The Anger of Compassion

Stealing Your Computer...

...while leaving it on your desk. Bastards.

It's called "browser hijacking," among other things, and you need to learn a new term: "malware." Yeah, you do. Sorry, but there's more than just spam out there.

Spam is bad enough, and before spam we had viruses and worms and Trojan horses and whatnot. But now we have all of those things, plus software which installs itself on your system without so much as a by-your-leave, and then takes control of parts of that system. Now, practical and moral proposals have been suggested for dealing with spammers, and I have publicly supported the more rational of those, but we need to be more (to employ I "word" I dislike) proactive in protecting our systems from malefactors.

Because, gentle readers, I'm sorry, but those motherfucking assholes malefactors are out there.

Now, not all computer systems are the same, are they? Nope.

Now, I don't use Linux, so I have nothing to offer Linux users. Well, in this area, anyway. And my use of other Unix flavors is pretty limited, so I'll self-limit myself and not go into that.

That leaves two mainstream systems of note: Windows and Macintosh.

I do use both of those systems: in fact, on a normal day, I use both of them for hours at a time. Frankly, on the Mac I've had so few external problems that I have no third-party defense systems employed. Between the outstanding security offered by Mac OS X -- which is, after all, a flavor of BSD Unix -- and the tiny market share "enjoyed" by the Mac, I've simply not experienced any hijacking, to my knowledge.

My Windows experience is a different story. I use Windows in my corporate persona, and on business travel I use Windows exclusively. Now, as a confirmed Mac lover, I must say this: I do not hate Windows, and I never have. In fact, I've praised Windows XP by saying that it's quite Maclike. Beyond that, there are aspects of Windows XP that should be replicated in the Macuser experience. But I've been hit, on an important business trip -- and all of my business trips are important, dear clients -- with an impossible case of browser hijacking, one not solved until I returned to my homebase in beloved El Paso, Texas, home of the Friday Night Blues.

So...well, you should read this story, and this one as well.

For the record, I use Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition and Spy Bot Search and Destroy, and I've been very happy with both.

I have also been very happy with Friday Night Blues, which, while it may hijack your mind, due to the quality upon which Norma consistently insists, has never hijacked my radio (at 88.5 FM) nor any of my computer systems. If you aren't in the El Paso area, tune in here.

Posted by Craig Ceely at December 24, 2004 09:43 PM