Neal's Blog

I have had more people in the last two weeks ask me about their virus infected computers than I have in the last 6 months.  It seems there are some ugly ones going around the Internet right now.  I wrote a post a while back called So you think you have a Virus? and while it still has a lot of good information, I wanted to add a few other suggestions and a new post seemed like a better way to share this information.

One of the common viruses I’m hearing about pops up a window (while you are browsing on the Internet) and warns the user his/her computer has been infected and he/she needs to download this FREE antivirus program to fix the computer. Usually the program is called Antivirus 2010 or something similar.  If any doubt if a program is valid, Google the name (Google is our friend).

If  a similar screen to what I’ve described appears, just close the browser and start over. The keyboard short cut for a PC to close a program is ALT-F4. This short cut may be the safest way to close the program so an accidental click doesn’t download the spy-ware.

Here are a few tips of what to do if a system is potential infected. Use these at your own risk:

1. If you think you may have a virus or if your system is running really slow and you want to check it for viruses, then I would recommend downloading Microsoft’s Security Essentials. It is Microsoft’s FREE Antivirus solution (why did it take them this long to offer something they should have done years ago?)

   I’ve had a number of really good reports of this program removing them. It is very slow on scanning, but that is good. It means it is doing a thorough scanning job.  If it finds anything, let it try to clean it, if that doesn’t work, just let it delete it.

2. If you can’t download it or install it, try booting the computer in safe mode /w networking and try #1 again.
3. If that doesn’t work, here would be my next suggestion. This will require disassembling the computer.  Remove the hard drive from the computer. (Google your computer’s model to find out how).
4. Remove the hard drive and hook it up to a Universal Drive Adapter (UDA), like this one USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter Serial ATA, ATAPI/IDE 3.5) and plug it up to another computer that has an up to date anti-virus program on it.  The drive hooked up to the UDA will show up as a drive under “My Computer” — just like a USB stick would.

   Run the antivirus program and scan the new drive, allowing it to clean anything off of it.

   Reinstall the drive into its computer and boot it up and run another scan from the computer (once the antivirus software has been updated)

   I’ve had really good luck with this method.

5. My last suggestion is to buy a Mac! ha! ha! Ok, not really, although I’m a Mac fan boy and Jennifer and I both use Macs at our house.  Find a local computer repair shop and be prepared to pay for them to get it off the system.  I stay too busy with life to work on computers on the side, so don’t even ask me,  Other than suggestions, such as this blog entry, I don’t work on them.  Sorry

Quizzes, quizzes, and more quizzes.  They are everywhere on Facebook.  You can’t scan your news feed and not find out if someone knows their 80’s hair band lyrics, if  they were raised in church, or if they know when they are going to die?

While most people find these quizzes fun, entertaining, and amusing, it turns out there they could be sharing a lot more of your Facebook profile information with the creators of the quiz than you might realize.

How much more? Almost everything in your profile: your religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, pictures, and groups.

Facebook quizzes also have access to most of the info on your friends‘ profiles. So if your friend takes a quiz, they could be giving away your personal information too.

Think I am being over cautious?  Take this quiz and find out.  The ACLU of Northern CA has created a quiz to show Facebook users how much of their information is being shared.  They state they have a privacy policy and strictly adhere to the policy.

Has this freaked you out enough that you don’t want to take this quiz or any other now?  Here is the questions, the answers, and additional information from this quiz. It is the only quiz I’ve ever taken on Facebook:

QUESTION 1: When you take a quiz on Facebook, what can the quiz see about you?

Answer: Almost everything on your profile, even if you use privacy settings to limit access.

QUESTION 2: What info about you can a quiz see when your friends take a quiz?

Answer: Almost everything on your profile, even if you use privacy settings to limit who can see that information.

QUESTION 3: There must be safeguards somewhere, right? My information is safe because:

Answer: None of the above – and that’s a problem.

QUESTION 4: OK, that sounds like a real problem. So what should I do?

Answer: Demand the right to control my information without sacrificing the right to use new technology.

Additional information (include from the quiz):
The only protection Facebook offers by default is its Terms of Service, which state that developers must collect only the information that they need and use it only in connection with Facebook.

But all it takes to be a developer is an email address, and so few of even the top developers have a privacy policy at all, it’s hard to believe that Terms of Service will hold them back if they want to collect information, and (as this quiz has shown) they can access a lot of it.

And once details about your personal life are collected by a quiz developer, who knows where they could end up or how they could be used. Shared? Sold? Turned over to the government?

What’s going on with these quizzes just isn’t right. It’s time for Facebook to upgrade its privacy controls so that you decide who gets to see your personal information.

That’s where you come in. As we’ve seen before, Facebook does respond when users protest. So we need to make some noise!

• Update your own privacy settings.
• Share this quiz on Facebook and encourage your friends to take it!
• And Sign our online petition and tell Facebook that you want more control of your own information.

Don’t let Facebook’s default settings force you to silently pay with your privacy when you (or your friends!) use Facebook. Demand that Facebook upgrade its privacy controls to give you control of your personal info. Demand Your dotRights!

Feel free to share this with anyone and everyone you know.  If you are reading this on Facebook, it is also linked on my blog at: http://www.nealbreeding.com/blogs/?p=326

I saw this a number of years ago, but recently just thought about it again, it is a short film (8 minutes or so), called “George Lucas in Love.”  It is a parody of Shakespeare in Love.  I think it is pretty clever.  Enjoy!

I just received an e-mail with the following information:

“…we are notifying you that the computer you use for online bill payment may be infected with malicious software that puts the security of your computer’s contents at risk. This letter will help you determine if your computer is actually infected and advise you how to fix the problem and protect yourself against future risk.

The malicious software affects some but not all customers who accessed online bill payment on Tuesday, December 2, 2008. For a limited period of time, some customers were redirected from the authentic bill payment service to another site that may have installed malicious software. Your computer may be infected if all of the following are true:

• You attempted to access online bill payment between 12:30 a.m. and 10:10 a.m. Eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, December 2, 2008, and
• You were using a computer with the Windows operating system, and
• You reached a blank screen rather than the usual bill payment screen when you attempted to navigate to online bill payment, and
• After reaching the blank screen, your computer’s virus protection program did not tell you via pop-up or other messaging that malicious software was detected and quarantined.

Glad we are using Macs at home now!

Last Friday night, shortly after putting Caden to bed, Jennifer and I were taking care of our nightly “Post Caden” chores, working to the goal of completion so we could sit down and watch The Office on-line, when the power went out.  It was not storming, but the wind was blowing pretty hard.

After stumbling around looking for matches and a candle, Jennifer comes walking through the house with probably the best gift Angie and John have ever given us… a battery-less flashlight.  I was thankful that she remembered where I put it and she said she was thankful that I remember to put it back after I use it last, ha!  Funny that we got married, huh?  If you don’t have one (or more) of these flashlights, they are well worth the money or they make a great gift!

So once we got settled by candle light on the couch, we started watching an episode of Psych that was on my iPod. I couldn’t find that cheap pair of speakers that I thought I still had, you know the kind, they require no A/C and sound awful, so we resorted to two sets of head phones in a dual jack.  It works, but there is the problem of making sure the sound isn’t too loud/soft for both people listening.

I ran across a solution today and thought I would share it (and bookmark it for myself in the blog).  It is a Y-splitter that allows each user to control their own volume, made by Griffin Technology (who else, they make the best iPod “stuff”).