I spent an entire day grappling with the most perninious virus todate. It piggybacks into your computer on the back of legimate, trusted sites we probable all use at one time or another. If you find yourself affected, after my experience yesterday, I can help.
Here is the story about this new virus called ransomware or scareware disguised as a security suite. Diabolically brilliant!
AV Security Suite is a scareware and ransomware program from the same family as Antivirus Soft and AntiSpyware Soft. The developers of this program are distributing AV Security Suite through the use of hacked sites, spam, and Trojans that install it onto your computer without your permission. Once installed AV Security Suite will be configured to start automatically when your computer starts. Once started it will scan your computer and state that there are numerous infections, but will not let you remove any of them until you purchase the program. All of these scan results are fake and are only being shown to trick you into purchasing the program, which you should obviously not do.
If you are running older software, and not updating Windows, you may find that you will be able to remove this program, but then become infected again within a short period of time. This is because the malware developers are hacking legitimate sites or inserting malware ads that use vulnerabilities in common programs such as Adobe Reader, Flash, and Windows to install the malware onto your computer. If you do not update your programs to remove these security holes then the next time you visit a hacked site distributing this rogue, AV Security Suite will be installed on to your computer. A great tool that can be used to scan your computer for outdated and vulnerable programs is the free Secunia Online Software Inspector program. When you scan your computer with this program it will display a report showing all programs and Windows updates that should be installed in order to fix security holes and vulnerabilities. It is advised that all users scan their computer with this program in order to prevent your computer from being infected again after you clean it.
When AV Security Suite is running it will also block you from running normal tasks in order to make it harder to remove the program from your computer. First, it configures Windows to use a proxy server that points back 127.0.0.1:1041. A proxy server is a program that listens to requests from your web browser and then handles the request itself rather than your browser talking directly to a site. As AV Security Suite is set to be your proxy server, any time you browse the web using Internet Explorer it will intercept the request and display a fake security warning that states that the site you are visiting is infected. The message it will display is:
This website has been reported as unsafe
We recommend that you do not continue to this website. This website has been reported to Microsoft for containing threats to your computer that might reveal personal or financial information.
Once you disable the proxy server all web requests will go directly to the site you wish to go to and you will see the legitimate content. Please note, though, that the next time AV Security Suite is started it will configure your computer to use the proxy server again.
The second method that AV Security Suite protects itself is to block applications from running while stating that they are infected. It does this to stop you from running anti-virus programs that can be used to remove this malware. When you attempt to run a program you will instead see the following message:
Windows Security alert
Application cannot be executed. The file mbam.exe is infected.
Do you want to active your antivirus software now?
Spyware Alert
Application infected! The file rundll32.exe is infected. Do you want to ALLOW this application now?
When you see these infection alerts do not be concerned as your programs are not infected. It is only showing this to further scare you into thinking you have a computer security problem.
While started, AV Security Suite will also display fake security alerts that contain warnings that malware has been detected or that malware is attacking your computer. These messages are all fake as well and only being shown to further convince you that your computer is infected. The text of these messages are:
Windows Security alert
Windows reports that computer is infected. Antivirus software helps to protect your computer against viruses and other security threats. Click here for the scan your computer. Your system might be at risk now.
Antivirus software alert
Infiltration Alert
Your computer is being attacked by an internet virus. It could be a password-stealing attack, a trojan-dropper or similar.
Last, but not least the rogue will also display a fake Windows Security Center. This fake Security Center will look exactly like the original one except that it states that you should purchase AV Security Suite to protect yourself.
As you can see, AV Security Suite was created for one reason only; to scare you into thinking your computer has numerous infections so that you will then purchase the program. It goes without saying that you should definitely not purchase this program, and if you already have, please contact your credit card company and dispute the charges stating the program is a scam. Finally, to remove this infection please use the removal guide below to remove it for free.
The program actually hijacks your browser, resides in your registry so you can't find it to remove it, and prevents you from running your security program to remove it.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
The solution to pollution is in not going to be dilution.
Michio KaKu, a recent visitor on the Keith Olbermann show, likened the suggestion to controlling the oil spill in the gulf by exploding the well with a nuclear bomb, or any other kind of bomb, the equivalent of giving the Three Stooges nukes.
"We are in totally uncharted territory” he says. By exploding an underground bomb to contain this spill we could inadvertently cause multiple additional fissures, leading to multiple geysers, all needing top caps.
The truth of the whole scenario is that the most profit producing companies in the world, year after year, have been the oil companies. Their corporate largess, spread over Congress since the Valdez disaster, has prevented meaningful safety legislation from becoming law for over 20 years.
Now we have the largest man-made ecological disaster in the entire history of man. If no so today, it will be so tomorrow, or shortly thereafter, for monies sake.
Some pencil pushing fool determined the drilling project was falling behind schedule. He began putting on the pressure to drill faster. Later, when confronted with irrefutable evidence that a gasket designed to prevent explosive back pressure from unleashing was disintegrating, another manly genius spouted the most infamous directive in man-made ecological disaster history by saying -- -- drill on!
Yet another pencil pusher had previously decided to avoid spending a $500,000 to install a blow out preventer. This will ultimately be ridiculed as the stupidest cost saving mistake ever made by any single man in any business to date. He was probably thinking about his bonus. He may be the man responsible for single handedly bankrupting BP.
The poor citizens of the Gulf and soon to be Florida will pay for these egregious mistakes for decades. We cannot put a price on this disaster. Not now, and probably not for another 20 years.
But the drilling goes on.
As long as we allow people like Dick Cheney, unmitigated master of disaster in the Middle East (Bush was simply too ignorant to connect the dots between big government, big oil, and Cheney’s company Halliburton), to have sway, the planet, or more correctly the people on it, don't stand a chance.
"We are in totally uncharted territory” he says. By exploding an underground bomb to contain this spill we could inadvertently cause multiple additional fissures, leading to multiple geysers, all needing top caps.
The truth of the whole scenario is that the most profit producing companies in the world, year after year, have been the oil companies. Their corporate largess, spread over Congress since the Valdez disaster, has prevented meaningful safety legislation from becoming law for over 20 years.
Now we have the largest man-made ecological disaster in the entire history of man. If no so today, it will be so tomorrow, or shortly thereafter, for monies sake.
Some pencil pushing fool determined the drilling project was falling behind schedule. He began putting on the pressure to drill faster. Later, when confronted with irrefutable evidence that a gasket designed to prevent explosive back pressure from unleashing was disintegrating, another manly genius spouted the most infamous directive in man-made ecological disaster history by saying -- -- drill on!
Yet another pencil pusher had previously decided to avoid spending a $500,000 to install a blow out preventer. This will ultimately be ridiculed as the stupidest cost saving mistake ever made by any single man in any business to date. He was probably thinking about his bonus. He may be the man responsible for single handedly bankrupting BP.
The poor citizens of the Gulf and soon to be Florida will pay for these egregious mistakes for decades. We cannot put a price on this disaster. Not now, and probably not for another 20 years.
But the drilling goes on.
As long as we allow people like Dick Cheney, unmitigated master of disaster in the Middle East (Bush was simply too ignorant to connect the dots between big government, big oil, and Cheney’s company Halliburton), to have sway, the planet, or more correctly the people on it, don't stand a chance.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Bribes or Blackmail
Does it really matter which Achilles' heel brings down our elected officials? Sex, money, drugs, or a host of other seductive suspects are in every gangsters toolkit don't you know? Any one of which is a slam dunk for your average American.
When the wise guys go to work on someone... games over. Either they help you in, or they help you out, but the ever present quid pro quo applies, with one exception. If they help you win, they own you for life.
In my experience, no one is immune to coercion. Whether you are drawn to drugs, kinky sex or celibacy, whether you are orphaned or blueblood to the bone, you are vulnerable to someone or susceptible to something illegal, immoral, or just plain more fun than the law allows. (Junkets come to mind.) It is in our nature.
Even modest motivational sources, like ambition, family, religion, or sense of duty pale to the power behind the appropriate bribe or blackmail leverage.
Where this leads is to a society compromised by its own antiquated, hypocritical sense of morality. No society is any stronger than its most compromised officials, regardless of whether they are public or private.
Isn't it time we stop crippling ourselves by expecting saintly behavior from everyone? Wouldn't our society be better served if our morals matured into a more tolerant, consensual set of values? Can’t we leave Victoria’s hypocritical influence, and the religious guilt tripping to the last millennia?
Haven't we had our collective noses rubbed in enough dirt to learn anything?
When the wise guys go to work on someone... games over. Either they help you in, or they help you out, but the ever present quid pro quo applies, with one exception. If they help you win, they own you for life.
In my experience, no one is immune to coercion. Whether you are drawn to drugs, kinky sex or celibacy, whether you are orphaned or blueblood to the bone, you are vulnerable to someone or susceptible to something illegal, immoral, or just plain more fun than the law allows. (Junkets come to mind.) It is in our nature.
Even modest motivational sources, like ambition, family, religion, or sense of duty pale to the power behind the appropriate bribe or blackmail leverage.
Where this leads is to a society compromised by its own antiquated, hypocritical sense of morality. No society is any stronger than its most compromised officials, regardless of whether they are public or private.
Isn't it time we stop crippling ourselves by expecting saintly behavior from everyone? Wouldn't our society be better served if our morals matured into a more tolerant, consensual set of values? Can’t we leave Victoria’s hypocritical influence, and the religious guilt tripping to the last millennia?
Haven't we had our collective noses rubbed in enough dirt to learn anything?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Truth About Lies
Lies are all around us. We live our entire lives among them.
They percolate among us until they takeover our thoughts and emotions,
our finances and finally our freedoms.
• Lies which lead us into phony wars.
• Lies about the true cost of those wars and their results.
• Lies, which lead us into phony mortgages. These were even called liar’s loans.
• Lies that scare us into forfeiting our privacy.
• Lies that promise us security and cost us our freedoms in the bargain.
• Lies about global warming.
• Lies about national health care.
• Lies from our congressmen and senators, and even our presidents.
• Lies from our news media.
• Lies from our parents, siblings, children and friends.
• Lies from our lovers.
The above list is by no means a complete liars list. Lies are as common as cornflakes.
But how about we add in the misconceptions, half-truths, exaggerations and distortions,
and hundreds more cracks the truth can fall into or slip completely through.
Is it any wonder nobody listens to anybody anymore? Why bother, what’s the point?
I have known people who would rather tell a lie when the truth was 10 times easier.
Some of our most prestigious federal agencies are based on deception. One of the most
secretive professions to spring up recently is called “perception management”. This profession
involves creating a “truth” and then selling the “truth” to a gullible public wholesale. PM
people are to spin doctors as neurosurgeons are to witch doctors.
So does the truth, which is as often as not a matter of individual perception, matter?
After all, we seem to be able to function without very much of the real deal.
They percolate among us until they takeover our thoughts and emotions,
our finances and finally our freedoms.
• Lies which lead us into phony wars.
• Lies about the true cost of those wars and their results.
• Lies, which lead us into phony mortgages. These were even called liar’s loans.
• Lies that scare us into forfeiting our privacy.
• Lies that promise us security and cost us our freedoms in the bargain.
• Lies about global warming.
• Lies about national health care.
• Lies from our congressmen and senators, and even our presidents.
• Lies from our news media.
• Lies from our parents, siblings, children and friends.
• Lies from our lovers.
The above list is by no means a complete liars list. Lies are as common as cornflakes.
But how about we add in the misconceptions, half-truths, exaggerations and distortions,
and hundreds more cracks the truth can fall into or slip completely through.
Is it any wonder nobody listens to anybody anymore? Why bother, what’s the point?
I have known people who would rather tell a lie when the truth was 10 times easier.
Some of our most prestigious federal agencies are based on deception. One of the most
secretive professions to spring up recently is called “perception management”. This profession
involves creating a “truth” and then selling the “truth” to a gullible public wholesale. PM
people are to spin doctors as neurosurgeons are to witch doctors.
So does the truth, which is as often as not a matter of individual perception, matter?
After all, we seem to be able to function without very much of the real deal.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Carlin at the Copenhagen Earth Conference
Can you use a good laugh?
Here is a little George Carlin on the environment, and The Answer
to man's existence.
Please be advised, you will be exposed to adult language, adult concepts, and some very advanced thinking.
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/12/video-in-honor-of-copenhagen-carlin-on-t/
Here is a little George Carlin on the environment, and The Answer
to man's existence.
Please be advised, you will be exposed to adult language, adult concepts, and some very advanced thinking.
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/12/video-in-honor-of-copenhagen-carlin-on-t/
Monday, March 29, 2010
Does this resemble you?
I am sure it doesn't, but...
It seems we have become so lazy or self-absorbed in trivia, some fed to us by the drama queens in our own lives and much more via the news media, that a majority of US citizens have literally tuned out and are leaving their important thinking for others do. The most important decisions we seem to be able to make on our own are things like what to watch on TV. Taking the time to become informed about the political, social, or environmental issues of the day is to be studiously avoided.
The final outcome of a country's people foregoing the heavy lifting required for informed decision-making is that the country becomes vulnerable to the master manipulators among us. For example, people completely ignorant of the facts behind the Nobel Prize winning scientific discovery of global warming and its consequences are easily persuaded to continue the ruinous behavior that is detrimental to all life on the planet.
Because we failed to act quickly in our own best interests, the people in this country responsible for relieving the citizens of trillions of dollars in savings and equity are in a position to do the very same thing again.
The very same people can do the very same thing… again.
Because we have been so focused nationally on sorting out the truth to the health care debate and its hundred billion dollar annual cost, we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from our wars. Phony wars based on lies and waged for the benefit of companies like Halliburton and Blackwater are where we waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year, gaining nothing except the opportunity to waste more money.
(You may disagree if you think spending billions of taxpayer dollars blowing up mountains and deserts while losing thousands of American lives in the process is good for America.)
We spend billions chasing long dead media darlings like Osama bin Laden(the only bite he has left is a sound bite). We pour billions more into a protection racket dedicated to making travel impossibly difficult and whose policies have literally rendered personal privacy in America a thing of the past, but haven't made us any safer from fanatics.
Fear mongers have convinced us we will be much safer as soon as big brother has a window opened into every corner of our lives. By dedicating ourselves to perpetual ignorance and prejudice we have opened the door to all master manipulators. We seem quick to forget that those who stick their heads in the sand are leaving their butts in the air for opportunists to take advantage of.
It seems we have become so lazy or self-absorbed in trivia, some fed to us by the drama queens in our own lives and much more via the news media, that a majority of US citizens have literally tuned out and are leaving their important thinking for others do. The most important decisions we seem to be able to make on our own are things like what to watch on TV. Taking the time to become informed about the political, social, or environmental issues of the day is to be studiously avoided.
The final outcome of a country's people foregoing the heavy lifting required for informed decision-making is that the country becomes vulnerable to the master manipulators among us. For example, people completely ignorant of the facts behind the Nobel Prize winning scientific discovery of global warming and its consequences are easily persuaded to continue the ruinous behavior that is detrimental to all life on the planet.
Because we failed to act quickly in our own best interests, the people in this country responsible for relieving the citizens of trillions of dollars in savings and equity are in a position to do the very same thing again.
The very same people can do the very same thing… again.
Because we have been so focused nationally on sorting out the truth to the health care debate and its hundred billion dollar annual cost, we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from our wars. Phony wars based on lies and waged for the benefit of companies like Halliburton and Blackwater are where we waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year, gaining nothing except the opportunity to waste more money.
(You may disagree if you think spending billions of taxpayer dollars blowing up mountains and deserts while losing thousands of American lives in the process is good for America.)
We spend billions chasing long dead media darlings like Osama bin Laden(the only bite he has left is a sound bite). We pour billions more into a protection racket dedicated to making travel impossibly difficult and whose policies have literally rendered personal privacy in America a thing of the past, but haven't made us any safer from fanatics.
Fear mongers have convinced us we will be much safer as soon as big brother has a window opened into every corner of our lives. By dedicating ourselves to perpetual ignorance and prejudice we have opened the door to all master manipulators. We seem quick to forget that those who stick their heads in the sand are leaving their butts in the air for opportunists to take advantage of.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Misery Loves Company!
If you have or soon could have:
No coin, no cash, no credit and no credibility left.
And if you are literally:
Down to the last roll of the dice,
or the last spin of the wheel,
or the last flip of the coin.
Guess what?
Things can only get worse.
Have I cheered you up yet?
Misery does love company.
Have you lost your job, your house, and your family?
Do you have at least one tooth trying to fall out of your
head now and do the rest seem destined to follow soon?
Is there no insurance of any kind protecting anything of
yours although you paid in for what seems like forever?
And are you still years away from being eligible for
Medicaid or Social Security?
Is your wall papered with late notices? Has your license
been suspended for back child support or court fines? Is
there nothing left in your house to turn off but the water
and that's just because the water department is busy? Is
your camper in good shape?
You'd better hope so.
Or maybe your significant other of many years (some bitter,
some sweet) has decided to stick it out ( I mean, what choice
does she really have?) and is busy purchasing dinner at the
day old Exxon deli while you are filling up the home away
from home camper; soon to become home. You are eating
at the Exxon deli because the Exxon card is the only plastic
still honored in your wallet... for one more payment cycle.
As I mentioned, misery really does love company.
And yet our government is pouring trillions into the deserts
and mountains abroad. We can’t afford healthcare, we can't
help our own homeless, we can't afford good educators or
legislators or honest "Captains of Industry" no matter how
much we are willing to pay them. Enough, clearly and simply,
isn’t enough.
No coin, no cash, no credit and no credibility left.
And if you are literally:
Down to the last roll of the dice,
or the last spin of the wheel,
or the last flip of the coin.
Guess what?
Things can only get worse.
Have I cheered you up yet?
Misery does love company.
Have you lost your job, your house, and your family?
Do you have at least one tooth trying to fall out of your
head now and do the rest seem destined to follow soon?
Is there no insurance of any kind protecting anything of
yours although you paid in for what seems like forever?
And are you still years away from being eligible for
Medicaid or Social Security?
Is your wall papered with late notices? Has your license
been suspended for back child support or court fines? Is
there nothing left in your house to turn off but the water
and that's just because the water department is busy? Is
your camper in good shape?
You'd better hope so.
Or maybe your significant other of many years (some bitter,
some sweet) has decided to stick it out ( I mean, what choice
does she really have?) and is busy purchasing dinner at the
day old Exxon deli while you are filling up the home away
from home camper; soon to become home. You are eating
at the Exxon deli because the Exxon card is the only plastic
still honored in your wallet... for one more payment cycle.
As I mentioned, misery really does love company.
And yet our government is pouring trillions into the deserts
and mountains abroad. We can’t afford healthcare, we can't
help our own homeless, we can't afford good educators or
legislators or honest "Captains of Industry" no matter how
much we are willing to pay them. Enough, clearly and simply,
isn’t enough.
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