The Things I Do For My People...
[That's a quote from Sheriff Lucas Buck on the superbly nifty (and thus prematurely cancelled) "American Gothic" written by Shaun "yes, that Shaun" Cassidy. With the plethora of DVD releases for the most obscure of shows, hopefully this will find its way onto my shelf.]
Anyways. Tonight was spent rescuing my friend ZeFräulein's PC, which at the time wouldn't remain booted up for more than 5 minutes before crashing like an intern after a 36 hour shift. Since I'm the resident technical expert of my circle, she brought it over to my place and I'd set up my trusty tools to begin their work while she treated me to dinner for my services.
(Side note: There's a chain steak house near where I live by the name of Cody's that I rank with just about any other place in the biz, including the upper-crust joints like Ruth's Chris. I don't know exactly what they do back in the kitchen with that steak, but when a top-sirloin melts in my mouth like a filet mignon, you know they're doing something right.)
Long story short, her system was infected with almost 5000 pieces of viruses, trojans and other bits of flotsam, due largely to neglect on her part for not renewing her anti-virus subscription. I actually felt sorry for that computer. Windows will crash at the drop of a hat on a good day, much less with 5000 pieces of nastiness helping usher it to see the great blue-screen-of-death.
So I spent nearly 3 hours tonight, cleaning it, adding XP Service Pack 2, updating anti-virus, installing a firewall, yada yada yada. (During which time, I got ZeFräulein caught up on all the latest Strong Bad emails. Judging by the level of laughter, "Crying" is her favorite. ) Then I sent her home with a reasonably healthy machine and a promise to Never Let It Happen Again.
This comes barely 2 months after another friend had someone hacking into his system on a regular basis. His antivirus was wildly out of date and never caught a trojan that was turning on remote desktop sharing and opening up an outside port that allowed the blackhat to come waltzing in and take his system over. (His wife once freaked when she sat down to check some email and the cursor started moving on its own.) It didn't help that his system didn't have a login password, "Why do I need to "log in" if me & the wife are the only ones using it?" "Because it's like having a phat home security system, then leaving your front door unlocked." ZeFräulein too had no password, though she wasn't being hacked that I could tell. ZeFräulein has a password now.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious or lecturing, in this wild and crazy online world, you simply cannot have enough protection. Anti-virus, spyware sweeper, firewall, password, all of it. I don't much care what solutions you use, just do it or you will rue the day you didn't. She's no dummy, but ZeFräulein was, as she put it, "too busy" to go through the hassle of renewing her anti-virus and was running broadband without a firewall... kinda like playing fast & loose with the control rods at 3-Mile Island. ZeFräulein is very lucky her PC didn't have a meltdown and she knows it.
And since I need a proper audience for my rants, raves and observations, I hope you all take the same precautions.
Safe Surfing!
Anyways. Tonight was spent rescuing my friend ZeFräulein's PC, which at the time wouldn't remain booted up for more than 5 minutes before crashing like an intern after a 36 hour shift. Since I'm the resident technical expert of my circle, she brought it over to my place and I'd set up my trusty tools to begin their work while she treated me to dinner for my services.
(Side note: There's a chain steak house near where I live by the name of Cody's that I rank with just about any other place in the biz, including the upper-crust joints like Ruth's Chris. I don't know exactly what they do back in the kitchen with that steak, but when a top-sirloin melts in my mouth like a filet mignon, you know they're doing something right.)
Long story short, her system was infected with almost 5000 pieces of viruses, trojans and other bits of flotsam, due largely to neglect on her part for not renewing her anti-virus subscription. I actually felt sorry for that computer. Windows will crash at the drop of a hat on a good day, much less with 5000 pieces of nastiness helping usher it to see the great blue-screen-of-death.
So I spent nearly 3 hours tonight, cleaning it, adding XP Service Pack 2, updating anti-virus, installing a firewall, yada yada yada. (During which time, I got ZeFräulein caught up on all the latest Strong Bad emails. Judging by the level of laughter, "Crying" is her favorite. ) Then I sent her home with a reasonably healthy machine and a promise to Never Let It Happen Again.
This comes barely 2 months after another friend had someone hacking into his system on a regular basis. His antivirus was wildly out of date and never caught a trojan that was turning on remote desktop sharing and opening up an outside port that allowed the blackhat to come waltzing in and take his system over. (His wife once freaked when she sat down to check some email and the cursor started moving on its own.) It didn't help that his system didn't have a login password, "Why do I need to "log in" if me & the wife are the only ones using it?" "Because it's like having a phat home security system, then leaving your front door unlocked." ZeFräulein too had no password, though she wasn't being hacked that I could tell. ZeFräulein has a password now.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious or lecturing, in this wild and crazy online world, you simply cannot have enough protection. Anti-virus, spyware sweeper, firewall, password, all of it. I don't much care what solutions you use, just do it or you will rue the day you didn't. She's no dummy, but ZeFräulein was, as she put it, "too busy" to go through the hassle of renewing her anti-virus and was running broadband without a firewall... kinda like playing fast & loose with the control rods at 3-Mile Island. ZeFräulein is very lucky her PC didn't have a meltdown and she knows it.
And since I need a proper audience for my rants, raves and observations, I hope you all take the same precautions.
Safe Surfing!
posted by The Doctor at Friday, February 04, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home