Tag: Norton

J’Accuse–Some Of You Probably Know My Evil Stalker

The Internet isn’t anonymous. In order for data to be sent to a computer the server must know its IP address. So, when this person spewed on my website it was in my logs.

Someone doesn’t like me. OK–that’s an understatement. Of those who don’t like me someone is being pretty mean about it sending me a stream of vile emails and blog comments. It’s been going on for a while.

Not only have I been the target, so has a co-worker and some other people (more on them later).

I know who it is. It’s pretty obvious. I just don’t know why–what I ever did to this person to deserve his wrath?

I suspect some of you reading this know who it is too. You connect the dots.

This weekend he sent comments to my blog from a McDonalds on Mansfield Avenue in Norton, MA. That’s right by I-495. Today it was from a Barnes and Noble in Farmington, CT. That’s what you’d expect if someone in Maine was coming here for a visit or vacation.

Most of the time his stuff has come from the Bangor area of Maine.

How do I know? The Internet isn’t anonymous. In order for data to be sent to a computer the server must know its IP address. So, when this person spewed on my website it was in my logs.

Facebook is a little more problematic. Well, it was until I found out the originating IP address in Facebook mail is hashed within the message and it can be pulled out. With that little tidbit I found a mean and nasty email sent to a co-worker via Facebook came from a RoadRunner account serviced from Warren, ME, between Portland and Bangor.

Earlier web comments came from another Maine RoadRunner account and from a business account serviced by MidMaine.net

Our miscreant has a variety of pen names he uses, creating and discarding Gmail accounts at will. The most interesting to me are: Fishers4, Dick Fishamajig and JackHammer1968.

Fishers4 and Fishamajig would imply this is someone who knows something about fishing. The 1968 might be his birth year.

One of these pseudonyms appears on a bulletin board sending the same “good wishes” to a former KC-101, Country 92, disk jockey. Maybe our boy has a radio connection?

I know who this is. I have all the pieces except why. I’d rather not go to the police and lodge a case for harassment, but I’m getting to the point where I have no choice.

As I said in the beginning–some of you know this person. Maybe it’s time to put a hand across his shoulder and give him some wise advice. You’ve been caught. Stop.

Stef’s Laptop Dead And Gone

Unlike a desktop I can’t open this Dell 600m and replace components.

I would guess I worked 15-20 hours on Stef’s laptop. After being on for a while programs would randomly ramp up to 100% of the available CPU cycles. Everything would slow down to a crawl.

I ran every diagnostic program known to man (thanks for all your suggestions). No help. Then, this weekend, I wiped the hard drive clean and reloaded Windows XP. It ran fine… until Stef began to use it. Bam! It was redlining again.

My guess is, and it’s only a guess, there’s some hardware component that goes a little nuts after being stressed or heated. If that’s the case there’s nothing I can do. Unlike a desktop I can’t open this Dell 600m and replace components.

I checked the ads in Sunday’s paper and Stef headed out to Circuit City (one day prior to their bankruptcy) near her campus. She came home with a 15.4 inch HP with Vista, an AMD dual-core CPU and even hard disk space to last her a li9fetime. It will serve her well, though it’s a shame to be rushed like this.

The new laptop has Norton anti-virus software. Her school demands McAfee before it will allow her to log onto the on-campus network. These are programs that don’t like each other and don’t want to be removed. What a pain–and slow.

Before her old computer started acting funky I backed up her documents, photos and music. Tonight I’ll go in with Hamachi and move the files as if she was in the same room.

I really wish I knew what went wrong.

Happy Anniversary WPIX

There’s a special, scheduled for 9:00 PM, which I will be recording. But, there might be as much fun with the shows leading up to the special!

After the Phillies win, Helaine decided to watch the Mets/Padres game on WPIX (aka CW11). A few promos ran for next Saturday’s “WPIX 60th Anniversary” broadcast.

There’s a special, scheduled for 9:00 PM, which I will be recording. But, there might be as much fun with the shows leading up to the special!

12:00 PM – The Little Rascals

Teacher’s Pet (1930) Jackie plans practical jokes on his new teacher, Miss Crabtree. 30 mins

12:30 PM – The Little Rascals

Mail and Female (1937) Alfalfa is president of the He-Man Women Haters Club. 30 mins

01:00 PM – Abbott & Costello

Getting a Job Lou visits an employment agency. 30 mins

01:30 PM – Abbott & Costello

The Actors Home Bud and Lou perform “Who’s on First?” 30 mins

02:00 PM – The Three Stooges

Gents Without Cents The boys hit on vaudeville. 30 mins

02:30 PM – The Three Stooges

A-Plumbing We Will Go Plumber Stooges flood a garden party. 30 mins

03:00 PM – Superman

Crime Wave Public Enemy No.1 starts a crime wave. 30 mins

03:30 PM – Superman

The Perils of Superman A lead-masked man sets death traps for the reporters. 30 mins

04:00 PM – Get Smart

Mr. Big KAOS’ Mr. Big threatens to destroy all cities. 30 mins

04:30 PM – Get Smart

A Spy for a Spy KAOS plans to swap the chief for a missile-detector. 30 mins

05:00 PM – My Favorite Martian

My Favorite Martin A reporter pulls a Martian from a crashed spaceship. 30 mins

05:30 PM – My Favorite Martian

A Loaf of Bread, a Jug of Wine and Peaches Martin is smitten with a striptease artist. 30 mins

06:00 PM – I Dream of Jeannie

The Lady in the Bottle An astronaut frees a 2000-year-old genie. 30 mins

06:30 PM – I Dream of Jeannie

Tomorrow Is Not Another Day Jeannie gives Tony the next day’s newspaper. 30 mins

07:00 PM – The Odd Couple

Password The roommates appear on “Password.” 30 mins

07:30 PM – The Odd Couple

My Strife in Court Felix and Oscar are charged with ticket scalping. 30 mins

08:00 PM – The Honeymooners

Better Living Through TV Ralph and Norton do a live TV commercial. 30 mins

08:30 PM – The Honeymooners

The $99,000 Answer Ralph tests his skill in a pop-music contest. 30 mins

I remember each and every one of these series and the individual episodes. Growing up, Channel 11 was the station for kids shows. Officer Joe, Captain Jack and Chuck McCann all hosted shows on WPIX.

Those days will never return.

A Trojan Invades The Website

It started earlier this evening when I got an email message from a friend, a meteorologist at a competing station.

Hi Geoff,

My antivirus software says there is a Trojan on your website… perhaps something in an ad??

Just wanted to let you know!

Like all newly infected webmasters I was skeptical. I gave him some advice on checking his computer.

I went to the homepage and was alerted almost immediately about a Trojan. We have Norton AntiVirus here at (deleted).

I went to the site again to double-check and I got the alert again. It seemed to be loading something (according to the bottom bar of IE). I couldn’t see what it said. You are much more savvy with web stuff than I am, so maybe you can diagnose it.

I just checked.. it did it again… here’s the most I got out of Symantec… I don’t think it tells you much though.. this was all I could find.

Scan type: Auto-Protect Scan

Event: Threat Found!

Threat: Download.Trojan

File: C:\Documents and Settings\argigha\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\6EL1ZQZH\f[1].htm

Location: C:\Documents and Settings\argigha\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\6EL1ZQZH

Computer: (deleted)

User: argigha

Action taken: Delete succeeded : Access denied

Date found: Thursday, December 15, 2005 5:54:20 PM

I called up my webpage and took a look. Everything was as it should be. And then, another email from someone else.

I just went to your blog and the page come up white and my anti-virus detected ” download trojan “. I refreshed the page and it looked normal , but the anti-virus detected this trojan again. I refreshed the page several more times ( glutton for punishment ) and every time it popped-up with the same virus detection .

Thought you may be interested as someone my be hacking you.

By the way my virus scan fixed the problem every time.

david

Uh oh. This isn’t good.

Recently I had installed some mapping capability. I removed that. Nope, that wasn’t it.

I went to the source code for the website. This is what your browser sees and translates into the formatted page. There below some normal text was a long string of garbage. It was a javascript link.

Oh no – I’m sunk.

The templates used to marry my blog entries to the format of the page were fine. Where was the code coming from?

As it turns out, I get little bits of content from a few other sites. For instance, on the right side of this page are little weather tidbits. The Trojan had snuck in with one of those. It was coming from a friend’s site.

I called him and he quickly got in to action. Actually, he tried to get into action – but to no avail. Whatever had ‘pranged’ his site had also changed his passwords and modified his Apache webserver.

At this hours everything seems to be back to normal. This attack on my friend’s server could have just as easily happened on mine! And, if you were surfing this site earlier today it’s possible you were touched too. I use Firefox, which I think gives me a little protection, and my home computers are totally up-to-date on Microsoft’s patches.

It’s always something.

The End of the Hobby Era In Computing?

The lead story on Extreme Tech is all about building a computer. Build It: A Speedy PC For $800

I’m certainly not adverse to building a computer. The PC this is being typed on was assembled right here on my office floor from parts I specified. It does everything I designed it to do (though it has incredibly noisy fans to remove its internal heat, and I wish I would have designed that out). And, as a bonus, it actually worked when I plugged it in!

The question is why build… and even if you want to, how much longer will that be possible?

My computer was built to edit video. To that end, I threw in the ATI All-In-Wonder 8500DV video card (on which the DV “Firewire” connection never did work) and a Soyo motherboard with built-in RAID (two disk drives act as one for the faster service necessary for video). The on-board audio conflicts with the video card, meaning I then had to go get another audio card.

It was a great learning experience, but today you can buy machines off the shelf that do the same thing. And, increases in processor speed cover a variety of sins. So a machine not totally optimized for video will still do fine because everything else is so much faster and the disk drives are so much larger.

As I was passing by Home Shopping Network earlier today, they were selling a Gateway PC (I am not a fan of any particular brand. All major computer manufactures are just putting together other people’s parts.) with 17″ monitor and printer for under $1200. The CPU on their machine is better than twice as fast as mine! If you’re interested, here are the specs.

It’s tough to build when a speedy machine, pre-assembled, sells for a price like that.

For hobbyists, like me, there will always be the allure of building the ‘perfect’ screaming machine. But, I suspect within the next few years that won’t be possible either.

I remember in high school, a friend of mine bough a Model “A” Ford and restored it to running condition by hand. What he couldn’t get, he modified. Now, there’s hardly anything on a car you can fix or modify on your own.

Computers are going in that same direction. There are a number of reasons, but the most significant seems to be intellectual property rights. My computer is capable of copying DVDs… even copy protected DVDs. I can do all sorts of other things that upsets other rights holders too!

Just as printer manufacturers have added chips to try and thwart aftermarket ink cartridge manufacturers, PCs will be ‘smarter’ (really more restrictive) in what they let you do. The quaint concept of ‘fair use’ will go out the window, because manufacturers now understand how easily their hard work is ripped off.

Will future versions of Windows be built so it only works with ‘trusted’ hardware and software that can be more closely controlled? My opinion is, yes. Sure, a computer could be run on Linux or some yet-to-be-designed operating system, but that would deprive you of much of what’s available today.

I’m not sure where the ‘sweet spot’ is, balancing the rights of those who produce with the rights of those who use. I suspect that PC’s wouldn’t be where they are today… capable of doing what they do… if the restrictions to come had existed earlier.

Continue reading “The End of the Hobby Era In Computing?”

DSL – Damned Slow Loading

This should be a Sunday entry… but installing DSL on my friend Steve’s computer took 4 hours, including a few on the line with tech support (using up my entire cell phone battery in the process).

I went over,after the end of another vicious round of thunderstorms, at about 8:00 pm. It was wet, but the air was starting to have the feel of lowered dew points.

Steve is running Windows 98SE on a somewhat older Pentium. He has plenty of RAM. I know, because I put it in (and RAM is usually the best, cheapest way to speed up and rejuvinate an older PC). Because he has sensistive information, and because (like most users) he’s a bit petrified, he has Norton Anti-Virus, Disk Washer, and other stuff strewn around.

I’m sure they have a purpose, but I have never seen any of this stuff be anything but trouble. And, an unwary or un-savvy user can still bring viral infection right in.

Doing any installation, such as DSL, pits your installer versus the Norton’s of this world, who are trying to keep new programs from getting in!

The installer CD crashed, or more accurately, locked up twice. Each time it was re-run, it went a little further. Then, well into the process, Windows complained that we had too many tcp/ip devices (a sure sign something was screwy, since we certainly didn’t have more than the modem and NIC installed).

By the time Earrick at SBC tech support in Houston was on the line, the install program had become unresponsive, even from a restart. All of Earick’s suggestions brought new and different error messages, many of which he had never seen before.

We finally uninstalled the NIC and tcp/ip protocol entirely. Then rebooted. Then manually reinstalled the PPP software. We must have rebooted 25 times tonight; no exaggeration.

Finally, success. Steve will send a nice note to SBC because Errick was excellent and patient. But, this is further roadkill on the information superhighway. A DSL installation should be totally painless, quick and easy.

Why isn’t all the intelligence needed built into the DSL modem? The most you should need is an ethernet connection… not all this passwording and configuring.

Anyway, bottom line was, it’s fine now.

As soon as we were done, Steve wanted to check his mail. So, he clicked to connect via modem. Old habits die hard. But, he’s probably not alone is not understanding how all of this is routed and connected, and that the phone pop he normally goes in on is no closer to his mail than this new DSL connection.