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Tragery!
I'm posting this from my mom's computer, lol.
Anywhoo, my laptop decided to eat a bunch of viruses this morning, and I basically wasted the entire day today just trying to get it to stop hitting itself. No less than four antivirus programs (AVG, Spybot, BitDefender, and PC Doctor)* ultimately proved unable to save the day. Now my registry is completely corrupted, Firefox is uninstalled, IE isn't working, and the whole thing is kind of borked. Soooooooo tomorrow Debbie is confiscating my laptop and taking it to one of her computer-expert friends who will (hopefully) be able to clean it out, and possibly completely reinstall Windows. This process will take several days. I spoke to the dude on the phone, and he seemed optimistic that it wouldn't come down to a Windows reinstall, but of course he couldn't say for sure without looking at the laptop itself.
*No, I didn't run them at the same time, I'm not stupid.
What this means is...
1. Scanspam Week is temporarily delayed. Um.
2. Some other things that I wanted to get done this week won't happen either - I have a prettyful update to PDK that isn't going to happen, and somebody just donated a bunch of doujinshi scans to Starlight Pops that aren't going to be added anytime soon.
3. Fortunately, I have two giant doujin dumps ready to post on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
shibusen as soon as possible. And I can probably do that from my mom's PC, as it's just a matter of uploading the right files, and I don't even have to use an FTP program or anything for that.
4. Unfortunately... Yeah, so I have those two giant doujin dumps sitting on my harddrive, and the scans from Honey009 alone are TOTALLY ILLEGAL in the state of Iowa (hell, probably in the United States period - oh hell, let's not pretend, those images violate all of Japan's obscenity laws too) - and tonight I have to panic about getting all of that stuff on a bunch of flash drives and trying to erase every possible trace of it from the laptop. Fun times!
So tonight I look forward to many hours of fun and excitement, trying desperately to back up my data safely, while at the same time erasing anything from my computer that would cause the FBI to come knocking on my door, since I *am* about to hand over my machine to a total stranger. And since this *is* Iowa. You know, the home of Christopher Handley. Um.
Oh wait, here's the icing on the cake: So, I probably didn't mention this to people who don't know me IRL, but back in June this year I had some major drama with my identity being stolen by a thief in Canada. He got my Paypal login, my credit card information, my SSN, and he even managed to get my freakin' credit report from one of those free credit report companies. I'm still recovering from that shit, I had to close my old bank account and open up an entirely new one, my Paypal situation is still FUBAR, I have fraud alerts on my credit report, and I only *just recently* got a new credit card.
Okay, so, today? It turns out that the initial infection on my computer was the Trojan Mundo virus. That's the one that, like, invites other viruses to your computer to come and play. So PC Doctor informed me several times that my laptop was attempting to broadcast "unauthorized information" on the interbutts, and when I mentioned that to Debbie's friend the PC Dude on the phone, he said, "Oh yeah, if it's the Trojan Mundo virus, and if PC Doctor caught your computer trying to send information on the internet, that probably means that your credit card has been compromised."
My brand new credit card.
I told Debbie about that, and she literally banged her head against the shelf that we have on top of the fireplace. I'm going to go ahead and count that as a headdesk. It's not quite "desk" that's involved but it's close enough.
So yeah, now I have to wait a day or two to see if indeed my new credit card HAS been compromised, in which case I'm pretty much fucked. Oh yeah and I'm supposed to be moving to Kentucky and setting up utility, phone, and internet contracts next week. With my FUBAR credit history and fraud alerts all over my name, this is going to be fun!
Anyway, yeah. That's how I spent my Sunday. Blaaaaarrrrrrgh.
Anywhoo, my laptop decided to eat a bunch of viruses this morning, and I basically wasted the entire day today just trying to get it to stop hitting itself. No less than four antivirus programs (AVG, Spybot, BitDefender, and PC Doctor)* ultimately proved unable to save the day. Now my registry is completely corrupted, Firefox is uninstalled, IE isn't working, and the whole thing is kind of borked. Soooooooo tomorrow Debbie is confiscating my laptop and taking it to one of her computer-expert friends who will (hopefully) be able to clean it out, and possibly completely reinstall Windows. This process will take several days. I spoke to the dude on the phone, and he seemed optimistic that it wouldn't come down to a Windows reinstall, but of course he couldn't say for sure without looking at the laptop itself.
*No, I didn't run them at the same time, I'm not stupid.
What this means is...
1. Scanspam Week is temporarily delayed. Um.
2. Some other things that I wanted to get done this week won't happen either - I have a prettyful update to PDK that isn't going to happen, and somebody just donated a bunch of doujinshi scans to Starlight Pops that aren't going to be added anytime soon.
3. Fortunately, I have two giant doujin dumps ready to post on
shibusen as soon as possible. And I can probably do that from my mom's PC, as it's just a matter of uploading the right files, and I don't even have to use an FTP program or anything for that. 4. Unfortunately... Yeah, so I have those two giant doujin dumps sitting on my harddrive, and the scans from Honey009 alone are TOTALLY ILLEGAL in the state of Iowa (hell, probably in the United States period - oh hell, let's not pretend, those images violate all of Japan's obscenity laws too) - and tonight I have to panic about getting all of that stuff on a bunch of flash drives and trying to erase every possible trace of it from the laptop. Fun times!
So tonight I look forward to many hours of fun and excitement, trying desperately to back up my data safely, while at the same time erasing anything from my computer that would cause the FBI to come knocking on my door, since I *am* about to hand over my machine to a total stranger. And since this *is* Iowa. You know, the home of Christopher Handley. Um.
Oh wait, here's the icing on the cake: So, I probably didn't mention this to people who don't know me IRL, but back in June this year I had some major drama with my identity being stolen by a thief in Canada. He got my Paypal login, my credit card information, my SSN, and he even managed to get my freakin' credit report from one of those free credit report companies. I'm still recovering from that shit, I had to close my old bank account and open up an entirely new one, my Paypal situation is still FUBAR, I have fraud alerts on my credit report, and I only *just recently* got a new credit card.
Okay, so, today? It turns out that the initial infection on my computer was the Trojan Mundo virus. That's the one that, like, invites other viruses to your computer to come and play. So PC Doctor informed me several times that my laptop was attempting to broadcast "unauthorized information" on the interbutts, and when I mentioned that to Debbie's friend the PC Dude on the phone, he said, "Oh yeah, if it's the Trojan Mundo virus, and if PC Doctor caught your computer trying to send information on the internet, that probably means that your credit card has been compromised."
My brand new credit card.
I told Debbie about that, and she literally banged her head against the shelf that we have on top of the fireplace. I'm going to go ahead and count that as a headdesk. It's not quite "desk" that's involved but it's close enough.
So yeah, now I have to wait a day or two to see if indeed my new credit card HAS been compromised, in which case I'm pretty much fucked. Oh yeah and I'm supposed to be moving to Kentucky and setting up utility, phone, and internet contracts next week. With my FUBAR credit history and fraud alerts all over my name, this is going to be fun!
Anyway, yeah. That's how I spent my Sunday. Blaaaaarrrrrrgh.
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I hope it all gets better soon ;;
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Holy crap man. X_X *hugs* That's insane. You poor thing.
Yeaaah... that copypasta-ing from the hard drive should be a blast. -.-;;; When was the last time you did a backup? With any luck you won't have absolute LOADS to paw through. @_@
Jesus. You just hit the jackpot, hunh? That's a shame. Well I hope it all gets cleared up for you soon. What a nightmare. *hugs some more*
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:( I'm sorry things were so crappy...
I wish I had superpowers and could track down that jerk who stole your info before too >:O
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That sounds HOrrible!!!!
Hopefully it all works out for you!!! There is nothing more frustrating then stressing about your privacy being invaded AND comp/Laptop problems!!!!!! >.
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Also, I'd suggest looking at this
http://clarkhoward.com/topics/freecreditreportinfo.html
Sorry if this is kinda stating the obvious, but since you've been in Japan for a while, I dunno how much of this you had to worry about over there. Annual report will tell you quickly if there is a problem right now. You may be lucky and not have a problem, in which case I'd get your business done, and then maybe put in a credit freeze. Talking to that Clark Howard guy might help also (he's a talk radio guy, but he's a good one- does consumer stuff, and he does it offline as well- he will give saner advice then I would, he's used to this)
One option you have is a credit freeze if there is suspected fraud. Warning: getting credit cards right now is tough, in your case maybe moreso due to being in Japan. Sorry.
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And yes, I got my annual credit report - the thief actually applied for and got one first, that was part of the problem, but I managed to get a second one before locking down all of my information with the fraud alert stuff.
Right now all of my credit is frozen, and it has been for about a month and a half now. The stolen card was canceled ages ago and I've only ever used the new card once. I've put a fraud alert on my *credit report* which means that any time somebody tries to sign up for a subscription or make a major purchase using my name - not even any specific credit card number, just my name - the CC company will call a phone number that I gave them in order to verify with a bunch of security questions that I am, indeed, myself. If the phone call isn't answered, the purchase will be instantly blocked. And yes - having already had the opportunity to use it once - I can safely say that this system works. :)
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The computer on the other hand...
Hopefully the rest of your time back in the US goes better, and Kentucky's not that bad from what I've heard. Just hope you like college basketball ^_^.
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In a worst-case scenario, we plan on using my mom's boyfriend's credit card and signing up for my utilities in his name. But hopefully we can get the phone numbers straightened out first.
This wouldn't have been an issue if I hadn't been living in Japan up until last week. But of course I had to start all of this fraud alert stuff while I was still in Japan, and I didn't have a US cell phone number to give them, so it was my home phone number or nothing.
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He's kinda like a combo of Andy Griffith show and Ralph Nader.
Generally, I've never needed a credit card for anything offline. At least in this neck of the woods, they tend to prefer cash. Unsure if KY would be any different.
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Good gods, woman! I feel like I should be flying out there and delivering hand made cookies to your front door.
Best of luck to you, m'lady. I hope it all works out for you.
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It's kind of useless now, but next time you might want to install some firewall, just in case. (I use Kerio Personal Firewall 2.1.5 and I'm surprised by how much junk it stops.) Unless you've already had one and the virus just ignored it.
Anyway, good luck with getting all of this stuff back to normal. .__.
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But I definitely would never go online without one. :)
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And here I thought using one anitvirus and one firewall (and a common sense, which you undoubtedly have) should be enough to feel safe on the internet... Apparently, I was wrong. .__. Using two (or more) of such programs at once seems stupid (instead of safer), so... I don't know anymore. v__v
Either way, good luck with getting the computer back to the "usable" state.
*butts in*
Re: *butts in*
I always thought using so many programs at the same time would create some conflicts between them. (As they would be running at the same time.) Thanks for explaining. :)
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I can only wish you as well as possible, I guess!
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I remember getting a call from my bank on the next day after I'd got my credit card re-issued saying that it was compromised. That was really depressing. But everything went well eventually.
Hope they will be able to fix your laptop and there will be no additional consequences. Best of luck to you!!!
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and good to know NOD32's that effective since i have it..*nods*
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But, yes, if I were you I'd have that laptop's OS flattened and reinstalled. Hmm... just remember to scan anything you take off that laptop before placing the files on any other computer, just to be sure.
If you'd like any help securing that laptop's reinstalled OS, feel free to ask! I'd imagine those people would do it for you, but in case not---
Good luck with moving, though (you seem to need it;;;)
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I actually scanned some of my flash drives with the AVG installed on my mom's computer, and they appear to be safe. I'm not too confident in AVG's virus-sniffing abilities, however, since it was literally NO help whatsoever with my particular batch of viruses. But it's all that my mom has, and she won't let me install anything else on her machine.
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It was a right bitch to get rid of. I don't envy you one bit.
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My laptop has already been handed over to Computer Dude, but after this I will definitely check out some of those other programs.
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You mentioned Spybot S&D-- do you have the TeaTimer activated/installed? I didn't until that last go-round in April, and now have it-- it monitors changes in the registry, so you'll get lovely notices like this--
--when a change is detected. (The one pictured is a harmless notice that a regkey MBAM made to scan on startup was deleted once the scan was over.)
I like it lots. *_*
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Um...did I know you were from Iowa? (I grew up in Council Bluffs.)
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I had problems some months ago with a virus that left my computer unusable but didn't affect credit cards or things like that, so I hope it all gets better soon!