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Today's Update

jamieleenm

Fri Jun 28, 2019 9:48:14 pm

Today's update said Unauthorized so we did not update . How do we go about getting a current update now? Had a suspicious email that WAS opened & now I'm concerned about something malicious being on this computer. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Jamie

Aravisian

Fri Jun 28, 2019 10:18:22 pm

jamieleenm wrote:Today's update said Unauthorized so we did not update . How do we go about getting a current update now? Had a suspicious email that WAS opened & now I'm concerned about something malicious being on this computer. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
Jamie

An email that is suspicious still is unlikely to cause you problems. Even opening the email is not enough, you would need to take additional actions within that email, agreeing to download an object or traveling to a link provided in the email and so forth to get a virus. If you took those actions, it is Highly Likely that such a virus would be written for Microsoft Windows products and not Linux, rendering the virus ineffective for your computer as it uses a different language and structuring system. Your system has the additional protection of direct password protected Root.
So no need to fear, there. But if you prefer to have peace of mind, install ClamAV Anti-Virus for linux:
Code:
sudo apt-get install clamav

OR install using Synaptic Pacakge Manager; search for Clamav in Synaptic.

On Updates, I do not know why you got a message of "Unauthorized" when you tried an update but my first guess would be that there was a communication error. Trying again later may result in there not being a communication error and everything proceeding normally.
You also can go to your App Menu and select "Software" to open the Software Channel GUI. There is also an "Update" tab next to "all" and "installed" at the top. Click on that to see updates available for your system.
Alternatively, you can try doing a "dist-upgrade" in Terminal.
Hope this helps

jamieleenm

Fri Jun 28, 2019 11:29:04 pm

Wow, thanks for the reassurance... I forgot the reason we jumped off Windows!
Thanks Aravisian!! :D

Aravisian

Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:10:12 am

jamieleenm wrote:Wow, thanks for the reassurance... I forgot the reason we jumped off Windows!
Thanks Aravisian!! :D

I never forget the reason I jumped off Windows.

There was a time... When I was quite the little Windows guy, manipulating it to my needs and enjoying the old days of Chat rooms that allowed Direct Connections (PM's) where I could either transfer a goodie package containing a nefarious program hidden within a "binder" usually bound within what appeared to be a harmless object like a photo. The beauty of using a Binder was that it also tricked the computer as to the file size. You could send them 400 megs and the file size of the object would show as 5megs, making it look a lot less suspicious.
Back then MSN Chatrooms had little Golden Hammers and brown hammers (Gavels). I liked to go in, make myself unbannable by right clicking, selecting "Source" and then changing the value for my username with $ bracketing it. Then I'd grief them and when they tried to ban and failed, they'd yell "hacker!" and droves of net chatters would flee for their lives, having to hope to find their net affairs some other time.
But being evil and wily, I learned just how evil and wily MS is, too. The chaotic disorganization of it, the ad-hoc filing system and registry...oh man the registry. Such a fun and major security risk. It's easy (Or maybe used to be?) to change someones registry values and mess them up. You just type the command and value change on a notepad, save it as dot reg and give it to them to open. When they open it- it does what it was told to do- no password protection, back then anti-virus wouldn't spot it because it looked like a user initiated adjustment. Small things like disabling someones caps lock key when they annoyed me by typing in all caps all the time.
Poor victim couldn't figure out what just happened.

Now I am a little bit older and a little bit less evil and I don't mess with people anymore. But I do know that while the old chatrooms are gone, MS is Very Freaking Insecure.

Using Linux, is a whole different world. The filing system is efficient, easy to use and sensible. The structure is elegant. Defrag? Not here. Linux allocates space accordingly instead of throwing bits and pieces into the first open space it can find the way Windows does. Those bits and pieces end up spread out all over the disk, slowing everything down and making the system hunt for one marker to the next. I often wonder why Windows never got that together.
What's the definition of insanity? Repeating the same procedure only to get the same results?

On the topic of Updates, it's funny... I gave my possibly wrong but stubborn opinion here:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14640&p=64764#p64764