Never turn off yout computer!

[MOP]

My best buddies kid is a techy with a bunch of colledge Etc. He was telling never turn off your computer till you have dumped the attachment mail that I do and anyone should delete. There are several virus's that activate upon re boot. He says the hackers are getting better every day.

[Fish boy]

MOP, are you talking about the emptying the deleted items folder, or are you talking about somewhere else?

[mattyboy]

I have not gone to college for PC's but have worked in the voice and data field for 20 years now and have seen some wild stuff in the field.
but that's a different story.
Leaving the computer on is easier on the mechanical parts of the pc the fan, hard drive all have moving parts, the less cycles On and Off the better, cause as they age these devices wear out and sometimes will not restart. I have voice mail systems that run on 7 yr old machines 286 and 386 dos pc's that work fine till they power off then they are done( the heads on the hard drive crash).
BUT leaving a pc on that has an all the time broadband isp connection( Like cable) with out the proper firewall or security can be a hacker's dream!, also watch out for email programs that check for email periodically like outlook express,
this happened in my house with dial up , the pc was left on an outlook was set to check for email every hour so every hour the pc dialed up my isp and downloaded email then would sit for 10 minutes then drop the connection.
Also look out some older versions of outlook automatically open emails that are left highlighted for more than 5 minutes!!!!!
another way to get a virus.
Another thing to watch if you use peripherials like a com port or usb port when the pc is left on and power saving features are activated and the pc shutdowns a com port the device connected to the com port might need to be rebooted, or even the pc to get the com port back up.
I never open attachements and always do a proper shutdown on my pc at home but my servers in the office never ever get shutdown.

Matt

Matt

[Walt. H.]

I lost you guy's somewhere between "never turn it off and leaving it on could be unhealthy" :( :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

Dammed if you do ~ Dammed if you don't!
Lesser of the two evil's = Turn it off?

[mattyboy]

Sorry Walt,for the confusion
I shut down at home, costs less, and can't get a virus when it's off.
and at work I leave it on, I don't pay the electric bills and cannot afford to have a server not boot up the right way.
If that makes sense.
I also hang a necklace of garlic cloves around it at night to keep the evil spirits away eek! :D

Matt

[Walt. H.]

COOOL!!!!!
I'll do that and add some mirror's too!
For extra insurance. :D :p :D

[Fish boy]

I just keep a 12 pack of "silver bullets" in the fridge.

[Cuda]

My old computer got a virus I guess. No idea how. It would constantly send out emails by itself, which were returned to me. I gave up trying to fix it and bought a new computer. I didn't transfer anything from the old to the new, and it is still sending out emails. Is it possible the virus is somehow connected with your email server itself?

[oldLenny]

Here we pay $.07 a KWH. A typical hard drive assembly, (not monitor,printer,scanner etc...) costs about $1.17 per 24 hours left on.
They draw about 700 watts.

WOW!!! I never thought about it like that before. $35.00 a month for that alone. (Can$ tho so more like $23.00 US.) Might start turning mine off soon. It has been on for about 3 years.

[Fish boy]

Cuda,
can't say it is impossible that your ISP's Server is not involved, but it is not likely.

First, are you running a virus protection software? If so what kind?

How do you know it is sending email out? What is it doing?

[RedDog]

These cost figures don't seem to add up in my experience. I typically leave 2 computers on all the time, have electric heat pumps, a hot tub running, pool pump running , and have a drafty poorly insulated old house with doors being left open and 4 TVs running. If computer cost was a dollar per day for each the energy cost would be about a third to fourth of my total electricity cost - not likely.

[Cuda]

I was running Norton on the old computer, and MaCafey on the new one. The way I know it's sending them is they get returned to me because where the computer sends them, the receiving computer pick up the virus and returns it.

[MOP]

I use to leave my office machine on I had one about 6 years ago that all it did was a closed server connection and word processing. And old 8080 20 meg drive, ran for 7 years, are there a few viruses that activate on re-boot just being on the system or do they need user activation to get running?

[TuxedoPk]

My perspective as a computer security consultant and former CIO for 8 casinos...

Security wise: You only have are exposed when you turn the computer on. If you could box it up and store it in the basement, that's going to be your best bet.

Short of computer celibacy, you're going to need to wear protection as others have suggested: firewalls, anti-virus, etc. Because there are so many ways you can be attacked, there is no one solution for security. Just like dressing for skiing, you want/need a layered approach.

In terms of electricity, the cost is really from the monitor, not the computer itself. Using the Power Tools in the operating system to hybernate is not a bad idea though. Personally, I think it's great to bypass booting up each time you want to use the computer, but why have to listen to the fan humming away when you're not using it.

In terms of viruses that activate upon reboot, these are termed "boot sector" viruses. They exist, some serious, some harmless, but no more or less of a threat than any other types.

Trojans can often be far more harmul than viruses. When you consider what even a 'vintage' trojan like BackOrriface can do, it is amazing. Imagine you only turn your computer on when you need to..but it sends an alert signal to someone allowing them to watch on their screen everything you do on yours.. better than CNN.. of course they can also F#@ with you, pop open your CD drawer, etc. A real invasion of privacy. Most of the leading antivirus packages will detect BackOrriface, but there are thousands that antivirus packages won't detect.

Any virus/trojan that starts each time you turn on your computer (except boot sector viruses), have to be loaded by the Operating System in the same fashion that the programs you want to autorun do. There are entries made in the registry (a database used by the operating system) that specify what files autorun. Unfortunately, there are about 8 spots that these files can be run from. The most common is HKLM/software/microsoft/windows/current_version/run

Simply deleting an entry will prevent the program from running; alternatively, changing the wrong entry can cause you to have to reload your computer from scratch. If anyone is interested, I'll give a more detailed post on this, otherwise...

I suggest people download a copy of 'The Cleaner' which can be found at www.moosoft.com (http://www.moosoft.com) The Cleaner is to Trojans what McAfee and Norton are to Viruses.

Although harmless from a security perspective, unless you are an Internet exhibitionist, you might also not like the fact that you are victims of spyware: I'd bet 98% of Donzi.Net member are.

Take a look at your cookies; you will see entries with names such as doubleclick and hitbox. Cookies are simply text files placed on your computer. For example, when you log on to donzi.net, a cookie is placed on your computer so that each time you log back on, statistics can be gathered, perhaps even saving you the need to enter a logon name/password. This is good. So if Donzi knows who you are when you use their site, or BMW when you use theirs, no problem.

But, how would you feel if everyplace you went reported to BigBrother where you were.. It would be like having someone stalking you, following your every move. Well substitute a few enterprising marketing firms such as doubleclick and the many sites that trade information with them and there you have spyware. Unless you have loaded special software to prevent this tracking, when you check your cookies you are going to see doubleclick, hitbox, and others.. and be part of the 98%. (If your only experience with cookies is tossing them, here's how to look for yourself:
From your browser, choose Tools, Internet Options, Settings, View Files) Feel free to delete anything you see with no harmful side effects- this isn't like the registry. But if you do delete them, check back tomorrow and you'll see them again if you've been surfing the web- many sites use them. And yes, there is another category of 'cookie managers' that will block 3'rd party (not from the site you are visiting) cookies.

However, many sites

[Cuda]

Under tools/internet options, I didn't have a tab labled "settings". Is it called anything else? Explorer.

[Cuda]

Oops, ignore the last post, I found it. Now let me see what I can do with it.

[TuxedoPk]

Curious to learn what you found out.

[krakmeup]

Good info Tux, thanks. Can you recommend firewall? I have just this week moved to cable modem, so I want to put something on......

[TuxedoPk]

If you only have one computer, and don't plan to host a mail server or web server, then you can get by with a good software based firewall running on your computer. (You should do this even if you have the most expensive hardware firewall also)

Firewalls are only as good as how you configure them; there are several ones that should do a decent job for you: Zone Alarm, Sygate, Norton..

The main concept in configuring firewalls is block everything unless it is needed. This means teaching your firewall what programs you have installed that will need to go out and on which ports. The obvious include Mail and Internet Explorer, less obvious are parts of the operating system that get you your IP address (DHCP) and programs like your virus signature updater.

[krakmeup]

Cool! Thanks for the good info - gotta go find some software.......

[MOP]

TuxedoPk sure glad you jumped in nice to get some pro information. I have had computers since the early 70's a few that ran off a floppy. Still don't know anything about the programing end. Mine are all home built boxes, I run a firewall,AV and windows washer, but still dump the mail deleted file before shutdown. Agian I am glad we have guys like you and others to bounce ideas off.

[TuxedoPk]

MOP,

I'm glad I can help out. Being new to boating I don't get to add much value in that area, and I've certainly been given tons of advice and help by board members from looking at out of state boats, answering questions, to towing my first boat. Feel free to hit me offline with any questions as well.