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Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

krebsonsecurity.com

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#21
post #5

I’m sorry but this is the funniest thing ever. Wasn’t it just a few years ago we were joking that AV software is the virus? How far have we come.

Perhaps for their next trick they can improve the customer experience in a related niche with bundled ransomware.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#22
post #6

This was already discussed on HN 7 months ago [0]. I'll repeat what I said about it last time: It's a mistake to focus on Norton in this context. The "correct" way of reading of this headline should be something like "reputable company puts an Ethereum wallet and mining software in the hands of millions of users". Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google…

I'd be "No thank you Microsoft/Google/etc. Also, what do I need to do to make it sure it never switches on next time there's an update."

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#23
post #8

I wonder if anybody has estimations of the contribution of anti-virus software to global warming. They run on almost all desktop computers, are generally large and bloated applications that consume tons of cpu for their continuous scans, I would not be too surprised if was far from negligible.

So, we’re doing whataboutism for this now? You don’t have some answer like “using as much electricity as Argentina to mine bitcoins is the price of freedom”?

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#25
post #22
post #6

This was already discussed on HN 7 months ago [0]. I'll repeat what I said about it last time: It's a mistake to focus on Norton in this context. The "correct" way of reading of this headline should be something like "reputable company puts an Ethereum wallet and mining software in the hands of millions of users". Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google…

I'd be "No thank you Microsoft/Google/etc. Also, what do I need to do to make it sure it never switches on next time there's an update."

The next update removes your ability to turn it off.

The only correct response is "Fuck you Microsoft/Google/etc. You're expunged and I'll never trust you again."

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#27
post #8

I wonder if anybody has estimations of the contribution of anti-virus software to global warming. They run on almost all desktop computers, are generally large and bloated applications that consume tons of cpu for their continuous scans, I would not be too surprised if was far from negligible.

Ugh.. do you think AVs are useless or something? Why do people think this. Shit AVs are shit, end of story. Reading memory and is not cpu intensive the disk i/o intensity if windows vs linux alone is very drastic if you want to evaluate that as a baseline instead.

It's like asking the carbon footprint of freeway guardrails. I mean, norton sucks, sure but at least turn on defender (which is really good btw). The amount if lives not ruined and money not lost due to cybercrime thanks to AVs alone is staggering imo

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#28

It wasn’t a big thing when it was disabled by default and now it is because the default flipped?! I think this is a big issue regardless - it’s like selling a bike rack with every new car. It doesn’t seem right and enforces the wrong behavior.

Maybe I’m missing something, but what’s so wrong with selling a bike rack with every new car? Seems a bit silly, but I’d expect it would encourage cycling while slightly raising the price of cars which are already under priced relative to the externalities they cause.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#29
post #6

This was already discussed on HN 7 months ago [0]. I'll repeat what I said about it last time: It's a mistake to focus on Norton in this context. The "correct" way of reading of this headline should be something like "reputable company puts an Ethereum wallet and mining software in the hands of millions of users". Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google…

> Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google to Chrome.

People keep saying this as if crypto isn't already mainstream. Exchanges have hundreds of millions of customers. A significant portion of the world has traded crypto. And 99.99% aren't doing anything else with it but speculate.

It's not as if magically bundling a wallet on millions of machines will suddenly cause a bunch of usecases to materialize.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#30
post #8

I wonder if anybody has estimations of the contribution of anti-virus software to global warming. They run on almost all desktop computers, are generally large and bloated applications that consume tons of cpu for their continuous scans, I would not be too surprised if was far from negligible.

My 2 year old blog post has the answer to that.

http://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-c...

People come up with all sorts of silly ideas rather than actually addressing the real issue.

Addressing virus software will save the world exactly 0 days.

UPDATE

Coal usage is at record usage for power generation. It emits over twice as much CO2 as natural gas

while these silly little ideas about optimizing your website to use less electricity or using a different computer language are a fun way to waste the day, all the coal we keep burning is costing us significant time.

Anything else is better. Waiting for the windmills isnt working.

Anyway, just the occasional reminder that we keep squandering valuable time and now we need a bigger miracle.

Good luck with the shaming to address the problem.

UPDATE 2

"Stop all economic growth"

No one said that. That is a right wing sound bite simply meant to add noise to the discussion.

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