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Ok so I get a residential service ticket this morning. I dont get them very often btw. So anyway I arrive at the house, greet the customer and inquire about the service request (no internet). Customer invites me in and I ask where is the modem. Customer points to the corner where a bookself sits and a brand new Motorola Surfboard docsys2 modem sitting on the 2nd shelf. So I make my way over to the device and pull it off the shelf to discover that there is no cable connection plugged into the modem itself. So I ask the customer nicely, 'where is the cable that screws into the back of this modem?'.. the cust replies, there isnt one I didnt know it needed one. The customers husband chimes in at this point and shows me the rj45 end of a patch cable and says 'I'm not sure where this goes, we dont have a receptacle that fits this plug anywhere in the house.' So I hook everything up for the customer, setup their wifi for them, connect the laptops and other devices to the wifi network and depart. Would you believe me if I told you the customer actually called our call center and requested a 100' cat5e cable because I didnt provide one that was long enough when i came to their house.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37683

Hey, not everyone is a techno whiz. There are people who couldn't tell an alternator from a power steering pump if they looked under the hood of a car, similar thing. Then again, they should never have bought that self-installation cable kit. But the real question is, did you install a virus scanner on their machines

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37684

That is hilarious! LOL

Someone at work was telling me of a 611 trouble they took once where the customer was saying every time the phone rings, the furnace starts. Baffled, they sent a tech over to check it out.

Someone had connected a phone line to the thermostat.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37685

Red Squirrel wrote:Someone had connected a phone line to the thermostat.

HAHAHAH!!!

dprantl wrote:But the real question is, did you install a virus scanner on their machines

No, I didnt. As a general rule i tell customers to uninstall all virus detection software because it is utterly useless. The 'virus' has been extinct since 2004 and virus removal companies are not about to admit that and cause their own companies to bottom out over night because their industry unofficially died 8 years ago.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37687

Why do you say that the "virus" died out? Did it change into something else like invasive freeware?

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37691

DOCTOR THUNDER wrote:Why do you say that the "virus" died out? Did it change into something else like invasive freeware?

No, actually we killed them all. The treats affecting users today are not virus'. Its Malware and Trojans. Malware is commonly referred to as a virus but its is actually alot more complicated then that. Just one more step into a money making trend which will take an army to stop. A virus is a program or bug created either from an oversight or the intentional exploitation of a weakness in a system with no kind of profit gained from its deployment. Malware on the other hand is not accidental, its actually quit the opposite. Its Copywritten officially released software that spoofs threats installed in a system which in most cases dont really exist. Cons the user into purchasing the software to remove the bogus threats, and is impossible to completely remove via uninstall. The only way to remove the software is to completely remove the user profile which is where the software is installed. The birth of malware gets more advanced every day. todate, malware now not only poses threats to a system which dont exist but with tools such as rootkit, actually overwrites core system files so that in the event that the software is manually removed by way of deletion or resetting the user profile, the software is reinstalled on the new profile in the event of a trigger script should you come across one. this is because windows system state restore only restores active config files and settings params. It doesnt touch the system. And to sum all this up. Virus prevention and removal tools such as AVG, do infact target older forms of threats such as trojans, but can not and will never target malware. this is due to one key difference between malware and a virus. the US Copyright. the virus does not hold a copyright, and malware does because its actually a piece of functioning software. And because of the copyright, any software company who releases a program that targets malware stands liable for some pretty massive lawsuits. There is no law that says malware or its creation is illegal. There is how ever plenty of laws in place to prevent software from targeting other legit software.

hope this clears up the haze for you.

PS.. you wont find much info to back me up so believe what you want. Honestly its only a matter of time before google puts this post on its search return and Red receives a nice letter from a law firm telling him to remove this post from his forum, and to refrain his users from posting anything relating to this kind of material in the future to stop any further legal proceedings. Virus prevention is a billion dollar industry that exists on belief and paranoia. Most of which is created by the virus prevention companies them selves, who also author the some of the published malware threats.

For your own indulgentance, record a VM with your fav screen recorder such as camtasia. Google "windows spyware removal tool" inside the VM. Just load the webpage, dont even have to click anything, the threat installs itself. Once it loads up and starts scanning, pause the VM and stop the recording. you can also just stop the recording and state the vm. go back and watch the screen recording frame by frame and you will see how it gets self installed. And you will also see that no matter what "protection" you have your still going to get the software. Next, look in /users/.windowsuser/AppData/LocalLow/~windowsspy.../ and you will find the dump of exes. Start with the parent exe. Run it threw a dotnet hex decompiler, then in your fav hex editor open the dump. Look at the header and when you see who created the software, you will have to hand lift your jaw back shut. Then for added fun, open the helper exes' in the folder with a runtime extraction utility to find every version of trojan you can possibly imagine.

Absolutely a great way to spend a weekend and a case of beer.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37692

onykage wrote:
PS.. you wont find much info to back me up so believe what you want. Honestly its only a matter of time before google puts this post on its search return and Red receives a nice letter from a law firm telling him to remove this post from his forum, and to refrain his users from posting anything relating to this kind of material in the future to stop any further legal proceedings. Virus prevention is a billion dollar industry that exists on belief and paranoia. Most of which is created by the virus prevention companies them selves, who also author the some of the published malware threats.

And if that's the case, I will kindly tell them to GTFO.

But yeah the fact that virus scanners do not detect malware definitely makes me ask questions. Malware is much more popular these days, and much more destructive.

The worse is drive bys. Even the smartest user can easily get caught with this by simply accidentally landing on a bad site. Browsers just let it through.

I'll also have to try your experiment some time. Will the makers be who I think it is? The actual virus scanner companies?

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6413, old post ID:37693