I’ve Moved!
November 20, 2008
So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:
In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here
.
That said, this is not the end of Time Immortal. My wife Grace has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.
Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.
Update: for the purposes of further traffic shaping, new posts from kennethhynek.net will be excerpted below. Full articles can be read at the new blog.
Having had to deal with XP Antivirus before…
October 17, 2008
…I have to say that, sadly, this doesn’t surprise me one bit. In fact, I’m surprised that the number of people who have fallen victim to this piece of malware (I know Ars Technica classifies it as adware, but I am not so charitable as they in that regard) is not higher. I mean, I’ve had to clean out…I think I’m up to four…such infections in the last two-and-change months, and the impression I’ve been getting from others in the IT field is that I’ve been lucky and drawn the low card.
Which I can believe, all things considered.
XP Antivirus is not a hard program to remove — Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware can usually nail it in one pass, on Windows XP at least. It can also be removed manually, with a modest amount of effort, provided one is comfortable poking around in the registry. What makes XP Antivirus so dangerous, I think, is that it does a very good job of looking…real. Or…realish, often complete with a user interface that mimics the general layout of other anti-virus applications. The more malicious versions of the infection will display fake bluescreens (hint: a real bluescreen can’t usually be cleared by hitting a few keys on the keyboard!), error warnings in garish colours, animated cockroaches (kid you not!), and virus infection warnings.
And of course, the software offers the user a way to fix all these errors.
What’s disappointing, to me, is that whoever created this little piece of malware has probably netted on the order of 10 million Euros (~ $13.5 million USD) from users who fall for the messages and pay up. That won’t be the last charge on their credit card said users will see, methinks; anyone dishonest enough to create malware in the first place will almost certainly abuse credit card numbers handed over to their “care.” What this means, in the broadest sense, is that way too many computer users are not being cautious enough, and not exercising sufficient critical thinking about their computing security. Nor are they at all wise or capable enough to safely use a computer in this modern era.
It’s not absurdly difficult to avoid being infected by XP Antivirus: don’t open an email attachment unless you trust the sender, exercise caution when downloading music and movies. Better still (if you simply must download things rather than purchase them), use something like BitTorrent, and only download content which has been verified as safe (e.g. virus-free), at communities like BTJunkie or ISOHunt. Even better: buy the frickin’ album/movie! And above all else, be a skeptical internet surfer: learn to tell the difference between a spam/unsafe website and a legitimate one!
Is this so hard?
Well, for at least 30 million people…yes, it seems to be.
