On Jan 30, 12:33 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 07:45:59 -0800 (PST), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by wiki trix
> <
wikit...@gmail.com>:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Jan 28, 1:35 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:48:54 -0800 (PST), the following
> >> appeared in talk.origins, posted by wiki trix
> >> <
wikit...@gmail.com>:
>
> >> >On Jan 28, 11:04 am, Harry K <
turn...@q.com> wrote:
>
> >> <snip>
>
> >> >> In this cyberworld where viruses lurk in any corner, I will know at
> >> >> least somethingabout what link is before I test it.
> >> >It is youtube, you idiot.
>
> >> Apparently. So? YouTube, including faked pages, has been a
> >> favored venue for malware delivery in the past...
>
> >>
http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/a-new-yout......
>
> >Idiot. You do not understand any of the links you provided here.
>
> Wrong. But no matter.
>
> > They
> >are related to fake URLs that look like YouTube pages that trick users
> >into downloading a tojan horse that pretends to be a required video
> >codec for viewing YouTube videos. First of all, my link was an actual
> >YouTube link. Note how its starts off withhttps://
www.youtube.com.
>
> So you're unaware of spoofed URLs, the sort which show up
> frequently in email links? I don't know if they're easy (or
> even possible) in Usenet newsreaders, but I'm happy for you
> to test that for me. Enjoy!
There are homograph spoofing attacks, where a URL looks like it is
correct, but a letter is replaced with another that looks similar. O
(oh) versus 0 (zero). More sophisticated attacks may hack into the
distributed DNS system itself, and have large scale routing effects.
But if those are the sort of things you are talking about, then you
are paranoid, and should not be on the Internet at all. Nothing is
100% risk free on the internet. If I somehow got you to go to a fake
website, I would still need to infect your system, like with a bogus
download of some sort. There are also attacks that directly exploit
vulnerability bugs in client code, such as in the browser or a Java
Virtual Machine for a Flash plugin. These can work without you
voluntarily accepting a trojan download. So do not get me wrong. I am
not claiming that there are no risks to clicking on any arbitrary
hyperlink. The reason I think you are an idiot is not that there are
no risks involved. But rather that if you really think that a link is
safer if I give more descriptive details above the link, then you are
a total fool. And the idea that some link that I provide is more risky
than the dozens or hundreds of links that people click on every day in
emails, websites, and newsgroups. If you are really that frightened of
the link that I provided, then here is a thought: DO NOT CLICK ON IT.
Do you understand that instruction? And to be consistent, DO NOT CLICK
ON ANY LINK OR VISIT ANY WEBSITE IN ANY BROWSER. IN fact, do us both a
favor and stay totally off the internet, just to be really really safe.