Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Backwaters Internet

My parents are still on dialup. It's like some kind of backwater, third world, armpit of the internet ruled by evil war lords. You're standing buck naked in the middle of a town square during a firefight between warring factions and if you want body armor or a helmet, you have to mail order it from China.

I was trying to get Mom's computer updated. Symantec A-V hadn't been updated since December. Mostly it went ok on 56k modem. Until it bombed. It couldn't install the latest LiveUpdate software. So I went to a free internet hotspot and even that took me 2 hours to work through. I can't see a home user being this patient. And we wonder why there are bot networks?

This is to say nothing of the giant patches that have to be installed every month (assuming auto update is enabled). And then there's 3rd party patches. Good luck with that. This constant deluge of patching and signature updates and software updates is maddening. Microsoft seems to be getting it together when comparing patch volumes for Win2k, XP, 2003, and Vista (so far).

Even so, most systems are just too hard to keep secure. They require constant attention and vigilance, tinkering, and time. It's almost as tough as trying to keep my Jeep running...

1 comment:

  1. Michael: just thought I'd give you a visit since returning to the blogging world and say even though I not into computer skills much you've wrote some great articles here and it's great to hear you've joined our world of hunting.Maybe one weekend during the season we can get together for alittle fun hunting of whitetails. You may want to write about your experiences of hunting and the great outdoors God has given us. Would it be alright to add you to both my sites?

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