Category: Geeks r Us
They said on the radio that on Monday, some folks won't be able to get onto the internet. Something about a web site that protected people from a virus is being shut down. Is this some type of hoax or what?
I have not. That doesn't mean it's a hoax, but here's a way to tell if it is or isn't:
Did they give you sources and specifics? Frequently family members, particularly of the older population, will get scared into things by a talk show or news anchor host who spouts a lot of technical words, while sounding soothing or vibrant, one or the other, but with little substance. If they gave you a place to go look that up, a place that is *not* their news site, you can possibly count on it, after you do the work of looking into it.
So who would the experts be? Your internet servvice provider can be. Microsoft, or Apple, or any of the large companies invested in the Internet.
People have had rumors of the Internet shutting down since the 90s. What most people fail to realize is that there is so much money made by, and invested in, the Internet staying alive, plus the Internet is autonomous. Meaning there is no central control. It may be that some services will go down. Recently Amazon's Cloud services went down for a few hours. Very inconvenient for some users, and expensive for some businesses, and probably some heads rolled at Amazon. But the sky didn't fall.
I feel like with the Media sources and outlets, I'm often talking to a teenager, asking, "Where did you get that?"
In short, you don't go to a mechanic when you need open-heart surgery, and you don't go to a talk show host, radio broadcaster or television news anchor when you are having network trouble.
Their business is to keep you entertained.
Start by going to your service provider's main page, or if that is too confounded and busy (like many are), call their support number and ask. If there is a projected outage, likely they will report it to you via their automated systems. Less racy, sexy, and fantastical than these animals in broadcasting and media, but more accurate. It's infuriating how often they're wrong, and exploiting you guys in the older or less technically knowledgeable populations. First, they get people all wound up for nothing, and then, in the few instances when they are actually correct, it's easy to get dismissive about them animals until it's too late. A sad case of crying wolf. And because they get paid for better ratings, those pukes can actually get rewarded for getting it wrong!
No, its a real and potentially serious issue. I was meaning to make a board about it myself, but forgot.
Even though this isn't the best tech source out there, this should give you some real info about this.
http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/05/dnschanger-malware-computers-offline-july-9/
I saw this in mid June. You're main vulnerabilities come from no malware protection and running as administrator with no firewall. Again, probably your ISP has this information on their pages or has sent you an email. Basically, if you're the type to buy the Walmart Special. plug it in, and look at porn, you're probably infected. If you exercise even basic wise computing practices you are reasonably safe. Your ISP's website will have the best instructions on this issue for your service area.
Should have said it's a DNS problem. Fortunately for anybody at my house be they young spastic elastic to said spazzes' grandparents, everybody wi-fi's through my router, whose DNS settings are set up to use OpenDNS.org who has been around since some of ya learned to walk.
Your ISP will be able to help you with this, but if you are running anti-spyware software, don't visit sites you don't know and download content from them, and if you are not running as the computer administrator all the time, you are going to be good.
Nobody on the wife's laptop runs as admin unless one of us needs to take care of an admin-style task. The daughter uses her account on there, and fellow spazzes get to log in as Guest, which I periodically sweep and clear.
If it's just you, and you are being safe, and you don't let the young ones on except under a guest account, you're probably gonna be fine.
Last if you can't get online clean your system. That will solve the issue.
The program has been around since 2007 I read. People need to practice general care for there computers. This to me is neighborly.
You are sending emails and such to others, so some general doings would help all involved.
I run as admin all the time, but I'm the only person that uses my computers, and a couple visitors, but they only play games and don't download anything at all.
My laptop is mine. Sort of like my underwear. Lol
You'll likely be fine. Your ISP, or the better ones, offer free virous protection, so if you are just to cheap or lazy to deal run the offered variety.
no problems, huh? didn't think so, as I said if this shit was real then why wasn't it top news here and why wasn't everyone out on the streets like with the two bills in congress? the way you know about the genuine nature to it is look around and look at the best tech sources you have, I follow some good ones on twitter, isn't it called the black hat or something? no real mention from them.