Oldies in this new world

[NathanAllan]

I was driving with my wife, and she asked me why our mutual friend was so into his hobby of ham radios. I'll skip that answer, but it got me thinking.

I work security (for the time being) and get a lot of time to think. I like old computers for the same reason that our friend likes his radios; they are relatively cheap, satisfy the electronic urge and they're safe. I would like to see a hacker get into a classic mac that's online. Or a C64, Atari ST or any of the old machines that are not M$ based. They're not patient enough, and I guess there's nothing that interests them. I can see them knocking the users offline a bunch (heck, the lines'll knock em off around here). And I know how to use an old dos machine, so windows functions are fluff as I am sure they are to a lot of you. I once saw a post somewhere that said something like since he uses a Mac he doesn't have to worry about viruses, cause they are all written for win and it's programs. HA! I love that.

Okay, just a small rant. On topic but not really specific.

Nathan

 

[sonic2000gr]

I suppose Mac has its share of viruses, though certainly significantly less than windows. And then there is also Linux...
I think you have a good argument there, old machines are relatively cheap and satisfy the urge for (geeky) electronics. But then again, since they are cheap you tend to buy a lot... Oh well....

Manolis

 

[Thomas Hillebrandt]

I suppose Mac has its share of viruses....

Oh my...Why am I replying, when I can't even get remotely on topic? Well, I can't help myself, I guess ...

Anyway, this virus-thing reminds me of way-back-when, when I had a C64 (only) and my best mate at the time had a Amsclair Spectrum +3. I'd heard about computer virus, and told him about it (not knowing anything about them really, and certainly not realising that the C64 would be pretty safe from them ). Anyhoo, he denied any chance of a computer ever catching a virus. Regardlessly what I'd say in argument, he'd stick to his theory that: "The computer won't be affected by any virus because once the virus gets into the electronic circuits it'll be fried and thus rendered harmless"...Nice, eh?

Another one was when my father called me up (ages ago also, though not QUITE so long) in a panic because he'd read or heard somewhere that there was a new virus that spread through the power-grid... :lol:

Anyway, I couldn't keep that to myself...It belongs somewhere else, I know...Sorry!

 

[sonic2000gr]

Here in Greece, there was a rumour a few years ago that there was a virus for mobile phones, spreading through SMS messages. Mind you, this was way before the invention of all these java enabled phones. How could anyone write a virus for a closed system, and even worse, for many systems that do not even share the same cpu and architecture, eludes me....

Manolis

 

[ravuya]

Here in Greece, there was a rumour a few years ago that there was a virus for mobile phones, spreading through SMS messages. Mind you, this was way before the invention of all these java enabled phones. How could anyone write a virus for a closed system, and even worse, for many systems that do not even share the same cpu and architecture, eludes me....

Manolis

Heh. Remember, stupid users == stupid rumours. I suppose you could always write some kind of assembly virus for the particular microprocessor of a very specific model and then buffer-overflow the "Remote Update" utility on most of those phones (the one that the telco uses to update things) into executing remote code, dunno.

Of course, with a phone that old the most data it could erase is your address book (god forbid!).

 

[Unknown_K]

Whats funny is I like getting old computers and jamming them full of all kinds of addon cards for video capture, audio, scsi devices, etc but I cant stand the new cell phones that take pictures, play games, and do other stuff (still using a 90's era Nokia 100)