On Sat, 7 Oct 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.computer.security, in article
<45266551$0$8376$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>, blah wrote:

>It seems these days that there is just more crap (in a home environment)
>infecting peoples computers. Whether it be spyware, adware, Trojans or/and
>viruses its a pain in the arse to disinfect.

Yes, it's amazing the crap that users install, and then blame the Mal-ware
Fairy for sneaking in during the night, waving the magic wand, and installing
viruses, spyware and the like.

>Traditionally you go about patching systems , real time scanning, host
>editing and user education as a first line of defence.

We've found that patching and user education is all that is needed. The
problem is nearly all users have no desire to learn anything and as a
result are at or beyond their skill level just trying to turn on the
computer.

>I have found that if you give a home customer a limited user account they
>will ring you every time they want to install something new.

Yes, they don't get the connection of "installing something" (that they
have absolutely no idea what it might be) and all that mal-ware.

>Then comes removing the infection. As every body know this can be
>time-consuming often taking longer than it would take to backup then
>format the system.

Yes, I miss the good old days of really destructive viruses that trashed
the hard disk, and having the _user_ have to find the floppies that had
the last good backup (yeah, right) or the original applications. Some
users actually learned after the fifth or sixth incident that blindly
installing crap might not be the best idea.

>What I was thinking (which is nothing new)

What, you thinking, or the concept below? ;-)

>is having two partitions on one hdd. Part 1 = windows Part 2= hidden.
>You have all the settings and individual data (psts, ie6 favourites, my
>documents) stored and accessed from part 2 .

How do you plan to keep the data from being corrupted when our hero
installs the latest malware de heure, yet still allow the user to save
my documents, or what-ever?

Old guy