This is a little rant of mine I posted about 3 years ago. It did have some strong language which I have edited out.
Ok, I am mildly annoyed to say the least right now.
I just tried to log into my college account to get in the computers. A friendly little message popped up on my screen.
"Your account has been disabled. Please see your system administrator."
So, as you may expect, I am completely confused by this. I see no reason for my account to be disabled as I have been obeying all the rules (apart from right now, of course... and when I go on crunchyroll... and read manga... but those sites aren't banned, so it's all good). Obviously, I see the system administrator to find out why the hell my account has been banned. She asks me if I have been using any proxy sites. I don't see this as possible because I know for a fact that proxy sites have been banned from the college intranet, so I say no. Because I haven't. She says she'll check the reason for my account being banned.
Aparrantly, I have been logged as using a proxy site named http://www.unblockfacebook.com which is weird... well... because... I do not even have a facebook. I know that proxy sites can unban anything, but I am patient. I don't feel the need to go on myspace 24 / 7, so I can live without it at college. I don't use youtube, because I use crunchyroll which isn't banned. I don't think, "I MUST GET TO THIS WEBSITE" when something tells me it is banned... SO WHEN IN THE HELL DID I GO ON THIS PROXY SITE? I don't think I did. Therefore, my only reasoning is... some freak got my password.
I have no idea how this happened. Maybe watching me in the IT suite? I know that nobody could guess it at all. It's not anything obviously connected to me in any way, so how did this person get it?
This lead me to thinking, what do password scammers even get out of it? Fair enough to those people who get passwords from email so they can get bank details from the internet banking services and get all your money (actually... not fair enough to them... the thieves), but what do you get out of getting my college password? You disable my account by using a proxy site? Well done. I enabled it and changed my password. You caused me a minor inconvenience that took about 5 minutes to resolve. Surely, now, your life is complete.
I just don't get password scammers. Especially those that try to get your myspace through comments and bulletins. Hackers and phishers just annoy me to no end. Why can't people just go on with their own lives and stop invading the lives of others?
Which leads me to my next point. Hackers. And I don't mean password hackers. I mean COMPUTER hackers. The kind of people that Zonealarm was invented to foil. My mother had an experience with a hacker once through a chat room. I don't know how it happened, I just know that the CD drawer started opening and closing by itself (not too weird... just go to windows media player and press eject), a message flashed on the screen saying, "Welcome to my world. Computer hell," and then the computer promptly died, leaving my mother having to pay to get it fixed. I would love to know what the hacker gained from that scenario... apart from (hopefully) a prison sentence for idiocy. All the hacker managed to do was scare my mother and cause her to pay to get it fixed. The money wasn't even going to the hacker! Although, I suppose breaking people's computers by hacking would be a good marketting ploy for people who fix computers for a living. Hack all the computers in the area and they'll come to you to get it fixed. Genius! Irritating... and illegal... but genius!
Viruses are also in the same catagory as hackers. Pure pointlessness in an email. There is no need for them. They might be a bit of a laugh until the virus is traced and you end up with the police on your backs "interrogating" you with keyboards in the head. The irony. Especially the idiot that created a virus from an internet café. Because THAT'S not gonna get logged. There is no need for viruses at all, especially not embedded into websites (I am currently getting 4 Trojan Horses a day from crunchyroll... but my virus scanner gets rid of them all for me, so I refuse to be beaten!). I don't see the point. What is even MORE pointless is causing mass panic by dispensing fake virus warnings. There is nothing at all to be gained from this.
One of the most famous ones of these was the Budweiser Frogs email scare back in 1999. It's still running today, because people are too idiotic to check on these things before blindly flailing their arms and running around like a headless chicken screaming "I'M GONNA GET A VIRUS!!! WAAA!" Here is the email for you all to giggle at.
"READ IMMEDIATELY AND PASS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW
Someone is sending out a very cute screensaver of the Budweiser Frogs. If you download it, you will lose everything! Your hard drive will crash and someone from the Internet will get your screen name and password!
DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
It just went into circulation yesterday. Please distribute this message. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft.
Please share it with everyone that might access the Internet. Once again, Pass This Along To EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there is NO remedy for it at this time.
This is VERY important. If you receive a screen saver from a friend or anyone you may not know with the Budweiser Frogs in it, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT OR OPEN THE FILE!
Press the forward button on your email program and send this notice to EVERYONE you know. Let's keep our email safe for everyone."
For starters, which screen name and password? Secondly, if this email is going to be forwarded to everybody, it will take a few weeks to get around, but everybody who gets will will think it went into circulation "yesterday." Considering this scam has been running since 1999, that isn't likely. Thirdly, why trust AOL.
And here's another version. This one is much more funny.
"DANGER!!! VIRUS ALERT!!!
THIS IS A NEW TWIST. SOME CREEPOID SCAM-ARTIST IS SENDING OUT A VERY DESIRABLE SCREEN-SAVER {{THE BUD FROGS}}. IF YOU DOWN-LOAD IT, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING!!!! YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL <<>> CRASH!!
DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! IT JUST WENT INTO CIRCULATION ON 05/13/97, AS FAR AS I KNOW!!
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS WARNING TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE... BELOW IS WHAT THE SCREENSAVER PROGGIE WOULD LQQK LIKE!
File: BUDSAVER.EXE (24643 bytes) DL Time (28800 bps): < 1 minute"
Ok... for starters, the writer of this warning doesn't even know how to speak English. Proggie? Lqqk? Kerblam? Are you a comic? And this whole, "As far as I know" thing doesn't make it seem very legitimate to me, at all.
And the last version, similar to the one above.
"BUD FROGS SCREEN SAVER
PASS THIS ON FAST AND FAR--VIRUS WARNING
DANGER!!! VIRUS ALERT!!!
THIS IS A NEW TWIST. SOME SCAM-ARTIST IS SENDING OUT A VERY DESIRABLE SCREEN-SAVER (THE BUD FROGS), BUT IF YOU DOWN-LOAD IT, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING!!!!
DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! HERE'S EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE - AN EXACT COPY....DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE BELOW...JUST BEWARE OF IT.
IT JUST WENT INTO CIRCULATION YESTERDAY, AS FAR AS WE KNOW....BE CAREFUL.
"SAJ" 5/13/97 . . . . PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE ...THANX TO ABYTEDOC / BYTEDOC1 FOR THIS INPUT."
I would like to know where the people warning us about the virus get off sending us the virus to make us aware of it. You send us a copy of the file that contains the virus to say, "beware of emails containing this." It's like those people who knock on your front door to sell you a sign saying you don't want people knocking on your door to sell you stuff. Or the pop-up-blockers that pop-up to tell you that it has stopped a pop-up. It's just stupid.
Ok, I am mildly annoyed to say the least right now.
I just tried to log into my college account to get in the computers. A friendly little message popped up on my screen.
"Your account has been disabled. Please see your system administrator."
So, as you may expect, I am completely confused by this. I see no reason for my account to be disabled as I have been obeying all the rules (apart from right now, of course... and when I go on crunchyroll... and read manga... but those sites aren't banned, so it's all good). Obviously, I see the system administrator to find out why the hell my account has been banned. She asks me if I have been using any proxy sites. I don't see this as possible because I know for a fact that proxy sites have been banned from the college intranet, so I say no. Because I haven't. She says she'll check the reason for my account being banned.
Aparrantly, I have been logged as using a proxy site named http://www.unblockfacebook.com which is weird... well... because... I do not even have a facebook. I know that proxy sites can unban anything, but I am patient. I don't feel the need to go on myspace 24 / 7, so I can live without it at college. I don't use youtube, because I use crunchyroll which isn't banned. I don't think, "I MUST GET TO THIS WEBSITE" when something tells me it is banned... SO WHEN IN THE HELL DID I GO ON THIS PROXY SITE? I don't think I did. Therefore, my only reasoning is... some freak got my password.
I have no idea how this happened. Maybe watching me in the IT suite? I know that nobody could guess it at all. It's not anything obviously connected to me in any way, so how did this person get it?
This lead me to thinking, what do password scammers even get out of it? Fair enough to those people who get passwords from email so they can get bank details from the internet banking services and get all your money (actually... not fair enough to them... the thieves), but what do you get out of getting my college password? You disable my account by using a proxy site? Well done. I enabled it and changed my password. You caused me a minor inconvenience that took about 5 minutes to resolve. Surely, now, your life is complete.
I just don't get password scammers. Especially those that try to get your myspace through comments and bulletins. Hackers and phishers just annoy me to no end. Why can't people just go on with their own lives and stop invading the lives of others?
Which leads me to my next point. Hackers. And I don't mean password hackers. I mean COMPUTER hackers. The kind of people that Zonealarm was invented to foil. My mother had an experience with a hacker once through a chat room. I don't know how it happened, I just know that the CD drawer started opening and closing by itself (not too weird... just go to windows media player and press eject), a message flashed on the screen saying, "Welcome to my world. Computer hell," and then the computer promptly died, leaving my mother having to pay to get it fixed. I would love to know what the hacker gained from that scenario... apart from (hopefully) a prison sentence for idiocy. All the hacker managed to do was scare my mother and cause her to pay to get it fixed. The money wasn't even going to the hacker! Although, I suppose breaking people's computers by hacking would be a good marketting ploy for people who fix computers for a living. Hack all the computers in the area and they'll come to you to get it fixed. Genius! Irritating... and illegal... but genius!
Viruses are also in the same catagory as hackers. Pure pointlessness in an email. There is no need for them. They might be a bit of a laugh until the virus is traced and you end up with the police on your backs "interrogating" you with keyboards in the head. The irony. Especially the idiot that created a virus from an internet café. Because THAT'S not gonna get logged. There is no need for viruses at all, especially not embedded into websites (I am currently getting 4 Trojan Horses a day from crunchyroll... but my virus scanner gets rid of them all for me, so I refuse to be beaten!). I don't see the point. What is even MORE pointless is causing mass panic by dispensing fake virus warnings. There is nothing at all to be gained from this.
One of the most famous ones of these was the Budweiser Frogs email scare back in 1999. It's still running today, because people are too idiotic to check on these things before blindly flailing their arms and running around like a headless chicken screaming "I'M GONNA GET A VIRUS!!! WAAA!" Here is the email for you all to giggle at.
"READ IMMEDIATELY AND PASS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW
Someone is sending out a very cute screensaver of the Budweiser Frogs. If you download it, you will lose everything! Your hard drive will crash and someone from the Internet will get your screen name and password!
DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
It just went into circulation yesterday. Please distribute this message. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft.
Please share it with everyone that might access the Internet. Once again, Pass This Along To EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there is NO remedy for it at this time.
This is VERY important. If you receive a screen saver from a friend or anyone you may not know with the Budweiser Frogs in it, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT OR OPEN THE FILE!
Press the forward button on your email program and send this notice to EVERYONE you know. Let's keep our email safe for everyone."
For starters, which screen name and password? Secondly, if this email is going to be forwarded to everybody, it will take a few weeks to get around, but everybody who gets will will think it went into circulation "yesterday." Considering this scam has been running since 1999, that isn't likely. Thirdly, why trust AOL.
And here's another version. This one is much more funny.
"DANGER!!! VIRUS ALERT!!!
THIS IS A NEW TWIST. SOME CREEPOID SCAM-ARTIST IS SENDING OUT A VERY DESIRABLE SCREEN-SAVER {{THE BUD FROGS}}. IF YOU DOWN-LOAD IT, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING!!!! YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL <<>> CRASH!!
DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! IT JUST WENT INTO CIRCULATION ON 05/13/97, AS FAR AS I KNOW!!
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS WARNING TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE... BELOW IS WHAT THE SCREENSAVER PROGGIE WOULD LQQK LIKE!
File: BUDSAVER.EXE (24643 bytes) DL Time (28800 bps): < 1 minute"
Ok... for starters, the writer of this warning doesn't even know how to speak English. Proggie? Lqqk? Kerblam? Are you a comic? And this whole, "As far as I know" thing doesn't make it seem very legitimate to me, at all.
And the last version, similar to the one above.
"BUD FROGS SCREEN SAVER
PASS THIS ON FAST AND FAR--VIRUS WARNING
DANGER!!! VIRUS ALERT!!!
THIS IS A NEW TWIST. SOME SCAM-ARTIST IS SENDING OUT A VERY DESIRABLE SCREEN-SAVER (THE BUD FROGS), BUT IF YOU DOWN-LOAD IT, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING!!!!
DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! HERE'S EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE - AN EXACT COPY....DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE BELOW...JUST BEWARE OF IT.
IT JUST WENT INTO CIRCULATION YESTERDAY, AS FAR AS WE KNOW....BE CAREFUL.
"SAJ" 5/13/97 . . . . PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE ...THANX TO ABYTEDOC / BYTEDOC1 FOR THIS INPUT."
I would like to know where the people warning us about the virus get off sending us the virus to make us aware of it. You send us a copy of the file that contains the virus to say, "beware of emails containing this." It's like those people who knock on your front door to sell you a sign saying you don't want people knocking on your door to sell you stuff. Or the pop-up-blockers that pop-up to tell you that it has stopped a pop-up. It's just stupid.
