Welcome to the
PC USERS' GROUP OF THE REDWOODS !
Santa Rosa, California
PCUGR Shareware SIG - Jan 29, 2000
Rawls Frazier, Facilitator
rfrazier@pcugr.org
We had a lively meeting with 10 people at RE/MAX in Petaluma. A highlight of the meeting was a connection to the Internet. Using that connection, we discussed where to look for shareware/freeware programs, how to download them, and strategies for storing and checking out the files. This included virus checking and, in a bit of a surprise, we got a virus alert in the process! Although some suggested that I set this up as part of the demo, I assured them I hadn't. Anyway, this gave a good oportunity to explore the implications of the alert and to further check the machine.
The alert was made by the F-Prot program while I was demonstrating how to check a just downloaded file—the alert claimed there was a virus in memory. Thanks to Jerry Popky, we had a new copy of another anti-virus program, PC-Cillin (http://www.antivirus.com/pc-cillin/), and used that to re-check the computer. It came up clean. A reboot and another check with F-Prot confirmed that the original alert was a false alarm. (After the meeting, the machine was thoroughly checked again to insure it was clean.)
After that bit of excitement, we continued on to look at NetMonitor, a program that watches TCP/IP connections made on your machine - i.e., what happens when you are connected to the Internet. We compared this programs features with the netstat command supplied with Windows.
Next we looked at a program designed to help gauge how good your password is. It was educational to watch password suggestions get cracked by this program. We discussed what makes for strong passwords - don't use real words (i.e., those in a dictionary) and longer is better. Although this program seemed to be able to crack anything thrown at it, the point was made that while this program could suggest how good one password was relative to another, it didn't really give a good idea how hard a given password was in other contexts. For example it was unknown how well the program encrypted the passwords before trying to crack them. And it was not known how good that encryption was compared to other schemes used by other programs (e.g., your user id password at your ISP).
We then took a quick look at a site called "Guru Net" which provides a kind of context sensitive search engine that you can use while on line to search on a word just by pointing at it and pressing the Alt key.
The weather is always a favorite topic, even at SIGs! So mention was made of a new web link of data taken from a weather station on an individual's house.
Finally we checked out the "Digital Duo" site, talking about their TV program and, in the process getting the show schedule and, with Steve Cerruti's assistance, used one of the many Web email utilites to email copies of the listing to a number of people present.
A great big THANKS to Bernie Stephan and RE/MAX Marina Realty at the Petaluma Marina for use of their facilities. Made for a great meeting. Drop a line to Bernie for more information about RE/MAX Marina Realty.
Here are the links to programs and sites we explored.
Web resources to locate shareware/freeware:
http://www.download.com/
http://www.shareware.com/
http://www.zdnet.com/
http://www.softseek.com/
http://www.sonic.net/stephen/
F-Prot free virus checker:
ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/f-prot/free/ full program
ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/pub/f-prot/updates/f-prot/ virus definition updates
NetMonitor:
http://www.leechsoftware.com/download.html
To use the netstat command,a MSDOS window and, at the prompt, enter:
netstat -?
This will list the various command line switches. The following example will list all listening and connected ports, refreshing the list every 10 seconds. To stop the program, press Ctrl-C.
netstat -a 10
Password checker:
http://www.tidave99.cjb.net/
http://www.securax.org/roocoocoo/tidave99/toolz.html
Guru Net:
http://guru.net/
Petaluma weather:
http://www.svn.net/bankcam/weather/weather_images.htm
http://www.svn.net/bankcam/weather/weather_table.htm
Digital Duo:
http://www.digitalduo.com/
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