The Personal Computing and Security Thread

Okay guys, my last tech thread is being drowned in tumbleweeds and crickets, so I had to think of a tech-y type of subject that more people would be interested in. It occurred to me that many here have had stories of viruses, malware, or other crappy things that took their computers down for the count.

So, I hereby submit for your consideration The Personal Computing and Security Thread. Here we can post interesting articles, past experiences, and anything else that might help increase our collective understanding of secure computing.

Possible Topics: Network Security, Data Encryption/Recovery, Remote Administration, E-mail Encryption, Anything Else!

Keep in mind that I'm not a Windows user so I'm sort of approaching anything dealing with Microsoft security as an outsider. Also, I'm not advocating any specific actions, anyone wishing to implement any knowledge they glean here will be doing so of their own accord. I just find the subject interesting and thought maybe there were some like minded chudsters that would want to learn more about it with me.

Lastly, I know there are some IT types around here and one of my hopes is that some of these people will come in and grace the thread with their expertise.

I've been away from the Windows OS for about three years now, and one of my experiences has been learning about properly administering user privileges. Now that I'm more familiar with the concept, the memory of running all my applications in XP as administrator completely horrifies me.

In that vein, here are some articles that I feel explain a little about how Windows has evolved to separate administration and user privileges:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

http://ittraining.iu.edu/workshops/w...ty/manage.html

What I've learned in my time with the *nixes is that security is not a suite of programs or user options, but more of a mindset and methodology that encompasses a wide variety of computing aspects.

I'm glad to see Windows embracing UAC as a style of privilege control, but I think the hardest part will be convincing their consumer base to adopt an attitude of security vs. convenience. From what I've read, the only UAC setting that does much good is the most extreme, which is also viewed by Windows users as the most inconvenient.

EDIT: Had to fix a link, the third one I posted wasn't the one I originally intended. Sorry!