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Spyware Removal: Drop PC in Dumpster
morganx writes "The New York Times is reporting that some users prefer throwing out their PCs and buying new ones to actually removing their spyware. Does this mean lots of free hardware for the dumpster-divers among us?"
I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.
I find people disposing affected PCs highly irresponsible. Would someone think of those homeless children who dumpster-dived and brought home (or somewhere whatever) such PC? It's like throwing out old smoke alarm with perfectly good Uranium bits inside, someone's going to get hurt.
The friendly article mentioned that "people are increasingly unwilling to take out their 'software tweezers' to clean their machines", maybe it's time for manufacturers to install a HardReset button (like in a PDA) with a 1 GB ReadOnly Flash drive, which resets everything back to factory.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Drop timothy in the dumpster... along with Zonk, Taco, etc.
It just boggles the mind that people would throw out a Windows machine and then replace it with another! Windows machine which is immediately susceptible and commonly infected within twenty minutes or so of being re-connected to the Internet. This happens often even before you have time to install updates. The old fool me once, fool me twice adage comes to mind.
:-) Interestingly in the linked article, Dr. Wong does replace her HP system with a Powerbook. This has been our experience as well. We have replaced most of our Windows based systems with Macs running OS X leaving our Windows systems headless and sitting behind a Macintosh and a firewall with respect to the Internet. For grad student systems, giving them a Mac is the best possible solution. They can download all the software they want, surf the web and write their email all on the same system they use for their data analysis without worry and I'm not getting calls or visits to my office saying "Ummmmmmm. I think my system is infected" Time devoted to troubleshooting has gone to essentially nothing. Additionally, the last meeting I had down in our computer science department revealed that a good portion of the faculty were also switching from Windows/Linux/SGI to OS X. That was encouraging for a whole lot of reasons.
The smarter move would be to migrate to a system that is less affected by worms/virus/security issues. For the vast majority, I would think that system would be OS X. But hey, that's just me. If your time is that valuable that you would simply replace your system rather than wiping it and reinstalling the OS, you think that you would either be smart enough to think different. Of course clicking on the referenced article makes you sit through an ad for Dell unless you dismiss the ad, so what does that mean?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Saw this dupe article in the mysterious future....emailed the on duty editor as fast as I could, and it went anyways well *dons flamesuit* let's get ready to rumble....
...in bed
And the dupes they just keep a coming.
I'm typing this from a dumpster right now. Thank you, spyware.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/16/180 221&tid=126&tid=172&tid=98
Okay, I'm new here, but holy crap, these dupes are almost worse than spam!
/. anymore?
:-)
Seriously. Do the admins just not even read
Heh, guess they're just smarter than the rest of us then.
By the looks of it, "the doctor who replaced her infected computer", and "says she no longer clicks on pop-ups" did more than replace her comupter. She switched to a Mac (and spent a bit more than $500 for that 51" Powerbook ;-)).
B
Do you really think the kind of person who (1) lets his PC fill up with spyware, then (2) chooses to spend $500 on a new PC instead of spending a couple hours cleaning it out, is going to want to learn Linux?
"OMG WTF happened to My Computer? Where's Internet Explorer? Why do I have to have a password?"
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
So, some friends of mine are going dumpster diving. This is back in the middle of the tech bubble, so fairly cash-rich companies are continually throwing out good equipment as they buy more. Anyway, the experienced one is driving around looking for suitable places, with the newbie riding shotgun. They pull up behind a high end computer service business in a strip mall to check out the goods. The experienced one had told many stories (and provided proof) of incredible finds in places like this, and spurred on by these stories the newbie hops out of the car, runs over, and vaults himself over the lip of the dumpster, feet first inside. What greeted him wasn't the spoils of computer repair, but the spoiled discards of the Chinese restaurant two doors down from the computer business...
In Phoenix, in the Summer...
And there weren't any computer parts discarded that day by that shop anyway...
Boy would that suck...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults."
Maybe the better question is: Why do service centers charge so much? Seems like there's plenty of blame to go around.
I'm quite shocked to see so many dupes posted all the time. Do the editors scan the stories being posted, at all? They seem to be so unaware of what is already posted... the worst cases being dupes occuring on the same day (not this story).
Seriously, I think that given that Slashdot has become so big in terms of users, the editors need to be more serious about making sure dupes don't happen... if the editors are too busy, appoint a dupe editor who will catch the dupes before they are posted. All it requires is for the dupe editor to do a search on Slashdot to see if a story has already been posted...
And I emailed the "editor" telling them it was a dupe a good 10 minutes before it went live.
Hello? [thump thump thump] Is this mic on? Come in, Rangoon...
Crow T. Trollbot
It's Americium-241.
For more info on americium, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Objection, Your Honor! Assumes digital media not in evidence!
Last I heard, MS was prohibiting OEMs from shipping recovery CDs. That hard drive is all you get.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Ordinary people getting frustrated is one thing. They lack the right skills. A PhD in computer science is a whole other question.
..of a guy I was phone supporting whom lived in Queens, New York:
Him: "Ahhh it's hopeless.."
Me: "Nah, let's just try the next solution.."
Him: "Ya know what would fix this up good?"
Me: *chuckle* "What's that?"
Him: "A 2 lb. sledge. I tell ya, 2 lb. sledge fixes EVERYTHING.."
Me: rofl
The accent was priceless.. the word 'sledge' must have been invented in NY..
I have several customers who have migrated to Linux for similar reasons. They are all beginner consumers.
The problem largely is that tech support people treat consumers as idiots incapabile of learning the system. I usually start by explaining spyware, how it gets on your computer, how to avoid it/prevent it, etc. Then if it continues, I start suggesting Linux. I show them via a demo system how easy it is to use, and they are usually sold on the idea pretty quickly.
Computers aren't that hard to understand if we dispense with the tech talk and actually focus on communicating with the consumers.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Is one of the benefits of being a Slashdot subscriber NOT having to see duplicate stories on the front page?
As a subscriber I can answer this with an authoritive "no fscking way".
You do get to see articles before they "go live" to the hoi-polloi, and you can even e-mail the editor if you think there's a problem with the article (say, if you know it's a dupe from about 48 hours ago).
You can see for yourself just how well this all works out.
If it takes 4 hours to totally clean off an severely infested PC, then they might as well get a new PC. If it only takes me two hours, then they're halfway to a new PC. Hmmmm...
Suppose the hard drive fails, and (like a client) they haven't done a backup in a year. Suppose the PC is a 3 year old PIII PC. New hard drive: $60. Time to install Windows ME (or whatever) with all the drivers: at least an hour, but probably two. Cost: around $150 or a little more for a 3 year old PC. (Add more for software installation and network setup, and I do.) Again, that's halfway to a modern PC that is much faster, has a warranty, and has XP preloaded.
Not that I wind up going hungry when the client gets a new PC: there's still networking, data transfer, and software installation and setup that needs to get done. But the cost of new PCs has really changed the cost-benefit of fixing versus replacing.
Of coruse, the best part is when the client says, "Oh, and just take away that old, 'broken' PC. It is of no use to me now." Away it goes with me, because my time is free to me...
And don't forget, my rates are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP compared to visits from The Geek Squad. If a consumer has to go through them, then the math in favor of a new PC gets even stronger...
I can't say I'm wild about this situation, but at least you can see why we're here at it.
I would guess most people don't see an OS, they see a computer. When they get pissed at the OS, they are really pissed at the computer. So they throw it away. In their thinking, the Compaq running Windows XP is very different from the Dell running Windows XP. After all, the computer boxes look different.
Maybe people think of their computer like a VCR. If it stops working, you don't get the $2 cleaning fluid tape, you throw it away and buy another.
It is too bad these people don't donate their old computers.
I am a person who believes it is a SCAM when colleges buy bran spanking new computers every 2 years, and use property tax to do it. Whenever I have walked around a computer lab, all I see is Word and papers being written, IE and the web being surfed, and the very occasional comp sci student writing code. All this could be done on PIII's. Hell, PII's would work, although it would take a few minutes to load software.
There is a saying in the advertising world. Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. It is a shame, because often people buy hardware they will never utilize. If someone wants to check email, what good is the newest computer? Salespeople don't sell based on your needs. They want to make the largest commision possible, or push whatever product their managers told them to get out the door. And they lie to do it. I was at Best Buy, just walking around. Most of the time, the salespeople in the Computer section are so busy that it is impossible to get one (good thing in my opinion). But this time one saw me, and came up. He said "What computer do you have?". I lied, I did not want a hard sell, I just wanted to browse, so I said I had a P4 2.0ghz with XP. The sales guy said "Oh, I guess that is okay, but if you want the latest security, and more speed, our P4's have XP with the latest security updates, and they will run the latest games better".
The SOB tried to sneak in a "latest secuirty updates" in the middle of his sales pitch, to put a seed of fear in my mind about my current OS. Gee... thanks for saying anyone can download the latest patches. Gee... thanks for trying to sell me an e-machines.
The friendly article mentioned that "people are increasingly unwilling to take out their 'software tweezers' to clean their machines", maybe it's time for manufacturers to install a HardReset button (like in a PDA) with a 1 GB ReadOnly Flash drive, which resets everything back to factory.
Oh God NOOO!!!! Please, no! These assholes who sell computers are already sending CD's with images only. I have a laptop which the recovery CD's are not the OS which I can configure, but an Image of the hard drive, which sets up the partitions the way Microsoft wants. I can't install the OS with a partition left over for Linux.
Give us the freaking OS we paid for. If I buy a computer, and the OS is forced on my, that I must buy it if I want the PC, then at least give me the OS on a CD and not an image.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
You want people to return their PCs to factory defaults so that their PCs just get infected again while you takes hours to download all your Windows security patches? Not bloody likely. Are you being serious, or do you work for a spyware company?
It's far simpler to buy a new PC that has a year or two's worth of security patches already in place -- less for you to download. My uncle has already replaced one PC because of spyware. He's on a dial-up connection. He's not going to sit for hours upon hours so his old PC can reinstall security patches.
Yeah, she must have spent a few grand on the crane alone ;)
because the geek squad @ Best Buy is charging little old ladies $300 to "fix" thier PC (when it needs rescueing from spyware) and simply add a spyware detector but not actually use it.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
As a memeber of the Geek Squad, I must say you make some interesting points. Mostof our business is removing spyware and viruses from machines, which, most of the time, is pretty easy. It does take us a long time though (running a lot of scans, and testing the PC to make sure it's ok). Generally, at our Best Buy store anyway, you can expect to pay $59 for a diagnostic (which basically includes runing memtest86, some DFT, Lucifer, making sure your optical drives operate, and scanning for spyware and viruses), plus $79 for "OS service" (spyware & virus removal, a repair install if necessary + removal). Not really that bad of a deal for the average user really, who really wants his or her machine back, "exactly" how it was "before". We try to tack on NAV2005 or NIS2005 ($49.99 + $10 install/update, $59.99 + $10 install/update, respectively) and Webroot SpySweeper ($29.99 + $10 install + update). As absurd as it sounds, a lot of customers believe they can not install software, and trust us to do so. The prices for in-home worst is a bit higher of course, but brining your machine to a Best Buy or GS store isn't such a bad idea to most customers. And believe me, I recommend plenty of customers just buy a new machine (cost exceeds value).
We are all Gods unwanted children. Did you ever consider he may hate you too?
I'm assuming this is mainly geared towards Americans, considering it's printed in the NYTimes. But, think about the mindset for a minute. Americans are the individuals who are famous for the Biggest Trucks, Supersized Meals, Huge Homes, etc. Americans are known for their lifestyles of excess, to put it short. And before you ask, yes, I'm an American. I think this is simply people looking for an excuse to buy the new "Top of the line" systems. People will use Anything as an excuse to go buy something, when it comes down to it. Otherwise, organizations like The Home Shopping Network would never profit. "I already have three brooms, but that one has nifty rubber bristles that pick up hair!" and the like. So, if you want to get all Psychological on the situation, we're creatures of waste. =) Hell, if I had the money to do it, I'd donate the waxed PC and set the HDD on fire, then buy a completely new one too.
Shouldn't THEY pay YOU to find problems in the stories?
Just the other day I made this very observation when I emailed an editor pointing out a grammatical error (usage of "your" instead of "you're") in a Mysterious Future post.
Alas, no reply offering employment along these lines. Still, hope springs eternal.
I have had to set up several new Dell's from scratch that lack a floppy drive, yet use SATA harddrive's. I have found that the easiest way is just to find the sata drivers and slipstream them into a SP2 installation disc.
Instructions can be found all over google, and it typically takes less than an hour or so to make a good slipstream that you can use on most every computers' installation.
Some links i had bookmarked: Here and here.
Its not because people want to pay for a new PC. People will get spyware and not understanding how a computer works, they will think its broken. Unless they have kind geek friend to help them out they are pretty much screwed. ( ever tried calling in your computer manufacturer about spyware? )
I know alot of people who will just throw it away, and be done with computers altogether (which may be why home PC business is doing so bad.
I think that might be the editors' intention- to let people that missed an article the first time around have a shot at reading and commenting on it. Now, perhaps if they would post and LET PEOPLE KNOW that that was their intention, repeat articles wouldn't get flooded by 100 "It's a dupe" posts.
Slashdot public opinion seems to be moving a bit in favor of the "It's a dupe!" crowd...Not that they're the majority, but where I saw -1 Redundant on all of the "dupe" posts a few months back, I'm seeing not only positive, but +4 and +5 moderations. If the editors are posting repeats with a plan in mind, they should say something, because it's obvious that a lot of people are regarding it as a problem.
Check out NLite to slipstream service packs, hotfixes, answer files, and drivers. It works really well for all my custom windows disks. Get it here: http://www.nliteos.com/
Well, if they guy makes $1000/hr, then if it takes Mr. Tucker more than 24 minutes to clean his PC, it is cheaper for him to buy a new one.
Of course, then there's set-up time, application installation...make it two hours....
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Heh, I'm sure you were just being funny. But on a serious note, if all the customer has are the OEM disks, then that's what must be used. I know ME sucks total ass, but I would never pirate XP (or any other piece of software) to a customer. Unless they are willing to pay for an upgraded OS...the software they have is all that gets upgraded.
Life is not for the lazy.
Some computers need ME due to applications and/or device drivers that only run under 9X/ME. I used to have one. The manufacturer refused to release any softwafe updates that would allow it to work properly with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. They suggested that I buy a new computer.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Most BIOSes now have the ability to accept USB devices as 'Legacy' keyboard and mouse devices. IE, my Micro$oft Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard and Mouse work perfectly in BIOS/Setup/etc -- Even though they connect through Bluetooth to the USB Bluetooth Dongle. All you need is to enable that support. Should work fine. Even on a Hell^H^H^H^HDell
To the darkened skies once more, and ever onward.
I know what you mean. I work in the field, too.
But what most people don't realize is how much work they'll have if they get a new PC.
Consider all the things that you've accumulated on your system and how much you've tweaked it -- settings, bookmarks, documents, serial keys, music, etc. You've had it for at least a year. And in all that time, you've done a lot with their PC. Do they know how to get all those settings and data to the new PC?
Secondly, what about software? Most customers lose their original discs. Some systems don't even come with discs. Are they going to re-purchase everything? It's illegal to install an OEM Office onto a new PC. Will they buy a new Office? (No, they probably won't, but it's something you SHOULD bring up.)
Third, there's hardware changes. What have they added? They will have to move that to the new PC, if it will work! (If the new system, for instance, had 768MB RAM and the new system uses a different type of RAM.)
Fourth, what are they really getting with that system? There's a chance that the $199.99 powerhouse is anything but and may actually be SLOWER than what they have now!
Finally, there's preventing this from happening again. Do they know how?
They usually realize at this point that they're going to need help anyway. Since they can't perform these tasks, that means they're going to have to hire someone to do it. Suddenly a $199.99 PC is starting to look unrealistic.
Of course, my OPINION is that it's better to repair than replace. I'm sure someone more clever can offer valid contrary arguments. I think replacement-as-policy (and I also put "rebuilds" under this category) is ultimately a longer road. I suggest it only if the new system is going to be much better out of the box.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Hardware is cheap, but as we all know most of the margin from these sales goes to microsoft. Talk about unfair. The people responsible for the mess get the benefit.
The other thnig that bothers me is this constant reference to Apple's "3 per cent" market share. I swear the *majority* of computer users I see outside corporate settings are on macs; this includes a significant sampiling of 1) open sourcerers 2) cafe denizens 3) academics and 4) self-employed/very small business people. So what gives?
Well, Apples last a long time. Suppose Apples last 3 times as long as PCs. (On the basis of this story, the ratio is probably increasing.) Then the actual market share in computer-months is about 9%, not 3%. Now suppose that Apple people actually LIKE their computers, and spend three times as much time with them. Then the user share is about 27%. About a quarter of the actual minutes people spend with computers would be with Macs. Accounting for hidebound corporations and government agencies this looks more like real life to me.
mt
(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! Check those fucking dupes!!! MORONS!!!)
Important Stuff
# Try to put *NEW* stories on the system instead of fucking dupes!!! MORONS!!!
# Read other people's stories before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said!!! MORONS!!!
[Addition of the term "MORONS!!!" is my contribution to good user interface design.]
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I tell my customers after a 15min. glance (free of charge), that they have 2 options:
:)
:)
1) I clean it there (provided they have dsl), and it will take anywhere from 2-6 hours and after that it may still require a 2hr. re-install of the OS.
OR
2) I take it to my shop (where I can work on it and others and play Quake), and charge them a 2hrs. labor flat fee.
Most choose 1, i don't know why I always recommend 2, because, hey, I love my Quake...
When the bill is in the range that they could have gotten a new computer, they realize their mistake. However, I do set them up with a spyware blocker, MS' Official, Firefox for browsing (with a 5 minute WOW tutorial), and recommend them switching to Thunderbird for email, and recommend they purchase Norton for Anti-Virus (or update).
(And yes, for most of them IE is their ISP... not kidding, 'I pay SBC, but Internet Explorer is my ISP...right?').
I do what the customer asks, and when I point out that they are asking for the incorrect thing, they get indignant and demand their ignorance! So I provide them with that for which they ask.
I have also had some who say 'Can't I just get a new computer and give this one to the kids?', why yes... or you could just have me get your data backed up, restore the os, and you can have it all back good as new for 2 hrs. labor... "NO, I want a new one", and so it goes.
I got a free 1ghz. laptop that way, customer got angry said get my data off it and throw it in the trash. Passed my K6-500 compaq Lappy to my son,(Mepis 3.3.1), running good, and I get the new trash
Saving data costs money and most people want that done even though they do not/will not do it before they have problems...
What part of,"An emergency on your part does not constitute one on mine" do you not understand?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
For starters, you need to go to some other Web site than MSN or the Microsoft intranet, Bill.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
It can take two IF you have EVERY freakin' tool available for deleting files that are heavily protected, hidden, etc. and you nail EVERY freakin' Registry key and hidden DLL on the system.
Depending on the speed of the client's machine and how much hard disk he has, it can take one to two hours just to run a scan with ONE spyware tool. If you have to run more than one tool (almost always), there's at least another hour.
THEN you have to find the stuff the tools DIDN'T find (almost always), THEN you have to clean off stuff that you found but which is hidden, protected from everything except System privilege, etc.
Yes, it can easily take four hours. Which is why I charge $25/hour, not $90 - because most clients can't afford $90 for exactly the reason that it's ridiculous to spend $400 cleaning a $400 machine - or one they got free from a relative.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Amazingly, no-one seems to have complained yet that this story is a dupe of this one from Sunday.
That must be fairly newsworthy in itself!
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon
I believe the article misrepresents the options available to users.
Someone who works in the internet industry and who holds a Ph.D. in computer science thought it "cheaper and faster" to buy another new PC running Windows. A director of a internet-related research group considers this a "rational response." Followed by a list of statistics related to Windows viruses, ad- and mal-ware. Then a professor of computer science at Yale, with another story of another infected Windows machine.
Then a few paragraphs about Microsoft releasing software to combat the problem, noting 800 _million_ uses of the software this year alone, but then not offering any connection to how this affected the personal stories mentioned in the article. Not at all, I would guess, but then this isn't addressed.
Then a story of a woman, a physician, solved her problem by buying a computer that doesn't run Windows. The case selected for this inclusion used nearly the most expensive possible option available, a top-end Macintosh laptop at $3K. The final two stories listed a stockbroker who is at "wits' [sic] end" and considering a new Windows-based PC purchase, and a bank manager who was the only one to clean their own computer of the offending software, albeit via a 15+ hour process of self-education and work.
So what does a reader of this story who doesn't know that much about computers (ie, most users) learn? That very smart, very well-educated people -- even those that are computer professionals, are throwing their old Windows computers out and buying new ones because it's just too complicated or troublesome to fix the old ones. This behavior isn't questioned, but bolstered by the declaration of an important-sounding research group that claims this is a "rational response." And even if you do replace your Windows computer, it'll get infected all over again.
The one person who buys something else other than Windows has to pay $3000 for it. The other person who teaches themselves to remove the infection and hopefully combat it successfully in the future must go through hours of self-teaching and work.
However, the fact that this virus, mal- and ad-ware epidemic only exists on Windows is not discussed. Linux is not discussed. That the woman who bought a $3000 Macintosh could have bought a $500 Macintosh that would have offered her the same safety is not discussed. Hell, even the option of inserting a restore CD and returning the computer back to the way it was delivered to the owner is not discussed.
These are all valid options. I'm not a Ph.D., a physician, or member of a research firm so maybe my opinions don't mean as much. I'm not an employee of a Windows-based PC manufacturer (I will mention though that I the ad that I had to click through to read this article was for Dell). But I use a Macintosh, and have used them exclusively for the past 10+ years, and have never had a single infestation. Ever. So what do I know.
Oh yeah, that I have options. Successful, inexpensive options that were completely overlooked in this article. And after reading the article, if I didn't know any better (and ran Windows), I'd be far more likely to buy a new computer to replace my old infected PC. Maybe even with a new... umm... Dell?