I am writing this post from an older computer that I just installed Linux OS on. Now for a lot of people that is either really easy and for others they must ask, what is Linux? Well, Linux is just one of the many open source programs out there, in an online community of software developers and users that work together to create a free product that anybody can enjoy for free.
I really enjoy the whole community working together thing and am going to enjoy trying to figure out how this Linux program works. For me it is a badge of honor of how far the Messiah taken me in a process of continual improvement. Being able to use a piece of alien software (at least to me) is really cool and for me to understand it is something all together neat. I will hopefully be getting a tech support job pretty soon in which I can use this knowledge of programs and technology to fix peoples software woes. What is more that I know that I will be using all of this both currently and in the future to help bring about the Kingdom of Messiah.
I think this symbiotic relationship with Yahweh and the Messiah is the whole reason that we are here. God gives us people and experiences and our brains to create things and in return we use it to create something magnificent that reflects our creator and helps our neighbors. The ultimate fix for reflecting our creator and helping our neighbor is the Kingdom coming on the earth. For that I cant wait!!
Viruses and Malware
I thought that I would discuss what I know about some of the latest threats to technology: malware and viruses. These nasty programs are meant to do things like harm your computer, scam you out of money or even steal your identity. I will discuss the most common types of viruses that I personally see and where the most common ways of getting those viruses and some ways to remove them and prevent them in the future.
Imagine your computer gave you a pop-up that looks like your My Computer screen, only instead of the normal C: drive you see a C: drive that is flagged with viruses and a message stating that there are 500 + viruses detected on your computer. That is pretty scary but then this message tells you that these can be removed if you download ____ antivirus. The blank can be filled in with any number of fake anti-virus programs; such as, anti-virus 360, anti-virus 2009, WinPC defender, Antivirus 1 or Antispyware pro. These are the most common viruses that I see today and all have strong root kits that make it extremely difficult to get rid of. Most anti-virus programs cannot remove these at all; as a matter of fact, no anti-virus program can that I have seen and even GeekSquad agents tend to shy away from doing anything but formatting the computer.
There is another virus that I have seen that gets special attention and that is the Conflicker virus. Many people have seen this on the news lately because they thought that on April 1 it would go live and do lots of damage (possibly even shut down many internet servers), This Conflicker is a special type of malware called a worm. It can get into someone's computer by it just being on. This worm is so deadly that it shut down Parlament computers and ABC broadcasting news network. ABC took 24 hours a day for 10 days to remove all traces of this virus. Some of the symptoms of this virus is being redirected from some anti-virus websites and not being able to update Windows. If you think you have this virus double check at http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10212286-12.html?tag=mncol. There is a free and simple test to see if you have it.
Where do all of these viruses come from? Well, some are domestic, but most are foreign. The antivirus 2009 that I mentioned earlier was created by a Texas company and is now currently being sued by Microsoft and the attorney general of Washington State. The others could be from countries in asia or in eastern europe. There are countries in these regions that dont have strong laws against this sort of thing and local populations hail hackers as heros (they do bring lots of money into the local economy).
There are some websites that can give these viruses to an unsuspecting computer. The most common places that have viruses that can be downloaded are Limewire, Adult related websites (if you go to these expect many issues to occur, viruses are the least of your worries), facebook and myspace. The problem with Facebook and Myspace are that people have links on them and customizable coding from who knows what 3rd party websites.
Email attachments are another easy way to get a virus; you should always have your anti-virus program do a scan of any attachments before you open them.
How on earth can viruses be removed. There are a few different ways that viruses can be removed. My personal favorite is to simply back up any data that you dont want lost and then use either your computer's recovery partition or the system recovery disks that came with your computer to just erase everything and re-install the operating system. Obviously, if Windows cannot startup this is the best way to go.
Now, if you are brave enough to want to manually remove viruses, expect a fight and a good length of time to try to remove them. The first thing to do if you want to try to manually remove a virus is to go into Windows Safe Mode with networking (press F8 upon startup) and then use a good antivirus program to scan the hard drive and see if it can remove the virus. If it cannot, then you need to at least find out what type of virus it is, then you may be able to download manual remover from Norton or Trend Micro. Both companies give free virus removal tools to the public and some times it is as easy as typing the name of the virus in the search bar at their websites. If these fail to do the trick, I would recommend having a professional assist you.
With viruses and other malware the best way to defend against them is with a good firewall and conservative internet browsing habits. I would personally recommend getting a good anti-virus program. The anti-virus programs that I researched and found to be the best are Kaspersky, Norton, and Avira. Both Kaspersky and Norton have a firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus programs and are pretty reasonable and do great. Avira is special because they offer a free anti-virus program and it is comparable to Kaspersky in finding viruses, the only problem is that you would have to find an anti-spyware program to go with it (possibly Spybot: Search and Destroy) and use the Windows Firewall. If there are children in the home I personally recommend parental controls. They are not only valuable for keeping children safe and temptation free, but they also a proactive in preventing unsuspecting children from clicking on things that can cause a virus to installed.
Well, I hope this information is valuable. I have seen a lot of viruses and even has one on my computer recently. They are pretty nasty, but can be taken care of. They are examples of the brokeness of the world taking it's toll on cyberspace. I cant wait until the Messiah does come and fix the world and restore everything to rights; only then can we browse the internet without ever worrying.
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