Monday, 1 November, 2004, 23:00
I am enraged.
The last program I installed on my computer was Blitz3D. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a program that lets me develop DirectX games in a very simple computer language that is very close to BASIC. I installed that program on 27 September 2004. Before that, I installed iTunes in late August. Do you see how often I install computer programs?
The last time I used Microsoft Internet Explorer on my computer was when I reloaded Windows, which again was in late August. I used it to do my Windows Updates and to download Mozilla Firefox. Since then, I have been installing my Windows Updates using Windows XP's Automatic Updates feature.
The last time anyone else used my computer was maybe three weeks ago, when Julie typed a paper using Microsoft Word. She also checked her email using Mozilla Firefox.
However, when I arrived home and turned on my monitor, I saw no less than four (that's 4, the number of arms plus the number of legs on the average human being) Internet Explorer pop-ups. This caused me great alarm due to the fact that I haven't used Internet Explorer since August, and haven't installed a new program since September.
Well, my track record for installed programs was broken because I had to install Spybot S&D and SpywareBlaster on my system. Luckily, I had Ad-Aware on my system already. In fact, I had just scanned last night before going to bed, and turned up with zero items as usual. This time, Ad-Aware came up with 350 items, and Spybot found 8 more. That, dear friends, is a problem. Spyware had come onto my computer through someone else's. I ran upstairs and did a scan on the other three computers.
The only other computer in the house that had spyware on it was my sister's. Do you see where this is going?
So now, I am paranoid about my computer. I have disallowed my sister from reaching my network shares by not only un-mapping them on her computer, but also by moving my shares to IPX/SPX and not installing that protocol on her machine. I have uninstalled everything from her computer that I don't think is necessary. Nevermind what she thinks is necessary ... apparently, downloading music and having extra Internet Explorer toolbars is necessary. Screw that. If that's necessary, Linux goes on. I don't care if I don't know much about Linux ... as long as none of that spyware bullcrap gets on any of the machines in the house, I'm happy.