Quote from: BittBurger on November 30, 2013, 08:55:22 PM

Quote from: nocoin on November 30, 2013, 08:22:34 PM

Also, can't understand why people running unknown *.exe files at the main system instead of using virtual machine.

Try to remember, not everyone in this scene has understanding of these things.
{...} a bunch of "lay persons" are joining this community now.
People who only know Windows and laptops and that's about it.

Message to other users of this forum with the same level of knowledge:
Maybe we should start providing easy-to-use pre-packaged virtual machines?

VM software like Virtual Box are available: free and easy to install.
There are also standard for "Virtual Appliances" : pre-packaged virtual machine that ready to add to any compatible VM software (like Virtual Box, VMWare, etc.)

With correctly signed images, containing verifiable linux components, it should be made easy to help the "lay persons" isolate their not-so-trusted alt-coins QT wallets.

This is already done to deploy some Linux research software (available as a VMWare image for non-Linux users), or to deploy testing tools for developers targeting Linux-powered devices (Android, WebOS) but running on Windows, etc.

Altcoins could be added to the list, too. Only we must pay attention to make the images themselves trustable and verifiable.
(Like done with the deterministic build on the distributed executable).

Quote from: BittBurger on November 30, 2013, 08:55:22 PM

I have slightly more knowledge, but have no idea what a virtual machine is.

For those who don't know: If you know what an emulator is, (like the thing used to simulate old machines like Amiga, Gameboy, etc. so you can play their games on a modern computer) that's a good starting point. Software like VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels, etc. are softwares that simulates a whole computer. You can then install what you want inside this "imaginary computer". This is routinely used by people using Mac OS X (or Linux) on their laptops: they install such a software which simulates a PC and they install Windows on this imaginary PC. That helps them then run windows-only software on the windows installation running inside this imaginary PC (= that's the virtual machine).
It could be used to have Linux running inside such a virtual machine and then installing the Wallet inside that linux. If anything bad happens, the malware is hacking a machine that doesn't actually exist, its only hacking a virtual machine running under the control of VirtualBox/VMWare/etc.

DrYak

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