1875 Group Up With Me.

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The other day I kept getting warnings about a fake tech support scam, but no matter how much I cleaned the computer they wouldn’t stop. So I kept trying to figure out what was doing it & found out that it isn’t technically a virus, so virus protection won’t fix it for reasons. Anyway, I ended up using Microsoft’s text chat support. The long and short of it was I had to reset my browser, which I would have just done myself, but I wanted to save my favorites list and couldn’t remember how. The support guy was nice, but you can tell they have to go from a script of steps. I had some of my problems looked up before he got through his steps. Still, it’s better than trying to use the forums when I really just wanted to know if resetting the browser was the only solution.
Anyway, it seems to me if I’m gonna pay for virus protection they might go ahead and fix stuff like this even though it’s not a virus per se. I downloaded some other free stuff just to see if it would find things other than what Norton does, but I’ve already got a few layers of protection on this thing. Of course you can’t be too careful these days. All these Russian hackers have infiltrated sites and they don’t even know it. It’s crazy.

29 Comments

Ok so it’s clear Alex is open to an open relationship.

She’s probably just teasing him because she thinks it’s fun to watch him struggle.

Most people don’t even know how real they mean something until they see how the other person responds.

Yeah.
I was reading a discussion about almost this, and someone gave a real example.

A guy who had spent years trying to talk his wife into “swinging”, then at a swingers party walked into the kitchen to find he kissing a guy, and went after them both with a bottle.

Not pretty, though he got grabbed before anyone got physically hurt.

It’s also great to know that, unless someone makes the matter awkward (I.e. Victoria at Bearyfun pizza), Alex is completely comfortable with self-directed fat jokes. It’ll help Reggie become more open to it…of course, her on top of him ought to help as well.

The Russian Hackers don’t even know the sites they infiltrated?

No, the site admins don’t realize they’ve been compromised. Regrettably common.

Wait, you believe in the russian hackers in an unironically way?

Specifically Russian hackers? No. But Eastern Europe is certainly one of the many hotspots for botnets, spam mailers and, indeed hackers and virus writers (from script kiddies (generally professional tools downloaded off the Internet) to professional programmers/network security professionals).

I thought Russian Hackers only existed in the minds of Paranoid Politicians — because the Media told me so.

Yes – Russian – and Eastern European hackers are a real, and extremely troublesome problem. Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular, is the source of a lot of malware including a plethora of ransomeware and botnets. Interference by Russian hackers in US elections is almost a footnote to the activity of these hackers.

Self-deprecating humour is a pretty standard coping strategy, I think it’s just banter, and not an indication of her real attitude toward sex. It’s interesting that it’s a strategy Reggie does *not* possess!

I think Reggie has some insecurities he compensates for that would make self deprecating humor extremely uncomfortable for him.

Besides the Russians there are other big fish in the hacker/malicious/sneaky-bastards pond, like the Chinese, India, Israel, England, France, Italy, Multinational companies like Sony or McAffee and, let us not forget all the Three-Letter-Acronyms from the USofA…. oh and that kid down the road with their baby-monitor botnet.

Don’t forget how much The Internet of Things will improve everyone’s lives!

*spits* I do NOT want to have a conversation with my tools. I would be open to actual, sentient AIs, but as people, not as glorified appliances.

“Josh, did you remember to get milk?”
“Crap, no i didn’t.”
“That’s okay Josh, you can just order some through Amazon.”
“Look fridge i accept you’ve been programmed to be loyal to your creators but please stop pushing me to buy stuff from Amazon!”
“You and i both know i cannot rewrite my programming, Josh”

Brief explanation of why i’ll never buy the inevitable Amazon Fridge.

I couldn’t see Reggie taking up a serious relationship with Maddison. She’s too cute. Cute can certainly go places, but one can tire of cuteness unless there is substance to back it up, and Maddie would be left alone.

Alex, on the other hand, does have substance behind the eyes (behind that concealing fringe, that is). You can tell her intellect is also activating parts of Reggie’s brain, from his frontal lobe to the amygdala…

Honestly, they would make for a nice polyfidelitous triad, in many ways, and if this is a lead-in to that, I might actually have to change my views on Reggie if he can handle it well. Could also be fun to see him grow with it (or not… either way it’d be fascinating).

My own triad/quad was kinda similar, though the genders were switched around a bit; one bubbly, one intellectual/playful, one cunning but overly emotional/unstable. Then we also got the equivalent of Carol to round us out (Confident, bossy, but certain to pick up the pieces when things break). A couple of us split and rejoined over the years, but that’s how it started, and we’re all better for the experience.

I remember walking with a friend of mine when she suddenly asked my opinions on threesomes (MFM), I then realized that’s something I haven’t given enough thought about…

Do you use ccleaner? Seems to keep a lot of the crap (which the first c supposedly stood for) from building up. It will remove cookies (except those you specify), so it might slow you down on some sites. Also use Ghostery to keep a lot of this stuff from building up in the first place, but again it might be a problem with some sites.

Will she fit in your coupe?
By herself she’s a group!

Everybody: back up your bookmarks regularly. It should form a single file (usually HTML) that you can store on an external drive, flash drive or server. That way, you can restore them if you have to lobotomize your browser — or your hard drive.

Hi Jackie!

There are basically two kinds of hacks: You getting targeted from the outside or you accidentally inviting any kind of scum on your PC.

Against the first kind, you are basically powerless. If someone experienced wants to hack you, chances are the person can. All you can do is keeping your OS up to date and hope not getting targeted by chance. Chances are pretty slim, anyway. Nothing I would worry about.

The second kind can be anything. You could open malicious mails, malicious websites, install malicious programs or plug in an infected USB-Stick. Nowadays websites are much more than text and pictures, you are basically executing programs in your browser.

Antivirus software is a possible way to protect you, one I wouldn’t recommend. These programs don’t know or recognize every malicious program there is (that is theoretically impossible anyway, see halting problem). In some cases, the antivirus software is actually the activator: Imagine you get a mail with a malicious PDF. You don’t open the PDF, but your antivirus does. The code embedded in the PDF then exploits bugs in your antivirus software and runs wild from there. Anyone with a little bit of programming experience could write a program that would classify as a virus, but because it is new, it is not recognized. Personally, my off-the-hook virus would scan for C:\Users and then just try to delete everything I can get access to, which would very likely include the default picture folder Windows always has. The problem is that it is very easy to program, but very difficult to program without leaving security holes. That why it is up to the user to avoid malicious software. If your Antivirus catches 99 out of 100 malicious programs, the one remaining can still wreck everything, so you would be better off by not getting a single one in the first place.

Now how can you help yourself?
1. Keep your OS and browser up to date, the updates often contain security fixes.
2. Back up your data. At least once a month, better every week. If your budget for backup devices is basically non-existent, set priorities. For data size, it is generally documents < pictures < music < videos. An 8GB USB-Stick should be enough to at least secure the important documents and most precious photos. I've had data loss about 6 times already and sometimes it was just the device stopping to work. Backup is important. If possible, have two backup devices, just in case one breaks. If you assume that your PC is compromised, stop sticking the backup devices in it. If you know it is, some programs may help you feel like the problem is gone (CCleaner was named), but you can never know for sure, your PC space is too vast. Best thing to do would be to reinstall the OS (and even this isn't enough sometimes anymore, thanks to Intel, see death star virus). The second thing my off-the-hook virus would do would be replicating itself, slightly changed, so it is not recognized immediately again. And I would give out nice names like "sunrise.jpg.exe"… Okay, that one is obvious. But what about "TicTacToe.exe" in your Download folder?
3. Disable the autostart on CDs, DVDs and USB sticks. It is simply an opportunity to start the malicious programs.
4. Disable scripts in your browser and only enable them for sites you really, really trust. And then wonder how many scripts some sites really need and what for. The trustworthy Firefox addon I use is NoScript. Make sure to enable scripts also for websites you want to support, so their advertisement is shown.
5. Don't download software from unsecure sources. P2P is not thrustworthy! Programs with open source code and lot of downloads/followers are usually saver. If you can get a program from Github or SourceForge or a similiar site or from the official site of the company (if you can find the company and the link to their site on Wikipedia, that seems pretty secure).
6. Don't install software that wants to install additional components that have nothing to do with what you want (the usual example were toolbars for browsers), that's fishy! Advertisement is okay, but no straight up second installation. An installation is no sales pitch for another program!

I hope these tips can help you :)

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