Thread: Secure your PC or lose the net, are you kidding me?!

Australians would be unable to access the internet without having anti-virus and firewall programs installed and a virus-free machine under a new plan put forward by a year-long parliamentary cyber-crime inquiry.

Please check the full report here

Tell me what you guys think about this system and here are my thoughts:



I am totally against this BS for the following reasons:
1. Antivirus softwares and firewalls are not foolproof, you have to constantly update definition files blablabla.., and they are useful for known virus, if there is a new one just came out, they are useless
2. Speaking of standards, who sets them? The retarded law makers cannot even tell what TCP/IP is and the consultants (who usually work for a big player in the industry) are not too bright either, this may lead to regulatory monopoly, where certain software vendors may fail to qualify for some stupid reason or no reason at all.
3. ISPs already have too much power, they shall not peak into our OS and see if we have AV/FW installed and the 'backdoors' can be used by hackers, which defeat the original purpose
4. There is no way that antivirus softwares and firewalls can stop online fraud, people who fail into the traps of email with subject line "YOU WON LOTTERY" cannot be rescued by antivirus.
5. This is not the equivalent of seatbelt law, seatbelt saves lives and clearly antivirus softwares don't.

I'm constantly getting calls from friends and families asking me to "get the virus off their computer". They almost all have antivirus programs and firewalls. The reason they get these problems (like you said in your number 4 point) is because a popup will show up saying YOU HAve A VIRUS -- CLICK HERE TO REMOVE.

Im sure everyone on this forum is intelligent enough to know that this is only going to give you problems rather than fix them. But honestly (from my experiences) most people don't use computers that much to know any better, including these law makers. It's unlikely your computer is going to be hacked or infiltrated just by being connected to the internet. Viruses get installed on a computer by user stupidity like clicking on bad emails, links, popups, ect.

Requiring antivirus programs on a computer isn't going to stop them from being infected, teaching them what's okay to download or click will.

Interesting. You might want to do a little research to see who's behind that proposed law. My guess would be a lobby group representing some industry player who stands to make a fortune if the law passes.

good point s2cuts, the only background that I can found is "Alastair MacGibbon from Surete Group" is pushing it. Surete Group is a consulting firm on 'online security' BS, I believe he can profit from just pushing it, the consulting fee he gets from gov should big enough even if this proposal fails to pass, if it passes, more consulting fee for him. And the law makers are stupid enough to believe him and spend taxpayers' money on this kind of BS