Oy!

[stonebender]

In case you didn't already know, there are times that I am not the brightest person on the planet. Especially when I'm being rushed or at least feel rushed. What follows is

I spent most of my day yesterday repairing the effects of SpySheriff that was installed by yours truly. In a supremely stupid attempt to "fix" gobs and gobs of pop-ups, virus warnings, homepage changes, blinking lights etc.

After visiting a webpage I started getting all kinds of warnings and pop-ups and junk happening to my computer. I couldn't get any of it to stop. My computer's response time seemed on the verge of freezing up entirely. Then I got a message that appeared to be from Microsoft stating that I needed to download SpySheriff to remove some spyware that was interfering with my computer system. I wasn't aware of downloading anything but a SpySheriff button appeared at the bottom of my screen near my Norton Utilities button. Norton Utilities was also warning me about unauthorized access to my computer. Why I clicked the SpySheriff button to scan for malware I'll never know. I did. It found stuff to delete or correct. It then informed me that I needed to purchase a validation code in order to use the repair portion of the software. Which I also did.

The software supposedly repaired all the damage and when I restarted my computer it automatically rescaned my computer and (surprise, surprise) found more stuff to repair. It seemed like every time I scanned my computer. The number of files needing repair got smaller but never got to 0. Which made me try scanning with Norton. Norton Utilities informed me that SpySheriff itself was spyaware. *sheesh* I believe I fixed the problem. No lasting damage so far.

Please don't make comments about how I should have done this or that. I know I did everything wrong. I've been computing for over 25 years. How I could have been this stupid is a mystery to me.

Comments

[leback.livejournal.com]

Eek! What an annoying experience that must have been... Evil evil evil stuff. But it's the system's fault, not yours.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Given your background, I appreciate your saying that. Thank you.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Spyware is really getting very bad these days. There are a lot of people at work struggling with it on their home computers, and it's hard to know what to suggest when they ask what they can do to be safe.

Did you use a credit card to buy the SpySheriff code? That'd be my only worry reading the above.

*hugs* Spyware sucks. :(

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I did use a credit card. I'm in the process of canceling etc.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Good; I figured that you'd be on top of that. That sucks even more, though.

It used to be, back in the day, that the only people who got caught by things like this were people who may some obvious clueless mistake. These days, though, a lot of it has gotten extremely convincing. :( It's become at times quite challenging.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I bet absolutely everyone on your f-list has a comparable story. Me, I'm the girl who managed to burn out my hard drive by fussing with another plug in the same power strip while the computer was booting.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. It's just that hindsight thing. There were at least two occasions that I thought something was funny. Certainly when I actually paid for the software. I just couldn't be sure it was coming from a reliable source and I overrode my natural suspicions in that area. I just get panicky when the computer isn't working

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Oh man, everyone gets hosed by one thing or another sometime -- instead of beating yourself up about it you should be cursing out the perpetrators of such crap.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

That's true enough, but I'm so good at beating myself up. :-)

[firecat]

Ack! [hugs]

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

I've been known to press buttons, even as my brain is screaming at me "NOOOO" and I don't know why, other than some momentary disconnect between brain and finger.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

*nod* It was like that for me. Except my disconnect lasted longer.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yup, that was stupid.

though not as stupid as me not reading credit card bills immediately after getting them, and thereby missing that somebody got ahold of our card number and was charging poker games on it to the tune of $1500. if the credit card hadn't expired by the end of that month, the damage would have been even higher.

stupid, stupid, stupid.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

I guess we all do it sometime or other :-/

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

When I worked in the computer programming department of a law firm, we used to have a standing joke that every new person that was hired managed to crash the mainframe (ah, the memories...) within the first few weeks of starting work. Well, David set a new record, because he managed to crash the mainframe twice in one day. it was simply an initiation rite.

of course we are all sitting here feeling very proud of the fact that we do regular backups of our own computers, aren't we? uh... well... uh... backup? sheesh, it's been months since I sync'd my palm.