Another day, another asshat banned...

[jecook]

Posting links to malware installation sites here *will* get me in a _very_ cranky mood:



Now, for a *real* free A/V scanner...

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ It's 'good enough' for a start.

http://www.grisoft.com/ publishers of AVG. They have a free for personal use which, while basic, is also 'good enough'.

http://www.avast.com/ Avast! is decent too.

Edit: cleanup, I feel a bit less pissed off and can see better. ;)

Comments

[gilded_lady]

You didn't miss it.

http://community.livejournal.com/tech_support/452143.html

[jecook]

And:

http://community.livejournal.com/computerhelp/1385290.html

I've already alerted the moderators of the offended communities. With lunk some of them might still be awake..

[gilded_lady]

Since I'm not about to click on the link, what's with that site?

[jecook]

It's a fake A/V scanner that tells you that you have a virus, and then automatically attempts to download an executable to your computer. Oh, and it tries to keep you from leaving said site as well.

Fortunately, I thought I smelled a rat, and had a hair trigger on no-script's FORBID button.. :)

[superbus.livejournal.com]

And the fucker's got comments screened too; warnings are going to go hidden and deleted.

Considering he's got one friend (himself) and a few communities, I'd say it's pretty obviously a sockpuppet; I've flagged it to LJ Abuse for illegal activity, but might you want to check into the posts from a few days ago from that tard that spammed up the community? The ones that Lisa (geekgrrl_ca got rid of. There might be a link there.

[agateway.livejournal.com]

that one was killed.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Computerhelp's been dealt with :).

[snoopyh42.livejournal.com]

tech_support has been cleaned.

[jcaswell.livejournal.com]

I hate it when I miss drama. Curse living in this timezone!

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't call this drama as much as the cyber-equivalent to a bunch of angry denizens with pitchforks and torches wanting a little bit of barbeque.

[mouse-from-marz.livejournal.com]

mmmmm barbeque.... *stomach growls*

[canray.livejournal.com]

http://www.pinball.com/games/medieval/Sounds/weenies.wav

[jecook]

*dies laughing*

[jcaswell.livejournal.com]

Missing barbecue is even worse! :)

[berkeleyfarm.livejournal.com]

Did someone send a report on to LJ Abuse? Give them something actually useful to do ;). WORK that annoying "report this post" feature!

[jecook]

LJ abuse? Doing something useful?

They sent me an email a couple days agop asking me to delete the post from the last guy I reported to them. I'm still pondering it, as everyone here wanted the post left up as a warning to trolls.

I probably should delete it, as it obviously didn't work...

As for LJ Abuse being useful, I'll let superbus chime in. I happen to share that opinion.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

Well, I did flag the journal for illegal activity, sent them the links in both this and the tech_support forum (I'm not a member of computerhelp), let them know exactly what he was doing (though I didn't give virus specifics, as I don't have a DMZ set up at the moment), and let them know that we've had a problem with a couple people that Lisa banned a few days ago; I recommended that the account was a sockpuppet, but further investigation was in order due to the nature of the offence, to see if they could find the source.

However, I did that knowing full well that LJ Abuse is at best incompetent, and most likely lazy and patriarchal. As jecook alluded to, I've had my issues with them, including a very public calling out (http://superbus.livejournal.com/318438.html) at the end of 2006 that proved their uselessness. They've been no better since, and I also blamed Strikethrough '07 on their incompetence. I'd go as far to say most of the problems that Six Apart had were directly or indirectly caused by LJ Abuse, and when people complain - rightly - about the Russians buying the site and turning it into Just Another Social Networking Site, I point them in that direction.

[berkeleyfarm.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's intense. I knew they were generally clueless (hello Strikethrough) but had no idea that it was that prevalent and that they had been influenced by whackoes to overreact well before Strikethrough.

I'm with you in that it's a management thing; it's not like it's hard to find excellent tech talent in SF. Still, posting malware links is something that even the worst providers seem to pay attention to, and, as I said, it's good to get them to do some actual work.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

Ah, but here's the thing: it's not tech talent they're using. They're LJ users who work voluntarily. As I mentioned before, I applied, but didn't get in, despite a CV that could best be described as "glowing", with NCO experience in the military, management experience from high school to that point in life, etc., and they waited months before feeding me a boiler plate rejection notice. The only thing I can think now is that they'll take people with management experience on LJ, or that have connections. Either way, I'm not bummed at all about that, but the point remains: they're using volunteers to do this work that are wholly incompetent for the task that they are sometimes given. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and LJ gave the discipline stick to mostly shut-ins with an agenda.

So not are you only dealing with people that, at best, handle a lot of stupid shit during the day, cannot do deep research, don't have or want to use the TIME to do proper research, don't know how to use basic tools like an nslookup, or anything that a site like iptools.com gives, you're also dealing with all of the above, a deep-seated disrespect for the average user (sometimes well deserved), and their own personal agendas with the power to see them through. Oh, and it's for free, on a site that put the founder of the site on a bullshit "Advisory Committee" and then went on to promptly ignore him.

Basically, you get what you pay for.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

At work we've had good luck with ClamWin, which is the Windows port of ClamAV:

http://www.clamwin.com/