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Monday, August 11, 2008
Server Maintenance
The server has been down for backup and assorted other maintenance today.
I now have a fresh backup of the web pages.
Everything is back online.
Monday, July 21, 2008
ScumWare - a virus called AntiVirus 2009
I have just returned from my son's house. He called me for help because something had popped up on screen last night looking very WINDOWS official saying that his virus scan program was out of date and did he want to update? He hit "yes" and the scumware loaded.
It uses the same Security Center Shield as Windows and even installs its own "Security Center" on the WinXP control panel. Once installed it faked a scan and told him that he had 71 pieces of various types of malware and did he want to remove them??? When he said yes it popped up a screen saying it would cost him ONLY $49.95. When he closed out the acreens, and tried to load his old virus scan progrm the other kept popping up...
At this point, he called me for help as he is a complete computer noob. I tried a bit of stopgap help and tried to have him use the free Trend Micro Housecall. That ran for a while and then froze. Nothing for me to do but go take a look at the thing.
When I got there and looked at what was left, his computer was naked; AVG, Spybot S&D, ZoneAlarm were all disabled. I think that this scumware - hijackware "Antivirus 2009" is really a virus. I am glad I brought my bag of tricks. As the old time cop shows used to say, "Be on the lookout". This is most likely spread via shady web sites using popups. Have you seen any of the popup type screens that do not obey the no-popup setting in Firefox? How the heck do they do it?
You've been warned...
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Friday, August 24, 2007
The I-Phone unlocked
I just saw the news... the I-Phone has been hacked and unlocked. Versions are available that are not tied to the AT&T network.
The first hack is something the average joe will not want to do (figuring the cost of it if you screw it up).
Here is the link to the blog page of the genius that figured it out... also software hacks are on the way making this unnecessary.
and another web page on the subject...
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