Craziness...

[achernow.livejournal.com]

OK.. So I'm unofficially IT support for all my friends... I get a call from my friend "Is there a way to get into Safe Mode on XP?" Naturally, that sparks a "Why?" response from me.

Turns out, he was at one of his friend's houses and they were having a problem with the computer. They had been playing on the internet and had gotten a pop-up that said "Have you cleaned the porn of your hard drive" and the machine shut down. When the restarted, they couldn't get into windows (explorer wouldn't start up).

So, forward about an hour... I went over there with a CD that had AVG, Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, and Zone Alarm on it. I got over there, got into windows far enough that I could get into the task manager and install AVG. Ran it and it immediately found 281 viruses. Well, it got through the search and proceeded to crash trying to repair the files. So I rebooted and tried to install Ad-aware... The system hung well before I could do that. So, I asked the guys if they had their data backed up. Thankfully, he had the system set up for a program drive and data drive. So, I wiped C: and re-installed XP on the machine.

Turns out not only did this kid not have anti-virus software running on the machine, but he had the cable modem connected directly to the computer, had no firewall running, and was still running IE despite seeing all the warnings not to. Well, I installed AVG onto the system (set-up for auto update and auto scan), installed Zone Alarm onto the computer, and strongly recommended running Ad-Aware and spybot. I also strongly recommended he switch to Firefox, but he didn't like that idea.

Anyway... This is by far one of the best examples of a user who should not be allowed to have a computer or cable modem.

-A

Comments

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

281 viruses

*cries*

I don't care if he doesn't like it. You should have installed Opera or Firefox or something. This guy doesn't get to use IE.

[rettiger.livejournal.com]

FYI, I work in internet tech support, and Zone Alarm is a POS. It causes more problems than it solves... I've seen it lock up the networking so bad that you have to nuke windows to get it back up.

[klyf23.livejournal.com]

Yep. ZoneAlarm is bad news waiting to happen.

I used to have a list of the 30-some registry keys it took to actually remove ZA from Windows when it inevitably puked.

- - - - - - - - - -

Without users like that guy, I might be out of a job.

[achernow.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. I'm aware of that.. I had problems with it on my old computer... However, in this situation, having some kind of firewall installed is better than nothing (and I don't trust the Windows firewall)

-A

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

281. 281!! I can't even fathom...! To hell with installing Firefox, take the computer away!

Personally, I recommend Sygate's firewall, but then it's not quite as easy point and clicky as Zonealarm is. Love my Sygate, though.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

Seriously, why don't *I* ever get any of those viruses?

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

You could always reconfigure their shortcuts to IE to automatically point to FireFox, and set it up with a scheme to make it look like IE. The way you described them, they may never have known the difference. (save for less pop-up windows, etc)

[omicron32.livejournal.com]

This is why Windows should be banned - it's too easy for *everyone* to use.

I know I'm an elistist bastard, but get everyone on Linux. That'll sort the men from the boys and get rid of the lusers who can't handle it. Plus no crap will install on it without superuser privs, (unless to the users local homedir). No viruses either.

If my mum can run it, anyone can. (Though she is on a hevaly locked down KDE desktop... Kiosk is great.)

[omicron32.livejournal.com]

*heavily

[achernow.livejournal.com]

Exactly.. Though, replace Linux w/ OS-X.

What drove me nuts is he had the ONLY PC in the house. His
sisters/parents all had Macs.

-A

im a firm believer of Dumb terminals for Dumb users

[ozdeadmeat.livejournal.com]

Kerio is a very good firewall program. I agree that this person IS a menace. I support 1200 workstations nation wide in Australia. We have our clients employees that are local to my office bringing there PC's into our office for us to look at. Our office record for adware and virus's stands at around 12,000 Spyware (gotta love those dialers) and about 9,000 virus's. This is on the one workstation mind you. His discription of the problem when he brought it in was.

'Its doing "FUNNY" things.'

I immediately checked his workstation at his office and found more dialers. I cleaned them up and slapped him on the tightest damn Proxy settings i could find. Users are good, you just gotta learn that they are a lower form of life and need to be herded like cattle or else bad things happen.

[achernow.livejournal.com]

I tried.. Hell, I've even gotten my brother and both my parents to stop using IE and Outlook/Outlook Express (at least on the home machines) in favor of FireFox and Thunderbird.

I personally have a Powerbook G4 and run Camino and Safari (some sites seem to not like the latest build of Camino) and use GMail and my hosting provider's webmail interface for e-mail (since I can't find an e-mail program on the Mac I like), but even when I had my old PC, I gave up on IE and Outlook Express (and I did it before it was cool not to use IE! (Read: I've never liked IE, I only used it because pre-Mozilla, Netscape was stuck on 4.7)

-A

Re: im a firm believer of Dumb terminals for Dumb users

[achernow.livejournal.com]

I agree... Dumb terminals for dumb users, though they'd probably still find a way to screw those up...

-A

Re: im a firm believer of Dumb terminals for Dumb users

[ozdeadmeat.livejournal.com]

ralf are you eating your glue?
we do have dumb terminals fail cause dumb users think they can unplug them and move them. But they forget where everything goes.... IM FUCKED IF I KNOW HOW ITS FUCKIN COLOUR CODED!!!

Re: im a firm believer of Dumb terminals for Dumb users

[achernow.livejournal.com]

I had a roomate in college who couldn't hook up his computer, even though everything was color coded and it came with a nice big poster, so I ended up doing it for him...

-A

[mrsvickie.livejournal.com]

Windows users don't seem to understand the thing with that OS you *NEED* to have a firewall/Anti-Virus. It's too big of a security hole.

*Hugs my Macintosh*

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

Eh, I've never liked IE that much either, but Netscape is just fugly. Screw compliance with web standards, let's do our own thing!

[achernow.livejournal.com]

:)

::pats my powerbook::

-A

[aragirn.livejournal.com]

Firewall? Try iptables. Nothing gets through iptables that you don't want. Granted, you have to write it yourself.

*Hugs Linux box and iBook.*

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Firesomething! (http://www.cosmicat.com/extensions/firesomething/)

[mrsvickie.livejournal.com]

I gots a eMac. 10.3.whatever... Can't wait until 10.4 comes out.

[achernow.livejournal.com]

I'm still stuck on 10.2... I need to get the $ to get 10.3 and then 10.4.. I've spent money on other things and not upgraded the OS (I have FCP 4 and the whole Macromedia Suite on here)

-A

[omicron32.livejournal.com]

No, OS-X defeats the purpose... You wanna scare them away, not attract them with eye candy.

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

Hah! You sound like my boyfriend, who is a Mac/Linux snob. Surest way to get a half-hour's entertainment is to point him to some hole in Windows and listen to him rant.

Granted, I really want a Powerbook. I just don't have the cash to spare...

[achernow.livejournal.com]

I know! Let's give them a DOS prompt and nothing else.

-A