Re: Does emacs cache something on windows when invoking call-process?

Re: Does emacs cache something on windows when invoking call-process?

[Eighty Megabytes]

> One more case of virus software being not just useless but even harmful.
> Just say no!

I wonder what the practical infection vectors for windows these days
if one is careful about installing stuff.

I don't install random binaries from the net. I do install precompiled
exes, but those are from known sources (e.g. git, emacs, etc.). 

Firefox is a possible vector, because one visits lots of random sites with
it, so it may be possible that a site exploits some yet unknown security
hole.

So the question is: does the latter warrant running a virus a scanner or
is the danger so low that it's better to keep windows defender off?

Re: Does emacs cache something on windows when invoking call-process?

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

On 2019/07/10 14:31, Eighty Megabytes wrote:
>> One more case of virus software being not just useless but even harmful.
>> Just say no!
> I wonder what the practical infection vectors for windows these days
> if one is careful about installing stuff.
>
> I don't install random binaries from the net. I do install precompiled
> exes, but those are from known sources (e.g. git, emacs, etc.).
>
> Firefox is a possible vector, because one visits lots of random sites with
> it, so it may be possible that a site exploits some yet unknown security
> hole.
>
> So the question is: does the latter warrant running a virus a scanner or
> is the danger so low that it's better to keep windows defender off?
>
>

You definitely turn the defender ON always unless you have a special 
anti-virus
program such as Norton Internet, etc. aside from windows defender.

Even the respectable newspaper websites these days contract with ads 
agencies to
fill the borders of their web pages with random ads.
And random ads are just that. We may never know what will be shown there.

There *HAVE* been reports of such random ads that insert malware into 
our PCs.

So unless you have a very strict ads blocker such as NoScript,
ad-blocking proxy such as privoxy,
and DNS-based site blocker, I won't feel comfortable.
And actually, I have Norton antivirus on top of the above three under 
windows10.

I don't have any anti-virus window software inside the linux image that 
runs within VirtualBox under Windows10.
I don't do web browsing there.

BTW, under windows10, I do hit Norton's access denied warning (from its 
safe web browsing) when
I wander into no one's territory after I find an interesting PR 
headline/article in a newspaper article
or sites such as gigazine, and maybe after three hops or so following 
the links.

Internet is a very interesting place and useful, but at the same time, 
it is really
full of pitfalls.

BTW,  I have a home FreeNAS server and it serves owncloud.
For remote maintenance, I have enabled remote ssh. But that is only 
accessible
with my PKI certificate. No username and password logins are possible.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the box is bombarded with 
login attempts from the first week thee years ago.
Maybe more than 100 attempts weekly using various login names and 
password combinations.
(I have stopped counting the attempts after a few months. 
Weekly/Daily/Monthly summaries are sent by FreeNAS software.)
Sometimes a persistent attempt leaves more than a few dozen attempts 
from a single IP address.

So it is up to you to decide.

Chiaki

Re: Does emacs cache something on windows when invoking call-process?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Eighty Megabytes <emacsuser@freemail.hu>
> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 07:31:32 +0200 (CEST)
> 
> So the question is: does the latter warrant running a virus a scanner or
> is the danger so low that it's better to keep windows defender off?

IME, anti-virus software is generally OK (with minor exceptions --
there are a couple of them that should be avoided at all costs), but
you need to configure it so it gets out of your way.  For example,
binaries that you build yourself should be exempt from having all the
files they open examined, it's enough to have the binary itself
examined (to make sure no malware attaches itself to it).  I suspect
Emacs in your use case is one such program.

[OFFTOPIC] virus scanners (was: Does emacs cache something on windows when invoking call-process?)

[Stefan Monnier]

>> One more case of virus software being not just useless but even harmful.
>> Just say no!
> I wonder what the practical infection vectors for windows these days
> if one is careful about installing stuff.

I think if your system (and web-browser) is kept up to date and you're
not installing random things a virus scanner statistically causes more
harm than good.

Virus scanners work hard to make you think they're useful, so they
advertise their presence and their work, and they're really happy to
tell you about all the presumed viruses they caught and "quarantined",
but in 99% of the cases (100% if you're not careless with your system)
either they're not viruses at all, or those viruses it caught are no
threat to your system because you've already plugged the corresponding
hole by staying up-to-date.


        Stefan

Re: [OFFTOPIC] virus scanners (was: Does emacs cache something on windows when invoking call-process?)

[Emanuel Berg via help-gnu-emacs]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

> Virus scanners work hard to make you think
> they're useful, so they advertise their
> presence and their work, and they're really
> happy to tell you about all the presumed
> viruses they caught and "quarantined", but in
> 99% of the cases (100% if you're not careless
> with your system) either they're not viruses
> at all, or those viruses it caught are no
> threat to your system because you've already
> plugged the corresponding hole by staying
> up-to-date.

That's true - still, can't we have an Elisp
virus destroying Emacs? And an anti-virus
program that tells you everything is alright
and this is your 8th day here.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal