Security Software: Worse than Mal-ware
Oct. 13th, 2006 09:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
keithdok.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
techrecovery...for all intents and purposes, as far as I can see.
A little background. Me = tech support phone monkey for a company that makes real estate software. My customers are all appraisers, mortgage brokers, agents, etc, just using our software to do their work. So anytime they're on the phone with us, they're not working. They're losing money. For every call we get, there has to be someone to answer it, so my company has to pay me and my cohorts. The more calls, the more people. So it could be said that anything that causes more people to call us costs both us and the customers money.
You know how many problems I solve every day where a virus or piece of malware was the issue?
Zero.
You know how many problems I solve every day that go like this?
"Huh. So you say that when you try to download a map/import a file/access your local area network your [our software] freezes up? Yeah? Try this. Right click on that Norton/McAfee/Nod32/Zone Alarm/Black Ice icon and choose disable. Now try it again. It worked, huh? Here's a list of files you need to tell Norton to unblock. Thanks so much."
About 20 or 25 out of 40 or 50 calls I take a day. Multiply that by 50 or so techs and you can imagine how much time we waste because "security" software broke our shit.
This doesn't even include "anti-spyware" programs that randomly delete our fucking system files -- which we don't even realize until we replace the files for the customer and they're instantly removed again -- anti-virus programs that slow networks to a crawl, corrupt files with inbound email scanning by removing WMF files FROM INSIDE ARCHIVES or just randomly borking shit. And guess what? The customer always assumes it's our shit that's broke first.
So if you added up all the time spent producing, supporting, tweaking, troubleshooting, and working around security software, plus the all the money spent ON security software -- I bet it's ten times the monetary and productivity cost of every virus ever. Norton in particular is worse than any virus EVER.
:mad: :mad: :mad:
A little background. Me = tech support phone monkey for a company that makes real estate software. My customers are all appraisers, mortgage brokers, agents, etc, just using our software to do their work. So anytime they're on the phone with us, they're not working. They're losing money. For every call we get, there has to be someone to answer it, so my company has to pay me and my cohorts. The more calls, the more people. So it could be said that anything that causes more people to call us costs both us and the customers money.
You know how many problems I solve every day where a virus or piece of malware was the issue?
Zero.
You know how many problems I solve every day that go like this?
"Huh. So you say that when you try to download a map/import a file/access your local area network your [our software] freezes up? Yeah? Try this. Right click on that Norton/McAfee/Nod32/Zone Alarm/Black Ice icon and choose disable. Now try it again. It worked, huh? Here's a list of files you need to tell Norton to unblock. Thanks so much."
About 20 or 25 out of 40 or 50 calls I take a day. Multiply that by 50 or so techs and you can imagine how much time we waste because "security" software broke our shit.
This doesn't even include "anti-spyware" programs that randomly delete our fucking system files -- which we don't even realize until we replace the files for the customer and they're instantly removed again -- anti-virus programs that slow networks to a crawl, corrupt files with inbound email scanning by removing WMF files FROM INSIDE ARCHIVES or just randomly borking shit. And guess what? The customer always assumes it's our shit that's broke first.
So if you added up all the time spent producing, supporting, tweaking, troubleshooting, and working around security software, plus the all the money spent ON security software -- I bet it's ten times the monetary and productivity cost of every virus ever. Norton in particular is worse than any virus EVER.
:mad: :mad: :mad:
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-14 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-14 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-14 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-14 06:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-21 09:19 am (UTC)Unless you actually want to use the internet.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 12:16 am (UTC)I can't tell you how many times a day I find myself saying to someone "well, sometimes, the stuff that's supposed to protect you against the bad guys also protects you against the good guys..."
Can't tell you how many times I want to add "kinda like the TSA taking your nail clippers to prevent terrorist hijackings..."
:P