[Tfug] Customer Service

[Angus Scott-Fleming]

On 14 Jun 2004 at 16:21, ewf  wrote:

>       Well, it's a Micro$oft world out there, and people know I'm a
> Linux user and want them to help me fix their computers.  They want: 
> 
>   1) their hard drives purged of viruses/adware/spyware. 
>   2) preserved their personal files, e-mail, photos, etc 
> 
>       I tell them that compromized systems can become so badly
> contaminated that the only way to guarantee complete repair is to
> satisfy 1) but not 2). That is, the partition(s) have to be erased and
> the OS/applications have to be reinstalled. After which I install
> Anti-virus/adware/spyware modules to give them protection from future
> invasion. I've done this once already. 
> 
>       Is there a way to satisfy both 1) and 2)?

Yes.  Back up the personal files to CDs or a USB drive, then nuke-and-
(re)install OS and applications.  (You have to know enough about where M$ apps 
store documents and e-mail to do this but it's really not difficult if you do a 
bit of googling to find where these things are stored.)  Restore personal files.  
Scan (and clean) them for viruses / trojans / spyware on the clean system.  If 
you've re-installed a Microsoft OS, disable or hide the built-in browser and e-
mail client and install for them safe, free, non-MS apps for browsing (Firefox), 
for e-mail (Pegasus Mail or Thunderbird), and for document processing 
(OpenOffice).

FWIW McAfee has an active beta-test of a product called CleanBoot going, and the 
downloads are free right now. I read about it here: 
http://www.flexbeta.net/main/comments.php?id=7550&catid=5&highlight=cleanboot 
and downloaded it.  Works fine -- you have a bootable CD that can clean 
Win9x/Me/NT/2k/XP systems.  If nothing else you can boot their damaged systems 
and clean the documents and e-mail before backing them up to CD.  

(Aside: someone should make a ClamAV version of this product ;-)

>       Here's an ethical question: There are a lot of naive MS users
> out there. Should we eduate the dupes and let them continue to use,
> (protected), MS products? I look on with alarm as the amount of
> viruses/adware/spyware goes up exponentially. 

What's it worth to you not to have to clean their systems again, and what'$ your 
time doing this work worth to them?  It's a bit like being active in your 
neighborhood watch -- if you let the neighborhood go to h*ll, sooner or later 
someone's going to hurt you or do damage to your house as a by-product of the 
damage they do to the unaware victim.  But if you keep the neighborhood clean 
and safe, your safety improves as well.




--
Angus Scott-Fleming
GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona
1-520-290-5038 / fax 1-208-248-3124
+-----------------------------------+