Inbox. You can even report email as spam. So there IS a lot we can do and much of it is either free or not terribly expensive.
 
  • #17
so, what's available to stop the random, unwanted, instant messages i get on AOL instant messanger?

tech...
 
  • #18
I never get those...
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  • #19
Tech:

I believe you can setup your IM client to only accept messages from people in your buddy list. If you do this, be sure to set it to notify you when someone else adds you to their list as well.

Pat
 
  • #20
nope. aol 6.0 doesn't have anything like that for the buddy list. well, not that i could find anyway...

any other thoughts?

tech...
 
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