Shock-Socks
Still Fresh
because the pandora will be able to brows the internet, is there a possibility of people making viruses specifically for the pandora, and if so, is there going to be any form of virus protection?
+ you would have to be really stupid to activate such a virus and let it run on your Pandora.Username said:Yes, but why would someone make a virus for such a small market? Waste of time for whoever decides to do that.
Username said:Yes, but why would someone make a virus for such a small market? Waste of time for whoever decides to do that.
Someone would make a post on this forum that warns people not to download the specific file and to execute it (remember, to start the virus you have to go through the 6 steps above). It would then be removed from the File Archive, and that would be it.Shock-Socks said:Username said:Yes, but why would someone make a virus for such a small market? Waste of time for whoever decides to do that.
on the off chance that someone does make a virus for the pandora, what could be done about it?
Shock-Socks said:on the off chance that someone does make a virus for the pandora, what could be done about it?
Probably the same thing you'd do if you managed to corrupt the firmware; reinstall it.Shock-Socks said:on the off chance that someone does make a virus for the pandora, what could be done about it?
Shock-Socks said:Username said:Yes, but why would someone make a virus for such a small market? Waste of time for whoever decides to do that.
on the off chance that someone does make a virus for the pandora, what could be done about it?
...and if you make a Venn diagram of users using Linux, users using ARM devices, users using Ångström-versioned libraries, all the stupid users in the world and all of the users who know how to make a file executable in Linux, you'll see that the remaining common subset is extremely small (I would guess that it's around 4-5 users, not more).cobaltage said:Viruses on computers are similar to viruses in biological systems, in that they need a population of susceptible infectees to thrive and propagate. So viruses for Windows PCs spread quickly, because they comprise the vast majority of networked computers. Considering that there are no malicious viruses for OSX, which is still only a small fraction of PCs, there's really not much need to worry about a sudden Linux virus contagion, AFAIK.
Or, you could work in the same way as a large proportion of viruses in the PC world work - via exploits. Should the version of Firefox on Pandora has some kind of buffer overflow exploit, all it would need is to visit some "bad" site and your Pandora could be infected. Of course there would be very little it could do as you wouldn't be logged in as root, but as a limited user, but we know some people don't like commands such as 'sudo' so those WOULD be logged in as root. For them the only way to disinfect would be a reinstall (which in itself isn't that bad, as all your downloads, game saves, etc would be stored on SD cards, so you wouldn't really notice much difference after the reinstall as everything would still work bar perhaps things like your desktop wallpaper maybe).dflemstr said:In order to get it to "infect" the device, you have to follow the following steps:
I've been told that if I want to connect my Pandora to the company network, I have to have a virus scanner for this very reason (that I may download a document or something that contains a virus targeted at Windows).zhasha said:At best you'll get a virus that lies dorment on your system and infects Windows machines on local networks.
Squidge said:Or, you could work in the same way as a large proportion of viruses in the PC world work - via exploits. Should the version of Firefox on Pandora has some kind of buffer overflow exploit, all it would need is to visit some "bad" site and your Pandora could be infected. Of course there would be very little it could do as you wouldn't be logged in as root, but as a limited user, but we know some people don't like commands such as 'sudo' so those WOULD be logged in as root. For them the only way to disinfect would be a reinstall (which in itself isn't that bad, as all your downloads, game saves, etc would be stored on SD cards, so you wouldn't really notice much difference after the reinstall as everything would still work bar perhaps things like your desktop wallpaper maybe).dflemstr said:In order to get it to "infect" the device, you have to follow the following steps:
WizardStan said:I've been told that if I want to connect my Pandora to the company network, I have to have a virus scanner for this very reason (that I may download a document or something that contains a virus targeted at Windows).zhasha said:At best you'll get a virus that lies dorment on your system and infects Windows machines on local networks.
I may never get a virus, and any virus I may carry in is unlikely to ever get run, but the chance is non-zero, and just to cover everyone's butt, I shall be investigating Clam AV.
I'm sure someone could easily add Pandora specific virus definitions to it as well, should any arise.
The thing that Shock-Socks is probably not aware of is that, in order for a virus scanner to identify a virus, it needs to know what it's looking for. ie, someone has to have found that virus, investigated its unique properties, and added it to the virus scanners definition file.
For such a (currently) small market, it's just way easier to check the forum or repository or blog or whatever every once in a while.
dflemstr said:+ you would have to be really stupid to activate such a virus and let it run on your Pandora.Username said:Yes, but why would someone make a virus for such a small market? Waste of time for whoever decides to do that.
Let's imagine that there is a virus specifically made for the Pandora.
In order to get it to "infect" the device, you have to follow the following steps:
1. Download the virus program
2. Save it to a trusted folder
3. Go into the terminal
4. Type "chmod +x virusfile" to activate the virus
5. Type "./virusfile" to run the virus
6. If you want the virus to be able to completely trash the device, and not just delete your personal files and folders, you have to do "su -c ./virusfile"
Now, I don't think that there would be a lot of people who would be willing to do that.
There is of course the possibility of having malicious PND files or .desktop files, but you can't really make an efficient virus protection system to counter that, and it wouldn't be worth it performance-wise even if you could.
lol, amongst all this tech talk, it's nice to see some humor.j.pickens said:The most likely way you'll get a virus with your Pandora is when you pass it around to all your admiring friends, and one of them sneezes on the keyboard.
j.pickens said:The most likely way you'll get a virus with your Pandora is when you pass it around to all your admiring friends, and one of them sneezes on the keyboard.