Re: How to remove messenger service window?

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KWW wrote:
If you go to www.grc.com they have a great tool called "shoot the messenger". It gives you the ability to have a desktop icon that you can use to toggle messenger ON and OFF.


I realize that you're trying to help, and that such an intent is commendable, but please don't post potentially harmful advice.

Merely disabling the messenger service, as you suggest, and as Gibson's utility does, is a dangerous "head in the sand" approach to computer security that leaves the PC vulnerable to threats such as the W32.Blaster, W32.Welchia, and W32,Sasser worms.

The real problem is _not_ the messenger service pop-ups; they're actually providing a useful, if unintentional, service by acting as a security alert. The true problem is the unsecured computer, and your only advice, however well-intended, was to turn off the warnings. Was this truly helpful?

Equivalent Scenario: You over-exert your shoulder at work or play, causing bursitis. After weeks of annoying and sometimes excruciating pain whenever you try to reach over your head, you go to a doctor and say, while demonstrating the motion, "Doc, it hurts when I do this." The doctor, being as helpful as you've been, replies, "Well, don't do that."

The only true way to secure the PC, short of disconnecting it from the Internet, is to install and *properly* configure a firewall; just installing one and letting it's default settings handle things is no good. Unfortunately, this does require one to learn a little bit more about using a computer than used to be necessary.


This guy has been around for years. 


	Sad, but true.


Has LOTS of good stuff and is VERY reputable.


Nothing could be further from the truth. Gibson has been fooling a lot of people for several years, now, so don't feel too bad about having believed him. He mixes just enough facts in with his hysteria and hyperbole to be plausible. Gibson is assuming a presumably morally superior pose as a White Knight out to rescue the poor, defenseless computer user, all the while offering solutions that do no good whatsoever.

Perhaps you should read what real computer security specialists have to say about Steve Gibson's "security" expertise. You can start here:
http://www.grcsucks.com/


--

Bruce Chambers

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