[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] The "teenager" virus - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA
Wed, Apr 26 2006 23:15 bradley

The "teenager" virus

I just got through cleaning up the "teenager" virus.

Clients laptop that I was booking journal entries on their Quickbooks.  The minute the machine booted up ... all sorts of lovelies.... and there on the desktop was the reason for all this scum and adware and crud... not IE.. .not Windows needing patches... and not one.. but two peer to peer file sharing programs.... when you visited their home pages WARNED you that you might be infected, nailed with spyware and other stuff.

This was a nice, clean pristine laptop not 2 months ago.

Would Firefox or any other software protected this machine?

Are we to blame because we in the tech world want everything "for free"?  Yup... and that "for free" comes with a high price.

http://aresgalaxy.sourceforge.net/p2prisks.htm

Read that.. now tell me... why would anyone in their right mind want that on their computer?  And why do we then wonder why our computers can't be protected.. .because we can't make the proper judgements when the software even warns us in black and white that we're going to be up a creek without a paddle if we install it.

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# re: The "teenager" virus

Thursday, April 27, 2006 6:03 AM by sandi

Thought you might be interested in this:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2006/04/04/89245.aspx

# re: The "teenager" virus

Thursday, April 27, 2006 6:59 AM by Bill

Yup... Our teens have been warned (more than once) about that stuff. The current model is if I have to depest their PCs again, I'm simply going to rebuild them from scratch. That includes wiping *all* files (read: all their music / iPod files).

They got the hint and have been "clean" for several months now.

The bigger question is why anyone in their right mind would allow a family member to play with company info / devices? We see it on occasion here, but with a relatively tight level of conrol over configuration, it's not too bad.

# re: The "teenager" virus

Thursday, April 27, 2006 11:31 AM by Alun Jones

"And whenever you bring young Johnny back into the office, remind him that he can play with the die stamper, he can play with the guillotine, he can play in the freezer, but on no account is he allowed to play on the computer!"
Too many people see the computer on their desk as belonging to them, rather than the company they work for. If you want to bring your kids in to work, they need to bring their own toys with them.

# re: The "teenager" virus

Thursday, April 27, 2006 8:40 PM by happyfunboy

alun:

amen!

we take steps to try to fight this in our own office.

when we send out instructions to our users...we *never* say "your computer."

we instead say "the primary computer that you use."

more cumbersome...but we are always reinforcing that the computer is property of the company, as is anything on it.

look for a post at the funcave soon about the cockamamie web surfing in the workplace ruling.