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Don’t you just love it….

…when your working production system stops working because a developer
decides to send you a ‘stop working code’….

Starting clamav_clamd.
LibClamAV Warning:
***********************************************************
LibClamAV Warning: ***  This version of the ClamAV engine is
outdated.     ***
LibClamAV Warning: *** DON'T PANIC! Read
http://www.clamav.net/support/faq ***
LibClamAV Warning:
***********************************************************
LibClamAV Error: cli_hex2str(): Malformed hexstring: This ClamAV version
has reached End of Life! Please upgrade to version 0.95 or later. For
more information see  www.clamav.net/eol-clamav-094 and
www.clamav.net/download (length: 169)
LibClamAV Error: Problem parsing database at line 742
LibClamAV Error: Can't load daily.ndb: Malformed database
LibClamAV Error: cli_tgzload: Can't load daily.ndb
LibClamAV Error: Can't load /var/db/clamav/daily.cld: Malformed database
ERROR: Malformed database

Especially when you haven't upgraded because attempting to upgrade you get:

libtool: link: rm -f .libs/clamscan.nm .libs/clamscan.nmS .libs/clamscan.nmT
libtool: link: (cd .libs && cc -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -c
-fno-builtin "clamscanS.c")
libtool: link: rm -f ".libs/clamscanS.c" ".libs/clamscan.nm"
".libs/clamscan.nmS" ".libs/clamscan.nmT"
libtool: link: cc -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -o .libs/clamscan
output.o getopt.o optparser.o actions.o misc.o clamscan.o others.o
manager.o  -L/usr/local/lib ../libclamav/.libs/libclamav.so -lbz2 -lz
-lthr -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/usr/local/lib
../libclamav/.libs/libclamav.so: undefined reference to `gethostbyname_r'
*** Error code 1
1 error
*** Error code 1
1 error
*** Error code 2
1 error
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/security/clamav.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/security/clamav.

Yes I know you get what you pay for, but stop catching viruses is one thing, killing my mail system is an entirely different issue..! Upgrading the OS on a production system is something that needs planning…! (and usually means it’s time to replace the hardware completely.)

For the non-techies reading… ClamAV is a free Anti-Virus system that is written as a community project. A ‘stop working code’ is a code that is specifically designed to stop a product working (usually after a specific time period etc). In my case all my mail servers (including the big SORBS spamtrap servers) are using ClamAV to filter out viruses from the mail stream. There was quite a controversy some years ago when ClamAV decided to add an ‘anti-phishing’ filter to the software without telling anyone.. since then I amongst a lot of others have been reluctant to upgrade to every ‘point release’ due to new ‘undocumented’ features screwing with my mail system.

The latest trick by the ClamAV developers seems to be ’cause all the software to crash/shutdown’ and has been done with very little notice. I for one was in the middle of moving house today and in my ‘most important’ system have been attempting to upgrade for some time. I have been unable to date because the newer versions of the software make a call to a library function that does not exist on my system. The particular system has no ‘remote console’ so if I attempt to upgrade the OS (in Windows terms, formatting and reloading from CD) the machine will be dead to everyone unless I fly to Australia (Brisbane) and do it there myself!!!!

Anyway my message to all ClamAV users is simple.. you get what you pay for.. which means as it’s free, you get nothing of use. Trash it and switch to Sophos which will cost you money, but appears in testing to be one of the best on the market!

UPDATE: It appears from the many private comments that I received in private that my statement about ‘you get what you pay for’ were made without any substantive research, and as such I have been made aware there are a number of free AV engines that do not suffer from the ‘you get what you pay for syndrome’. So my advice and a lesson for me is do your research, companies who provide free services/utilities do have strict controls on what happens with the code and are worth considering.

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Full body scanners at UK airports…

Recently there was an article covered by many news agencies about the introduction of full body scanners in the UK airports. The Register covered the story in this article. I added my thoughts to the comments which were about the statement that the anyone selected for scanning would be scanned by someone of the same sex, wondering where they would find intersexed and transsexual people from to scan some of the people I know and myself….?

Reading through the rest of the comments today I remembered something from my past which reinforced Bruce Schneier‘s view and mine that our governments are actually promoting terrorism and causing more terror than the actual terrorists.

Way back in my youth there was an organisation called the IRA (Irish Republican Army) who spent an inordinate amount of time trying to blow people up. They succeeded on occasion and I remember as a child hearing about people dead and getting worried about getting blown up myself. I remember hearing that Lord Mountbatten had been blown up and killed by the same army. I remember many news reports in London of people being killed, but as I grew older I realised that these people were operating 100+ miles from my sleepy village of Ormesby St Margaret.

Around the age of 17 I moved out of home and started living on my own, and eventually around 1998 I ended up moving into London, by this time the IRA was pretty much defunct and various ceasefires had been called etc… I was not afraid of London or being part of some terrorist attack.

One morning I awoke in my flat at Norwood Green to the sound of a police radio. I poked my head out the window to see that the road was very quiet and there was “police line” tape all around and a copper standing directly below me. I shouted down to him, “Oi, what’s going on?” to which he replied, get in, an stay away from the windows. I asked why and was told there was a suspicious package in the middle of the green that could be a bomb.

Now, what did I do at this point? Did I run around screaming, and panicing? Did I follow police instruction? Did I go to the loo…? No I didn’t do any of these things….

The first thing I did was go to the lounge door and take a peek into the green, and there was a big can in the middle of the grass with a couple of wires on show etc.. I thought, “Cool, doesn’t look like a bomb, but you never know…”

Second thing I did was pick up my phone, and call my boss…

“John”, I said, “I’m sorry I will be a bit late in work this morning…”
John asked why, and I continued with, “well there seems to be a bomb outside of my house.”
He asked if I was joking, I said, “No” and he said, “Ok, well get in when you can.”

The conversation was quite comical on reflection, John was a little startled at first, but when hearing that I wasn’t joking or bothered, neither was he, and it was more like me calling in sick than being involved in a bomb scare.

THIS IS WHAT LONDON IS LIKE WHEN YOU HAVE LIVED THERE!!! You get on with it, you don’t panic, you don’t run around screaming etc..

When the not so recent bombs went off in the Tube stations and buses, the Metropolitan Police closed the transport system in London. From all the reports I heard from friends that were visiting or living in London, the biggest issue was not the bombs going off, not the likelihood that someone next to them could be carrying a bomb, but the fact they couldn’t move. Some had to walk 30+ miles across London to get home, some couldn’t get to work..

London was paralysed…

This is EXACTLY what the terrorists wanted, it hit the world wide news. It was front page for days, it was world wide, “London terrorised!” People couldn’t go to work, people couldn’t even drive their cars because if they lived in London you were grounded. Terrorism caused mass panic and inconvenience, governments called emergency sessions, new laws were dreamed up, and we have restrictions on our civil liberties that prevents our free movement.

What did the people of London think at the time, well all those I spoke to were shocked and sad, but they were more upset that the powers that be in London decided to stop London from operating. They wanted to get back to work, to get on with daily life. People cope with terror and disaster by going back to their daily routine, and what did the wonderful people in power do? They shut everything down and said, “Sit at home and brood about terrorist attacks because it could be YOU next time!”

The war on terrorism is not a war on terrorism, its promoting terrorism for no good reason. It’s headline news, it’s new laws and reduction in civil liberties.

Rant over, please think, you the public, post this blog where ever you can, get the word out that the governments must stop this scare mongering, lets get back to a world of living in peace. In the years since the second world war the number of people killed because of terrorism (in total) is less than the number of people killed in car accidents in 2009! Why are people killed in car accidents not front page news?