h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Posted elsewhere but perhaps worthy of a new thread:


The weirdest thing just happened.
As I hit Preview on (another) post, the screen
changed to a pretty blue page with some
other colours and text but stayed up only
long enough to read the header "He's Dead".

The screen then kept changing from page to page -
some windows I had open and others I'd never seen -
all happening faster than this computer has ever run.
Almost stroboscopic!

Then it paused on a Windows Update page saying it was
Intsalling Update 2 of 3 Do Not Turn Off Computer.
This faded to black for several seconds and up came
the 'Logging Off' followed quickly by 'Shutting Down'
and it all went black.

Still in shock and dumbfounded I waited a few minutes
and it turned itself back on, rebooted and installed
Update 3 of 3. Then actually reloaded all my open Windows
including the Reply Dialog box without any loss of the
text I had typed. Never had that happen before and it was
a relief to have not lost it. So I hit Post.

But I wanted to document this event and began this post.

The phone rang and it was one of those obviously forrin
voices saying she was from 'Windows Update Services' and
she was investigating a report that I was having troubles.
I asked incredulously how she knew that but she didn't
answer and the line went dead.

Now I'm really paranoid. Is Shakespeare in cahoots with
Cyberterrorists? Have I just been hacked?

Yay, though I wok thru the Valley of Debt...


~jwf~

1. Remove network connection (unplug leads, switch off wireless)
2. Run antivirus scan.

As Icy says, your computer has been hacked.

Come back here when you've done the above.

It appears that you were using Chrome. You may not be the target of a hack and the phone call may have been a complete coincidence. That said, please do run a malware scan.

Coincidence? Yeah, I can live with that.
I've had similar phone calls before and actually
fell for it the first time. They gave me instructions,
asking me to enter certain keystrokes that completely
disabled my computer.

Coincidences? In the thread I was replying to we were
talking about Shakespeare's Will - so you can imagine
my shock when the page disappeared and the "He's Dead"
page appeared. It all left me breathless as it then went
into stroboscopic page churning and shut down.



I have run a scan and found no alerts.
But I hadn't disconnected my web connection,
so I'll try that again.

Oh, and there is a new icon on my lower toolbar
which says New Updates Are Avaiable. But the scan
didn't spot it as malware.

It is similar to one that appeared before which
I opened only to have my computer disabled.

I'll disconnect and try another scan.

Thanks folks!

I may be gone some time...

~jwf~

Before I go I have to ask how you know I was using Chrome?

~jwf~

If you're still seeing strange behaviour after running an antivirus scan, then make sure your antivirus definitions are up to date. If it still happens, then contact your AV provider, who may be able to provide you with some more drastic tools to rid your system of it.

When you've got the blighter, find out what payload it carries, then take appropriate action. It may have been recording your keystrokes for example, so your passwords may have been compromised. I'd change them all as a precaution anyway.

If you don't have any luck with the antivirus, antimalware stuff you have, try malwarebytes, I had my netbook infested with some nastyness, neither AVG, Avast, spibott, addaware woudl do anything, but malwarebytes got the blasted thing in the end.

Download it, update it after installing, update any other antimalware stuff you have, then disconnect from the net; the nasty I had was reinstalling each time it was removed, untilll I disconnected from the net, as some 'file' was getting left behind in registry or RAM, from wence it just connected itself to the net, and downloaded and installed the nasty again (all with no obious activity on the PC to say it was doing anything)
Took three days to clear that one up

~jwf~, SiO2 knew you were using Chrome because, when it crashes, it comes up with a message saying "It's Dead, Jim" with a picture of a frazzled looking browser.

As others have said, it's a scam: it sounds like they somehow gained remote access and they'd have probably tried to get you to call a premium-rate number and/or got your bank details off you.

Thanks HI.
An old Star Trek reference from a Browser.
I guess they think that'll cheer up us old farts
as our cyberwhirled disintegrates around us.

Oh those Google people.
They never leave a turban unstoned.

~jwf~

Believe it or not I've been using Microsoft Security Essentials
on the advice of the geek 'kid' who cleaned up the last mess
which was a rat's nest of AVG and Firefox conflicts and
redundancies slowing things down to a snail's pace.

He also sold me 2GB of extra RAM but couldn't solve the CPU
issue where any streaming video peaks it beyond 100% and it
all starts stuttering and shuddering. Recommended a new puter
with at least an I-5 CPU and a dedicated graphics card to handle
the new rates of video.

One of the antiviral programs I downloaded which said it was free
found over a hundred things it offered to fix. I clicked on Fix Errors
and it went thru the whole shebang leaving a final count of 20
'Registry Errors' which it only would fix for a fee - asking for my
credit card details.

So the long term (75 days to Xmas) solution is a whole new rig.


~jwf~

C-cleaner always seems to work quite well for registry errors, and the malwarebytes works, and cleans up infections in the registry free (I think you maybe have to pay for the 'real time' version; I.E., When you have it running in the background constantly when the computers on)

C-cleaner, eh.

It says:
"...a drive wiping tool that can wipe all the data from your hard drive, but can also scrub only the available free space. As with many of the tools in CCleaner, it's fairly nuanced and allows for a simple one-pass overwrite, a Department of Defense-level three-pass option, a National Security Administration-level seven-pass cleaning, and a 35-pass Gutmann-level deep scrub."


I'm feeling brave so I'm gonna try it.
A virtual reboot of the Bigga Banga.


I may be gone some time...

~jwf~

That C-cleaner was quick!
It wiped 900 MB of Temp Files.

Then it showed me the 20 Registry issues.
And with a single click it 'fixed' them

Then it offered me a list of programs to uninstall -
including a lot of e-machine Game Zone stuff which
I have never used or even looked at.

So I decided to try one. It took nearly 20 minutes
to unload it so for now I think I'll let the others
just lie in limbo as they have.

Must say, h2g2 pages look 'cleaner', that is to say
tighter - but I had to reset my preferences and I've
lost my 11 year old bookmark so I am sent to Pliny
as an opening page rather than my old Alabaster homepage.

Otherwise, thing seem to be working smoother and brighter
and quicker and ... well, cleaner.

The 'you have 20 registry erros' pop-up hasn't popped up.
C-cleaner says they are all fixed.
Time for a nap.


Thanks
~jwf~

I always found C-cleaner easy to use; so long as you check you've not got anything you want to keep in temp files, or the recycle bin, etc., before you run it I always run it once a week, before I run malwarebytes, and then defrag the harddrive I've found spibott and addaware basically useless of recent years, at picking anything up, but I have... err... one of them, just running on the main PC and then I'm currently converted back to AVG for antivirus, as Avast was seriously slowing my netbook, and the desktop down, and, actually itself being so damn annoying with taking ages to update etc
Err, actually now I remember, I've still got Avast on the main PC as it refuses to uninstall though I managed to get rid of it on the netbook and replace back with AVG
Oh, I'm on windows XP still, BTW, though I really must think about updating, OS, to 7, when I next update the PC hardware/motherboard/CPU/RAM etc... when I've some spare cash anyhow (or wehn it starts being too slow on this machine, or just not working well, whcih doesn't seem to be the case... as yet )

My computer is being fixed now. I'm posting this from a library computer. I'm getting another Gigglebyte of RAM, plus a general cleanup. They found no viruses.

jwf, you might have been one of the researchers who mentioned having Google Chrome back when lanzababy was inviting people to join the Create! Board. At least someone recommended getting Google Chrome. It might not have been you, but I wondered about that when the Chrome issue was brought up here.

I hate the latest version of Microsoft IE. It's full of differently colored balls in the upper left instead of the X and _ and little box in the upper right. Gone are the File Edit View Favorites columns. What's there instead is almost incomprehensible.

Is it too late for me to join the Luddite Society?

>> Is it too late for me to join the Luddite Society? <<

Got a hammer?

Nah, it's never too late to abandon new technology
and get back to being human. Personally, I'd happily
give up almost everything except my back-scratcher
which is after all just a simple wooden stick. It's
the most Basic of Tools.

Oh, and my cars. Cuz I live so far from everything.
But even they have too many gizmos these days.
7 million Toyotas were just recalled for power window
switches that catch fire.


~jwf~

When I took my computer to be fixed, the technician asked for my phone number. Then he asked for my other phone numbers. I said that I had only ever had one. I also have only one computer and one sound system.

I'm not like the character in a recent movie who had been rejected by seven different technologies. I'm happy with what I have.

~Is it too late for me to join the Luddite Society? ~

Well, this has been the Quote of the Day for nearly a month now, so I wonder if it's still too late?