City Strolls.com "Technical stuff " (Have u something useful to add?)

A Better Upgrade, Not a Faster Throw-Away
An activist guide to minimizing the social and environmental
impact of computers and reforming the industry

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If you have a technical problem, before you attempt to fix it:

"Grabbing the brass rail" is what technical workers do (or hopefully do) in nuclear power
stations, if anything goes wrong. You need to know what the problem is before you can solve it.
Grabbing the brass rail gives you time to think before you do anything rash that may add
to the problem.

And. Do one thing at a time, check it. Then do the next thing. That way you keep track of the
situation and help to avoid adding more confusion.

If you are looking for help:

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
This is not a help desk. For reference only. It will help you to get answers to your problem
quicker without wasting to much of yours or anyone elses time.

----------------------------------------------------

Burn all .gifs
Special interests are manipulating the political process in the European
Union in an attempt to introduce costly US-style software patents.

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the press in the past twelve months: figuring all network users simply as consumer

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..If they're emails from people warning about viruses then they're always hoaxes.
The virus is getting people to mail each other...
Always do an online search to check first and don't send them on to other people.

If someone (or an automated virus scanner) is mailing you to say that you sent
somebody a virus, then it's v. likely that it's just a virus which picks random addresses
from the address books on machines it's infected.

False Authority Syndrome

The next time you receive a virus warning by email. Here is some advice:

_______________________________

Example of hoax virus warning e mail :

Subject: virus warning / directions for deleting

Hi, Sorry to say this - but a virus has been passed to me through an
'address book virus' which appeared  UNOPENED on my computer. 
Since you are in my address book you will find it  on your computer also.  the virus
(called jdbg.exe) is not detected by  Norton/McAfee/AVG Anti-virus systems.
The virus sits quietly for 14 days  before damaging the system, whether or
not you sent e-mails to your  contacts. Basically, that means you will pass
it along unknowingly, as I  may have to you.  I was sent the e-mail and am
now passing it on to you to  enable you to check for the virus, and how to
get rid of it.  Please do this, it is very simple to do and takes a couple
of minutes.

1.  Go to Start, click Find & Search.
2.  In the folder option type jdbgmgr.exe
3.  Be sure to search you C drive & all the sub folders plus any other
drives you may have.  
4.  click Find now or Search.
5.  Do not open it.  The virus has a teddy bear icon with the name
jdbgmgr.exe
6.  Now go to Edit (on the menu bar) & "Select All" to highlight the file
without opening it.
7.  Go to Edit (on the menu bar) & select  DELETE.  It will then go into
your Recycle Bin.
8.  Empty your recycle bin.

If you find the virus, you must contact all the people in your address book,
so that they may eradicate the virus from their own address books.  To do


this ...

1. Open a new E-mail message
2. Click the icon Address Book next 'To'
3 . Highlight every name and to "BCC"
4.Copy this message & paste to email, this will affect everyone in your
address book.

with apologies

End of example

__________________________________

My first experience of virus scare hoax.
I did what most novices do and sent the message to my mail list
(I didn't want to be the cause of crashing computers)

Wrong,what I should have done was take proper advice before
doing anything
(I should have grabbed the brass rail. More of this later)

I should have put the so called "virus code" in the search window
and check its validity, which wouldhave solved the problem.
However we are all experts after the event. If you don't make
mistakes you will never learn anything.The following is the advice
I wish I would have had, but will be used the next time .

__From_________________________________

Eddie

Hi all
- it's a hoax ignore
(see below) http://tinyurl.com/5ylqc

___________________________________

Baz

Bob,
This is a hoax
(from a few years back, even). That file is part of the Microsoft Java runtime and
should be there, however its not serious if you did delete it.
http://tinyurl.com/rbq9

My best advice to you (and to anyone else you want to send this to) is that you should never give
credence computer security advice emails that ask you to do something to your machine or forward
the message to everyone - its an almost certain sign that the message is a hoax.

http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/

Check with computer security companies online, they have free databases you can search, or even
check google, searching for filenames they mention in the mail. If there really is a virus risk it will get
mentioned, even if your copy of their tool doesn't find it.

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html
(see)
http://tinyurl.com/3o1

______________________________________

Luke

If they're emails from people warning about viruses then they're always hoaxes. The virus is getting
people to mail each other... Always do an online search to check first and don't send them on to other people.

If someone (or an automated virus scanner) is mailing you to say that you sent somebody a virus,
then it's v. likely that it's just a virus which picks random addresses from the address books on
machines it's infected.

If it's an unexpected mail with an attachment from someone then the mail probably contains a virus
and the only important thing is not to open it - don't click on the attachment. You're protected
to some extent because you're using Mozilla. Lots of viruses exploit Microsoft Mail programs
(Outlook). Advise others to use Mozilla too - or the new Mozilla Firefox browser and the mail
tool that comes with it.

_______________________________________

Get Mozilla its free

______________________________________

____Interesting Links on the subject of authority and obedience___

Well there's a lot of politics of technology you might want to get into,
but I think an interesting context for this stuff would be to write an
article about false authority syndrome. This is what people are playing
on when they tell you "do this, I asked blah and they said it was the
right thing" in virus hoaxes, or by assuming official-sounding titles,
or dumping in enough jargon you think they know what they're talking about.
Exactly the same tricks are used all the times by politicians, to spread
ideas as empty and dangerous as email virus hoaxes. Discuss.

-Baz

 

False authority syndrome (Computer Knowledge Virus Tutorial)

Radical thinking: experts and their qualifications.

The pearls of obedience Stanley Milgram,

Milgrams 1972 experiment

 

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