History of Computing and
Windows Internet Security issues
Yes, there have been many many security holes in
Windows mostly which allows your system to be
compromised while you are online on the Internet
as in file manipulation and even crashing
your computer from remote.
What can you do about it ? Check out some of the
websites and/or software that I have listed below.
There are internet websites which will test your
computers security for you while you are
online and others which will explain weakness in
Windows Networking and Internet Access -
i bought my first computer - a broken Tandy or Radio
Shack TRS-80 Model 4P - which ran or read maybe
10 to 20 different versions of CP/M (many other brand
name proprietary computers ran their own versions of
CP/M so CP/M was also a standard but never caught
on even though companies and businesses at the
time used it),
MSDOS, PCDOS, OS/2 and Propiertary TANDY DOS,
etc. for all I could tell or tried at the time -
- Yes, it was quite a beast -
Yes i did meet a Group of Computer Hackers at Iowa
State University who introduced me to all of this after
i joined the ISU Computer Science Club at the time -
- anyway this was a light portable or luggable
computer which was broken
with a bad communications - Uart chip - in a card
on the main board called a dialup modem - 300 to
2400 baud or bps - which i
repaired with a soldering iron and electronic
schematics (Just From my High School Analog and
Digital Electronics education - US Military book called
GROBE) anyway back in my first
year and first college - ISU - IOWA STATE
UNIVERSITY in Ames, Iowa
Home of the first Electronic Digital Computer as well -
The Atanasoff Berry Computer - called the ABC
Computer by John Vincent Atanasoff known as the
father of the computer.
but it didn't make the world news because it was
over shadowed by a news event at that time
otherwise it might have been famous and well known
(Instead of attending University of California at
Berkeley or UC Berkeley - where i was also accepted
for admissions)
That summer i also worked on campus at The
Famous Government Department of Energy
facility onsite - AMES LABORATORY - as my first
real job straight from High School - as a Computer
Programmer in Fortran and C - 1984 - 1985.
i used that same computer until mid to late 1990's
and Pre-2000 - a computing marvel - got me partially
thru college as a student with no money before i built
my first IBM PC Compatible desktop or fliptop.
Without those computers none of this would have
been possible because i used it to surf - COMPUTER
BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS - BBS systems - which
were personal public personal computers you could
setup and allow logon running the BBS software just
like independent businesses or Internet.
From there you would connect to USENET, and
BITNET, Companies and other public sites at the time
before the standard internet came about with
websites as such.
later all of these BBSes were linked and networked
together to form what we now know as the modern
internet.
Windows Internet security links
Gibson Research - www.GRC.com
(Will Test your systems security Online - SHIELD -
in addition GRC offers HARDDRIVE REPAIR
SOFTWARE
called - SPINRITE - which has been around for years
and is still available for your old harddrive or new
harddrive if you don't want to throw it out just
because it has bad - "SECTORS" - which i used to
use all the time because it was
"AFFORDABLE" and could recertify old or broken
harddrives.
The harddrive has clicks or crashes when it gets
to a bad
sector - sometimes causing Windows BSOD - blue
screen of death - and you just can't seem to fix it,
this is sometimes the cure when CHKDSK doesn't
work.
So starting out in computers i couldn't afford much
so - SPINRITE - gave me a way out if i wanted to
keep that old harddrive of mine spinning and didn't
have money to replace it.
Zonelabs - Zonealarm - www.Zonelabs.com
(Personal firewall software with free versions)
One of the very best and first at that time till today
as well as easiest to configure and use.
Black ICE Defender -
(Another personal firewall software but not free)
Which was still available at that time.
