Viruses (or Virii)
This year, the New York Times is advising parents to have their children vaccinated against flu, and old folks to have themselves vaccinated. One reason is a strain of Staphylococcus that is sometimes appearing as a fatal secondary infection to the flu in children and old people, but, in general, vaccinations are better than the illnesses they prevent. So Thursday I had my flu shot.
In a similar vein, I was installing software on a client's computer. I had everything in a folder, and I copied the folder to his computer and tried to open it. It turned out that his computer was changing all the folders on my flash drive to invisible, and putting copies of a .exe file in their place with a folder icon, So I was copying copies of his virus back to his machine, then double clicking them which would have run them, had the virus not already been running. When I realized this, I tried to remove my flash drive, but his computer kept saying, 'This drive is in use, files are open,' as the virus kept copying itself to my flash drive.
I checked, and his computer was sending out about 3,000 spam messages every second. I said, 'You must get an anti-virus.'
'So give me one. It should be included,' was his reply.
What I was charging for the installation I was doing was not enough to pay for an anti-virus. I said, 'An anti-virus costs about €25.'
'So give my one of yours.'
Of course, modern DRM protected anti-viruses can only be run on one machine. Ever. And I didn't have any extra copies. I tried some of the free anti-viruses, but they said he wasn't infected, and I could see that he was infected.
'Not my problem,' he said. 'If you have a free anti-virus I'll take it, but it's not hurting me if I have a virus, I didn't even know I had it until you showed me all the messages going out, and I don't really believe you. I think you're just trying to get €25 out of me.'
When I got home and put my flash drive into my own computer, my anti-virus found 12 viruses (and removed them).
Meanwhile, a) tons of spam are going out over the shared UAE computer connected to the Internet; so b) Google said I was a spamming machine and would not let me search Thursday night.
But my client is unwilling to pay €25 for a decent anti-virus, and I can't give away €25 anti-viruses to all the spambots in the UAE.
So what to do?
In a similar vein, I was installing software on a client's computer. I had everything in a folder, and I copied the folder to his computer and tried to open it. It turned out that his computer was changing all the folders on my flash drive to invisible, and putting copies of a .exe file in their place with a folder icon, So I was copying copies of his virus back to his machine, then double clicking them which would have run them, had the virus not already been running. When I realized this, I tried to remove my flash drive, but his computer kept saying, 'This drive is in use, files are open,' as the virus kept copying itself to my flash drive.
I checked, and his computer was sending out about 3,000 spam messages every second. I said, 'You must get an anti-virus.'
'So give me one. It should be included,' was his reply.
What I was charging for the installation I was doing was not enough to pay for an anti-virus. I said, 'An anti-virus costs about €25.'
'So give my one of yours.'
Of course, modern DRM protected anti-viruses can only be run on one machine. Ever. And I didn't have any extra copies. I tried some of the free anti-viruses, but they said he wasn't infected, and I could see that he was infected.
'Not my problem,' he said. 'If you have a free anti-virus I'll take it, but it's not hurting me if I have a virus, I didn't even know I had it until you showed me all the messages going out, and I don't really believe you. I think you're just trying to get €25 out of me.'
When I got home and put my flash drive into my own computer, my anti-virus found 12 viruses (and removed them).
Meanwhile, a) tons of spam are going out over the shared UAE computer connected to the Internet; so b) Google said I was a spamming machine and would not let me search Thursday night.
But my client is unwilling to pay €25 for a decent anti-virus, and I can't give away €25 anti-viruses to all the spambots in the UAE.
So what to do?
posted by Dubai@Random at 12:22 am
2 Comments:
Did you try AVG anti-virus?
Antivirus is unneccesary provided people think before they click; I don't run one and the 2 years previously (prior to june this year) I virus scanned every morning and never found a single virus.
I refuse to run/suggest any Norton/Mcaffee product because they slow down systems so greatly and interfere with operations so much that I think they are viruses themselves.
Running windows inbuilt firewall is enough for most people.
I had a friend who got a brand new laptop and I specifically said to him the minute he opened the box "Do not install anything" but he didn't listen and less than a few weeks later his computer was totally screwed; I had to copy all his stuff to my computer and reformat and then slap him upside the head.
Bah. I think I jinxed myself by writing that; yesterday after restarting for the first time in about 2 weeks my computer took away all my admin priv's and started launching advertising apps like 'dealio'. (I'm pretty sure the infection came from a friend who used his laptop on my wifi)
I immediately removed the adware/malware/virus in safe mode, and then restarted and unknown to me the windows firewall had been destroyed by the virus so the computer was infected with another dozen or so things and I simply reinstalled windows /:
I just installed AVG antivirus, spybot S+D, adaware and a few other apps to stop this happening again.
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