--- On Thu, 11/11/10, Tim <ignored_mailbox@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, 2010-11-10 at 10:36 -0800, > Patrick Bartek wrote: > > Lack of the usual indicators, that is, no odd > application behavior, > > no unusual slow-downs, no excessive CPU usage, no > excessive or > > abnormal net (or hard drive) activity, no crashes or > freezes, no > > strange log reports, no reports from friends about > receiving spam > > e-mails from me that I never sent, etc. > > > > I've spent enough time fixing friends' infected > Windows machines that > > I've gotten a "feel" for when something is > amiss. It's not a > > definitive feeling, just an indicator to start > checking for something > > wrong. > > I've seen comments made that the usual things you notice > with a hacked > Windows installation (where it's horribly sluggish and > unstable), really > only apply to Windows. Not to mention that an > un-hacked, but otherwise > crappily maintained, Windows box behaves just the same. > > Having your Linux box re-tasked to do a lot of work would > probably be > noticeable, but a hacked box might be abused in other (low > load) ways, > and you might be the sleeping zombie, waiting to be > used. Or simply the > anon proxy for one nefarious person, who doesn't do a lot > of their > illegal actions, but enough that you don't want to be held > responsible > for. > > And I'd be inclined to think that if someone was going to > use you as a > spam server, they'd probably be using their own list of > recipients and > random "from" addresses. > > I don't think it's that likely that you'd be crash happy > with a hacked > Linux computer. Crashing is in Window's nature. > It's more than happy > for the whole thing to come down in a mess, rather than > just the errant > program. I'd expect a bad program trying to be > naughty on Linux to be > the thing that crashed, while the rest of the computer kept > on going. > It certainly behaves that way when normal programs screw > up. > > So, I wouldn't say "I don't think anybody could have hacked > me, and I'm > not going to check." I never said that nor was it my intention to imply that. All I said was in the 10 years of using Linux none of my systems were ever hacked or infected. I never said I didn't check my system. I do. Daily. Automatically. Cron-jobs. Plus, manual checks--logs and what-nots--periodically. Sometimes the first indicator that something may (not is) wrong is the way the system runs and performs: the little things that someone who doesn't use the system daily wouldn't notice. B -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
