Think I got someone in trouble tonight

[MadMike]

As some of you know, I'm the computer guy for my friends and family. I don't ask for anything, but I almost always get something regardless -- beer, food, even cash once or twice that I tried to turn down, but the other person insisted.

For some reason, I've been busy lately. An ex-roommate who FUBARed the computer before she was kicked out, a service provider who bought out someone's regular provider and left the settings a mess, and most recently, a lightning strike that miraculously fried the dialup modem and nothing else. Then when I came home and thought my work was done, I find that CS itself is having problems... I'm getting too old for this

I thought I would have a nice relaxing weekend, until a really close and really cute friend messaged me, and told me that "those damn kids" did something to her computer, and it was running slow. Since I didn't have much else to do, I told her I'd stop by and have a look.

I didn't find anything serious -- just a few toolbars and dodgy screensaver programs. Oh, and somehow the automatic updates had been turned off and the antivirus I had installed the last time was mysteriously MIA. I fixed those, reinstalled the antivirus, and did a boot scan before I went looking for updates.

Truth be told, I don't always pay attention to what comes up in the initial scan. In fact, it was getting late, I was getting tired, and I was about to cancel the scan, when something came up. It was a trojan, an exe with a blatant filename of something like, "View porn movies."

At that time, my friend's new roommate happened to be walking by, so I asked her who (name of person on the user account where this showed up) was. She said it was her 15-year-old son, who happened to be on the thing right before it started acting up, and who was always on it thru all hours of the night. She also said that he was acting quite suspicious, like he was trying to cover his tracks, when she told him they had to be somewhere right then and there.

She said she was going to let him have it when he comes home tomorrow. For the first time in my life, I'd rather be me than someone else.

[lordlundar]

Those are the fun moments, the "S/he did WHAT? Oh, s/he's dead."

[trunks2k]

My parent's computer kept getting a java based virus. It was benign since the exploit it used had been patched. But the anti-virus still flagged it. And since it was sitting in the cache for the JVM, the anti-virus wouldn't remove it. Had to remove it manually. It kept coming back, and my mom kept wondering why. I tried to subtly suggest that "someone" *cough cough* my dad *cough cough* was going to sites that he "shouldn't be going to" *cough cough* porn *cough cough*. She didn't believe me and when I came home one time, sure enough in the temporary files is a bunch of pictures from porn sites. Tired of always having to fix the issue, I not so subtly mentioned during dinner what I had found and whoever was/is going to that site should stop going to it.

After that, for some reason, the virus never came back.

[BravoOrig]

Back in the day when ICQ was popular, or I used it anyway, I recieved IM's from a friend of the family's computer. Except it was their niece or grandkid, and making unkind comments about my brother and someone in their family. Well I called them up to let them know, then stopped by to pull up ICQ's chat history. Needless to say someone got in big trouble that night.

[ArenaBoy]

One of my friends has a Mac and he usually runs Safari on it. (Apple's version of IE)

Safari has a private browsing feature that doesn't keep track of your history and the only way you can get back to a page you were interested in is to hit the back button. If the window or the tab is closed tough luck, the address bar doesn't show it either. One day, my friend's 16 year old brother forgot to turn on the private browsing feature and my friend found various porn sites in Safari. Needless to say, he disabled his brother's user account and was ready to kick him.

[draggar]

, and most recently, a lightning strike that miraculously fried the dialup modem and nothing else.

Modems get fried more than anything else. People plug their entire system into nice surge protectors EXCEPT the phone line. I don't know why, most (real) surge protectors have phone line protection.

Hell, each PC in my network that has RJ-45 has a surge protector for that!

[Bliss]

ArenaBoy I like you a lot, and I love reading your stories sometimes. But if you call Safari "Apple's version of IE" again, even if it's to make a valid point, there will be trouble

[BravoOrig]

I've had to make that point to people from time to time, even using analogies such as putting an alarm on your front door and windows but leaving your back door open.

I hate when people call and ask if lightning can cause something to go bad or similar. Who am I to question what lightning can and cannot do? Can it come over your cable line? Yes! We usually ground the line outside your house but still! Nothing is foolproof. It's freaking lightning! My parents have had a microwave bite the dust because of lightning. I've certainly known computers do the same, blowing the capacitors on the motherboard. How am I going to prove or disprove the fact that lightning came over your cable line, and if adequate grounding was done to prevent it. Since you can't prevent it in all ways, our installers can only do what they are trained to do, what is in the specifications by the FCC or whatever, and hope for the best. You protect against lightning!

Modems get fried more than anything else. People plug their entire system into nice surge protectors EXCEPT the phone line. I don't know why, most (real) surge protectors have phone line protection.

Hell, each PC in my network that has RJ-45 has a surge protector for that!

[Bandit]

I hate when people call and ask if lightning can cause something to go bad or similar. Who am I to question what lightning can and cannot do? Can it come over your cable line? Yes! ... You protect against lightning!

People *DIE* every year talking on the phone in electrical storms. Ummmm - copper, wires, a gazillion volts of juice forked through a tree trunk stuck into the ground. Not a good thing.

At least Darwin works at times.

B

[blas]

I'm not even a techie person, but being a manufacturer of mother boards, yes, I concur..........lightning and electronic devices definetly don't mix.

Well hell....people and lightning don't mix.

One summer at Rock Fest someone was hit by lightning. Yeeeow!

[sms001]

What a bizarre thread - lightning and porn

I'm not even a techie person, but being a manufacturer of mother boards, yes, I concur..........lightning and electronic devices definetly don't mix. Well hell....people and lightning don't mix. One summer at Rock Fest someone was hit by lightning. Yeeeow!

Even more odd - MOST people hit by lightning survive! [WTF?] Thank you National Geographic Channel. re zaps and elecronics, what I'm sure most clients regard as my oddest behaviour is that if i got a call not long after a good t-storm i wouldn't even bother with the usual software diagnostics. Out came the philips, and i would pull each card and give it a good SNIFF. The odor is unmistakable - so much so that even being the packrat that I am, if i smelled it I would toss their (usually modem for reasons mentioned in this thread) card straight into the trash. If pressed, I would explain that gas, electric and water entering their house are very well grounded. Cable and phone, not so much.

On the porn side, MANY clients had teenage boys. I have to come down firmly on the side of profiling on this one. If I saw some specific malware, I ran through the cookies. Then I'd find an excuse to pull the kid aside or contact him out of the parents earshot. "Your Dad just paid me blah blah blah to clear your families computer of Kit Kat and Monkey porn. I didn't say anything because I don't know if it was one of your friends killing time or what, but here's what we need to do in the future......" and then run down the [excuse the pun] prophylactic measures for him. Never a reoccurence.

[LostMyMind]

What a bizarre thread - lightning and porn

Just a few days ago we had 2 people struck by lightning. One was getting into his car lightning hit the car went through his key, thumb, and then foot (ouch). He was extremely lucky didn't even get knocked out.

The poor kid wasn't so lucky at the beach. Got struck right in his chest. The kid survived but his shorts didn't. If that happen to me, I hope the same thing happens, I get knocked out so I don't have to know it. Poor kid, going to get teased about it for the rest of his life.

On the porn side, MANY clients had teenage boys....Never a reoccurence.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with that. The teenage boy was not your client, the parents was. It's not your place to teach their kids how to cover their tracks. In fact, since they were "teen". And depending on the local laws. You might get in trouble for providing porn to a minor. Be on the safe side and never teach a minor how to get or get rid of porn.

[Broomjockey]

But sms wasn't teaching how to get porn, but simply safe browsing techniques to not get virii, spy/malware, etc. They already knew how to GET to the porn, that was the issue.

[LostMyMind]

If the person already knows how to shoplift but can't do it without getting caught, it's ok to teach them how to not get caught? That what sms was doing, teaching how to get porn without getting caught to a minor. A minor is not allow to have porn in the states. I have no problem with the teaching, the problem I have is not telling the parents. It wasn't sms place to teach the minor how to avoid the traps of porn sites. Teach the parent, if the parent wants the minor to learn too. That's a different story. But deliberately teaching the minor without the parent's knowledge isn't right.

What will happen IF the minor gets addicted to porn and he tells them that sms told him how to get the porn safely. Do you really think the parent, DAs, and police going to pause for a moment and say "well, sms was just trying to be nice." Worst case scenario is not a pretty one, be smart and tell the parents. If the parents want the teenager to know, they will let him know (or let the minor be there when you're teaching it to the parent).

[protege]

I know a guy who got hit by lightning...and he was only sitting about 3 feet from me We were in the camp's business office when it started to pour. He was at his desk, I was standing in the doorway chatting with the boss. The lights suddenly went out, followed by a loud clap of thunder. Not long after that, the guy literally flew off his chair. Turns out that lightning hit the tree outside, arced through the air, hit the metal flashing on the roof, then shot through the office, his chair, and finally into the ground After the rain quit, we went outside, and there were burn marks on the tree and roof! Needless to say, the guy spent the rest of summer carrying around a metal pole just *daring* to get hit during a storm.

Getting back on topic, I'd be *very* careful telling kids how to get or dispose of porn--it wouldn't be difficult if they were confronted to blame *you* for it!