If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Rate Thread | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
I just saw this on a Windows mailing list:
A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8 HP laptop for a couple of hours. She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords; called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so on. Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they could have planted any number of undetectable "devices" on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove all of the devices. I assume he's talking about "ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about. At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on. What would you do if you were faced with this computer? Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else? I don't know what anti-malware she has on the machine -- whatever comes with a new HP laptop, I presume, plus perhaps "Norton Security Suite" as provided by her ISP. Thanks. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:56:46 -0400, Juan Wei
wrote: I just saw this on a Windows mailing list: A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8 HP laptop for a couple of hours. She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords; called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so on. Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they could have planted any number of undetectable "devices" on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove all of the devices. I assume he's talking about "ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about. At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on. What would you do if you were faced with this computer? Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else? I would do a clean reinstallation of Windows. And then, *after* doing that, I would change all my passwords. Changing them before the reinstallation does no good, since they might have already gotten the new ones by using one of their "undetectable devices." -- Ken Blake |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
Ken Blake has written on 7/31/2013 6:32 PM:
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:56:46 -0400, Juan Wei wrote: I just saw this on a Windows mailing list: A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8 HP laptop for a couple of hours. She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords; called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so on. Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they could have planted any number of undetectable "devices" on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove all of the devices. I assume he's talking about "ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about. At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on. What would you do if you were faced with this computer? Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else? I would do a clean reinstallation of Windows. And then, *after* doing that, I would change all my passwords. Changing them before the reinstallation does no good, since they might have already gotten the new ones by using one of their "undetectable devices." Define "clean reinstallation". Does it involve reformating the HD first? |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:50:58 -0400, Juan Wei
wrote: Ken Blake has written on 7/31/2013 6:32 PM: On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:56:46 -0400, Juan Wei wrote: I just saw this on a Windows mailing list: A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8 HP laptop for a couple of hours. She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords; called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so on. Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they could have planted any number of undetectable "devices" on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove all of the devices. I assume he's talking about "ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about. At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on. What would you do if you were faced with this computer? Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else? I would do a clean reinstallation of Windows. And then, *after* doing that, I would change all my passwords. Changing them before the reinstallation does no good, since they might have already gotten the new ones by using one of their "undetectable devices." Define "clean reinstallation". Does it involve reformating the HD first? No definition is required.And no reformatting first is required. Simply boot from the installation DVD and follow the prompts for a clean installation. It will begin by formatting the drive for you. -- Ken Blake |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
Ken Blake has written on 7/31/2013 8:19 PM:
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:50:58 -0400, Juan Wei wrote: Ken Blake has written on 7/31/2013 6:32 PM: On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:56:46 -0400, Juan Wei wrote: I just saw this on a Windows mailing list: A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8 HP laptop for a couple of hours. She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords; called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so on. Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they could have planted any number of undetectable "devices" on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove all of the devices. I assume he's talking about "ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about. At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on. What would you do if you were faced with this computer? Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else? I would do a clean reinstallation of Windows. And then, *after* doing that, I would change all my passwords. Changing them before the reinstallation does no good, since they might have already gotten the new ones by using one of their "undetectable devices." Define "clean reinstallation". Does it involve reformating the HD first? No definition is required. And no reformatting first is required. Simply boot from the installation DVD and follow the prompts for a clean installation. It will begin by formatting the drive for you. Oh, so it is a "nuke and pave". :-) Is this equivalent to the Windows 8 RESET? |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:50:58 -0400, Juan Wei wrote:
I would do a clean reinstallation of Windows. And then, *after* doing that, I would change all my passwords. Changing them before the reinstallation does no good, since they might have already gotten the new ones by using one of their "undetectable devices." Define "clean reinstallation". Does it involve reformating the HD first? No. Buy a new machine as the first step! |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
mechanic explained on 01/08/2013 :
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:50:58 -0400, Juan Wei wrote: I would do a clean reinstallation of Windows. And then, *after* doing that, I would change all my passwords. Changing them before the reinstallation does no good, since they might have already gotten the new ones by using one of their "undetectable devices." Define "clean reinstallation". Does it involve reformating the HD first? No. Buy a new machine as the first step! Preferably a washing machine! |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 16:56:46 -0400, Juan Wei wrote:
I just saw this on a Windows mailing list: A neighbor had a serious senior moment yesterday and let Global Techs PC Support have remote access to her Win 8 HP laptop for a couple of hours. She realized the error of her ways, contacted her credit card companies, banks, etc.; changed all her passwords; called one of the major credit reporting agencies; and so on. Her son, who is a rocket scientist, told her that they could have planted any number of undetectable "devices" on her machine and that, even if she does a Win 8 factory reset, there's no guarantee that doing that would remove all of the devices. I assume he's talking about "ordinary" malware so she's going to have him call me so I can get a better idea of what he's concerned about. At this point, she's frightened of even turning it on. What would you do if you were faced with this computer? Win 8 reset? Nuke and pave? Something else? What I would do - would be to install Debian. YMMV I don't know what anti-malware she has on the machine -- whatever comes with a new HP laptop, I presume, plus perhaps "Norton Security Suite" as provided by her ISP. Thanks. |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
ray carter has written on 7/31/2013 8:21 PM:
What I would do - would be to install Debian. YMMV Why Debian over the others, say Ubuntu? |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
Juan Wei wrote:
ray carter has written on 7/31/2013 8:21 PM: What I would do - would be to install Debian. YMMV Why Debian over the others, say Ubuntu? Because Debian might have an interface you can use. Ubuntu has something that looks like Metro interface. I feel a little nausea, when I see these icons on the left. I hate them (my USB key has a version of Ubuntu, from before the Unity crap showed up). And the appearance of the screen, is a function of resolution. If you run this crap at 800x600, you might never figure out what is going on (because some graphics elements might not appear on the screen as a hint). I only discovered certain features, when running this on my backup machine with the 1440x900 LCD screen. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...04_Desktop.png An alternative might be Linux Mint. It has a few different GUI options. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Mint I tested a beta of the 13.04 depicted in the picture link, and it was slow. I think 13.04 relies on video card acceleration for some of the smooth animations they use. So if there is a problem there, the GUI will be a bit slow. (Like, the computer you use, has a really old video card. It might not be accelerated, for those stupid icons.) Paul |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On 07/31/2013 08:39 PM, Paul wrote:
Juan Wei wrote: ray carter has written on 7/31/2013 8:21 PM: What I would do - would be to install Debian. YMMV Why Debian over the others, say Ubuntu? Because Debian might have an interface you can use. Ubuntu has something that looks like Metro interface. I feel a little nausea, when I see these icons on the left. So install a different desktop environment. Unlike Windows 8, where you have no alternative to the tile interface, Linux lets you install dozens of different desktop environments. On my computer at work I have Ubuntu running the Xfce desktop environment. No problem. -- Warren Post http://my.opera.com/wpost/ |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
Warren Post has brought this to us :
On 07/31/2013 08:39 PM, Paul wrote: Juan Wei wrote: ray carter has written on 7/31/2013 8:21 PM: What I would do - would be to install Debian. YMMV Why Debian over the others, say Ubuntu? Because Debian might have an interface you can use. Ubuntu has something that looks like Metro interface. I feel a little nausea, when I see these icons on the left. So install a different desktop environment. Unlike Windows 8, where you have no alternative to the tile interface, Linux lets you install dozens of different desktop environments. On my computer at work I have Ubuntu running the Xfce desktop environment. No problem. And you dont have to contend with bugs with MS cant fix that go back Windows 3.1 or NSA back doors! |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
Warren Post wrote:
Unlike Windows 8, where you have no alternative to the tile interface, Windows 8 has several alternatives to the tile interface but, of course, you have to RTFM to find that out so most folks will never know...... -- XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups The Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/ |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On Thu, 01 Aug 2013 08:11:00 -0600, Warren Post
wrote: So install a different desktop environment. Unlike Windows 8, where you have no alternative to the tile interface, Not true. Windows 8 comes with two interfaces: the modern/metro interface (which you call the tile interface), and the traditional desktop interface, much like Windows 7's. You can use either or both. Personally I use the traditional desktop interface about 99% of the time. -- Ken Blake |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Help for Neighbor?
On Thu, 01 Aug 2013 08:11:00 -0600, Warren Post wrote:
On 07/31/2013 08:39 PM, Paul wrote: Juan Wei wrote: ray carter has written on 7/31/2013 8:21 PM: What I would do - would be to install Debian. YMMV Why Debian over the others, say Ubuntu? Because Debian might have an interface you can use. Ubuntu has something that looks like Metro interface. I feel a little nausea, when I see these icons on the left. So install a different desktop environment. Unlike Windows 8, where you have no alternative to the tile interface, Linux lets you install dozens of different desktop environments. On my computer at work I have Ubuntu running the Xfce desktop environment. No problem. Does it not occur to you people that someone who gets herself into this type of problem (and is clueless on how to proceed), might not be quite up to downloading .iso files, burning to boot media then go thru' all that might be required to get a linux system running. In all fairness though, the task is a lot easier than it used to be with say Ubuntu latest - still!! As far as NSA is concerned, don't worry about it, they will get what they need whatever you run and you probably don't have anything they want anyway. You are just one of multi millions, there's power in numbers. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | Rate This Thread |
|
|