@ Dennis ... in the unlikely case that you have not understood what happened to you, there is a piece of malware resident on your computer that is gathering the names of people you know from your address books. Until you take steps to get rid of it this will happen again and again. It may also know things like your credit card numbers, SS number, and so forth. It might be that your best move is to just copy-off personal docs and such and then reformat the disk and reload windows from scratch. That is a fairly sure way to clean the system. A PITA for sure, but maybe less painful than having your friends hassled by it.
Great question, I've never tried to buy one. You all will find this unbelievable, but at one time I wasn't very popular with the ladies, try as I might.
ROUND 2, the follow up e mail letter,... A call came yesterday from my friend here in GA, and Ann says he got a second e mail from the hacker... (I went fishing yesterday...) It seems he`s sending a "back up" e mail if his request for the $1500 loan isn`t met, stating that "I thought we were friends, how can you treat me like this, etc"... Yeah, we know we gots a BIG problem, BB... We got a computer technician in the family taking care of us, who will do everything he can do... Ann went and got us another e mail account and has also contacted hotmail through another of her accounts, on this matter... BUT, I can`t get into my email account to see this second letter either...
Notice !!!!! Dennis, iffin' this be the first time you got screwed by these jokers, I can guarantee that by the time it's done an' over you'll have no remorse over feeding those punks to the hogs. NOTICE = Untill further notice noone here should open any e-mail sent by "Hillbilly" or "Kenneth Schwartz". God help you and your computer if you do. I saved a really shitty trojan on a whim and used it on the "Phisher" who bit Dennis's computer. I hope the sob enjoys it thoroughly. PM's on this site are safe to use as always.
I miss out on all the fun.... lol I actually just got my computer back up and running as it had been seriously attacked by a bug, malicious hackers what do they get from it? luckily I have a great IT department at work who stripped my hard drive and set me up with new operating systems sooooooo its clean again. They even hooked me up with a great viper program for protection. Dennis, sorry I missed your phone call last night I had already turned my phone off. Give me a ring a ding later if you get the opportunity to I'd love to chat.
Linux ... free of cost, free of viruses and malware of all sorts. At this moment I'm running a neat little linux named "Quirky" -- 106mb, and it has a Mozilla browser and email, word processor, media player, and a bunch more stuff. Download it and burn it to a cd as an image, then boot from it. You =will= be able to email with it, and it will not ever be damaged by a virus [being on a cd, not a writeable hard disk]. Everybody should have one of these as an emergency plan-B solution, even if you don't want to run it full time. http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/quirky/quirky-1.0/quirky-100.iso
Caution! There is an old wives tale running around that there is no virus or malware risk with Linux. Here is a link from the pro Linux people about that issue. http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3307459975.html A false sense of security can be more dangerous than no security.
I just dont have the time to read all this and just want to know if your cousin is alright and we did send money, as for me I dont expect you to repay the loan. It was a gift. Speedy recovery Regards Louis M.
And it is going to cost extra because his doctor was on the terror watch list, so now he can't fly and has to take a cab the whole way.
Caution! There is an old wives tale running around that there is no virus or malware risk with Linux. Here is a link from the pro Linux people about that issue. http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3307459975.html +++++++++++++ That link is seven years old -- things change, especially in linux world. In any event, no virus of any sort is going to write on a closed cd -- which is what I recommended above. You download the iso file, check it against the published md5sum, then burn it and check that for the correct md5sum -- if those match then you have the unpolluted original, which cannot then become polluted because it's on a read-only media. Try it, become informed.
You are right. Currently add-ons are the biggest security problem for linux especially for those using Firefox. However, even Stupipedia agrees that there are hundreds of viruses that attack linux out there. FYI you can make a CD in Windows also.
RancheroUSA DT`s !!! Man what a weekend and first three days of the week !!! Thank You Billy fer getting us back up and logged in... I tried the "contact us" link SEVERAL times to NO Avail...(RancheroUSA) I tried the log in reply too... I don`t have the e mail addys I used to have niether, PLUS I put my Red,White and Blue, "little black book" (with snail mail addys & phone #s) some place SAFE and couldn`t locate it either!!! We`ll start anew with e mail contacts, I reckon... IF I had your addy and you want me to have it again please send me a PM and we`ll swap addys... MAN!!! What a mess this thing turned out to be... Oh well, I`m online with my FAVORITE folks now!!! KUDOs to our "nephew in law" (almost) for his part in clearing up the Puter... And Again Thank You Billy!!!
I am going to give you information that would cost your dearly if you came to me with a bricked machine and wanted the data on your formated hard drive back. Optimally, use a separate firewall in front of your machines. The simple ones cost less than $100. When you go out to the seedy parts of the net, porn, or stealing music or software, or opening e-mail, buy a used machine that you won't miss when you toss it in the can. Or better yet, stay away from the riff raff, and just view e-mail thru the window of Outlook or another reputable viewing software. Use anti virus. If you use Windows, it is free. Windows Security Essentials costs nothing and fixes the problem. If you use another operating system there are fairly reliable solutions for around $50 a year, and worth every penny. Buy an external drive, and back up to it, or better yet create an image on it. The drive will need to be at least 1/2 the size of the drive on your machine. If you have a lot of time, or a small drive, you can do it on DVDs. Resurrecting the data on a 250MB drive that has been full formated takes almost 8 hours for the software work, and a similar amount of time for a person to sort out the results, and even after that you are lucky if you get back 95% of the data. In a nutshell. Get a firewall. Go to the sleazy areas on a throw away machine. Back up.
I already said my bit about free linux up the thread. You can visit www.crakz.ru with that and return home free and clean. If you insist on running windows then a firewall is a good idea. Another is to buy a $30 NAT router, stands between your computer and the external network cable -- that with nothing else will prevent a host of problems. But the gotcha that no hard or soft can prevent is when your friend emails you a joke flash video that is described as 'cute' -- and you click on it willingly.
Or when you get an e-mail from someone you know asking for money. You feel sorry for them, so you send them $2000, money you really can't spare. Later, they say they never asked for money, and that someone 'hacked' into their PC and sent that e-mail. Did they really get hacked? Or is that off-shore address I just sent $2000 to really that persons all along? Well, is it? I don't know who to trust now?
Outlook and security essentials scan every attachment and every e-mail and puts a bright red banner on the top of any e-mail like that. True, if you ignore that and open it anyway, well, stay away from sharp objects.
Also, I checked that free virus zone you linked to. Got one red block screen after another. I don't see how anyone could get in trouble there. Seems to be a site for 9 year olds looking for game cheats and software to steal.
