Gone and back
A couple of wonderful people on my f-list noticed that I had deleted my LJ for about a day on Thursday. While I was mostly keeping myself from posting due to various issues, the reason for deleting my LJ was because one of my PCs got nailed with a nasty rootkit/trojan/virus trifecta through my own stupidity. Rather than risk compromise of various accounts, I took stuff offline as I dealt with the PC and did some changing of login credentials once I had the chance. I cleansed the PC this morning and all is back to normal. So, I am still here. And I definitely appreciate the fact that some noticed my absence and were genuinely concerned. I have not been very forthcoming about things of a more personal nature here, keeping instead to lighter fare like comics, music, memes and such. The reasons are many, but part of me had it in mind that no one would care, electing to pass over on the emo stuff. Granted, LJ has been a tough venue for me lately, it's real benefit being interacting with others on their turf rather than opening up mine. I still am loathe to post here, perhaps that will change.
As for what happened to the PC, my own damn fault. Typical shady pop-up ad that served up a confirmation dialog. Rather than killing it by closing, I answered "no" (or "cancel"), which, as we all know, lets the scum run wild. For my lack of vigilance, I ended up with something ironically titled "Antimalware Doctor", a rogue mess that wrecks the system and holds it for ransom by finding all manner of fake positives and demanding money for the cleanup. Thing is, the money won't get you anything but a compromised credit card account and the program itself installs a rootkit and various trojan droppers during installation. I cleaned it all up this morning and all is back to normal. Well, except for the power brick for a backup drive that died in the middle of the night and smelled bad this morning.
Those who attempt to tell me that having a Mac would have prevented all this will be openly ridiculed the next time they take a trip to the Genius Bar. ;o)
Well, there you have it. The reason for my short disappearance, explained less with personal notes and relying instead on geekery details. Maybe I will spell things out more as they should be. maybe not. Same as it ever was. ;)
As for what happened to the PC, my own damn fault. Typical shady pop-up ad that served up a confirmation dialog. Rather than killing it by closing, I answered "no" (or "cancel"), which, as we all know, lets the scum run wild. For my lack of vigilance, I ended up with something ironically titled "Antimalware Doctor", a rogue mess that wrecks the system and holds it for ransom by finding all manner of fake positives and demanding money for the cleanup. Thing is, the money won't get you anything but a compromised credit card account and the program itself installs a rootkit and various trojan droppers during installation. I cleaned it all up this morning and all is back to normal. Well, except for the power brick for a backup drive that died in the middle of the night and smelled bad this morning.
Those who attempt to tell me that having a Mac would have prevented all this will be openly ridiculed the next time they take a trip to the Genius Bar. ;o)
Well, there you have it. The reason for my short disappearance, explained less with personal notes and relying instead on geekery details. Maybe I will spell things out more as they should be. maybe not. Same as it ever was. ;)