<div dir="ltr">1. My parents' Windows machine got infected with a very hard-to-get-rid-of virus that turned their machine, which was no server at all, into an SMTP machine, and used it for massive mail operations. <div>
<br></div><div>2. When I was a checker for Wikipedia, I could check the IP of registered users who violated Wikipedia rules (vandalized pages - in particular, placed the Nazi flag in Jewish pages). I tried to trace the machine they were using, and file a complaint (or enable others to file a complaint) to the relevant body: the ISP (in case of a home connection) or the company whose machine it was. In some of the cases, the vandalizer used compromised machines - machines that were known to vandalizers to be open for such use. <br>
<div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 3:20 AM, Eli Billauer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:eli@billauer.co.il" target="_blank">eli@billauer.co.il</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<u></u>
<div style="direction:ltr" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Indeed, it's wise to have the firewall up.<br>
<br>
But what I tried to figure out, was if something real actually happened
to someone. Port scanning is indeed unpleasant to watch if you're
unprotected, but would something really happen if you dropped your
firewall? Would whoever scanned those ports attack a Linux computer?<br>
<br>
Not that I volunteer to try that out myself. And still.<div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On 05/14/2012 02:58 AM, guy keren wrote:
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
at least in the past - the risk was real.
<br>
<br>
when i first connected my computer to the internet via ADSL, and set up
firewall rules - i was surprised to see that i get many (hundreads) of
failed network connections from around the world.
<br>
<br>
what people do, is run software that scans complete address (IP)
ranges, and attempt to find exploitable services on them.
<br>
<br>
the solution, on my part, was to close down everything i could at the
firewall level, and try to keep the open services (e.g. the kernel
itself, ssh server, etc) updated. keeping things updated was annoying
with redhat - specifically the distribution updates - and is one of the
reasons i switched to ubuntu. i tend to keep to the LTS (long term
support - 3 years) versions of ubuntu - and try to be in long delay
after the latest distributions - after having the diss-pleasure of
upgrading too early to 8.04 (or something).
<br>
<br>
--guy
<br>
<br>
On 05/14/2012 12:45 AM, Eli Billauer wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi,
<br>
<br>
Since my not-so-updated software versions became an issue in itself
<br>
(somehow I always get that) I wondered: Leave alone the unpleasant
<br>
feeling of knowing your computer *could* be exploited, are there any
<br>
real cases of attacks against personal, non-server Linux machines? The
<br>
need to protect a server or a shared machine is obvious. But when it
<br>
comes to a personal computer, is there any real life justification to
be
<br>
anything else than completely indifferent to those risks? Or can we in
<br>
fact take a kibbutz approach of leaving the door open, knowing that we
<br>
may invite someone to break in, but that doesn't really happen?
<br>
<br>
This is not a question about what can happen, but what really does.
<br>
<br>
And just to wrap up the original subject: I was reluctant to try
<br>
mail-notification, because my mail filters move around the mails as
they
<br>
arrive. So I suspected things would get messy using a tool that
<br>
apparently polls the mail box files directly.
<br>
<br>
Anyhow, my solution ended up to be the Gnome Integration add on. I also
<br>
installed Mail Tweak, which among others allowed me to set HTML + Plain
<br>
text as the default outgoing mail format.
<br>
<br>
Eli
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><pre cols="72">--
Web: <a href="http://www.billauer.co.il" target="_blank">http://www.billauer.co.il</a>
</pre>
</font></span></div>
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