A Theory Arises

I received an email from Malwarebytes last Saturday telling me (and thousands of others, I'm sure) about some malicious ransomeware hidden in advertising that exploits something in Flashplayer. As I read the linked article, the theory developed in my meager brain. We are at their mercy!

That's right, we are at the mercy of the very software we use to protect us. Yes, we are also at the mercy of those hackers who think up, code, and plant this malware but also at the mercy of those write the anti-virus and anti-malware we use. I actually began formulated the basis of this theory a long time ago when I began to suspect that it was possible that the anti-virus software people might be creating the very threats they were claiming to protect us from. Think about it: Who knows computer viruses better than those who build anti-virus software?

Don't misunderstand. I think we need to have anti-virus software but I wonder just how effective it really is? Or maybe I am just being a tad too paranoid. 

More Inane Sayings

I was reading the comics the other day. This is something I do each morning, it starts my day off with a little humor... something I think we all need but do not get enough of. There is wisdom in comic strips and not merely a few lessons to learn. One of my favorites is a strip called "Pickles" which tells the tales of an elderly gentleman named Earl, his wife Opal, with a grandson and a daughter making the occasional appearance. The interactions between Earl and his grandson are some of the best strips.

Anyway, the strip was this one:

And it got me thinking... I posted something not long ago about phrases we use without thinking about the words in them and I did not mention the one used in the strip. But think about it... does anyone actually can anything? No, of course not, we put them in jars and cans of things are bought at a store after being made in factories. It's also called "putting up preserves" but that isn't efficient to say. Instead, we call it "canning" and everyone, generally, understands what we mean. I suppose we could have called it "jarring" but I think that means something else entirely. But you might say I was jarred by the mention of canning.

Fear! Uncertainty! Doubt!

... My work is done here...

At least, that's how the old joke went. But, today, we have all three of those wrapped up in a disease called Ebola. Just a day or two after the CDC called the chances of Ebola appearing in the States miniscule, we have a man in Dallas who has it and is exhibiting symptoms. He was misdiagnosed at a hospital and sent home, thereby having contact with many people while being symptomatic. The last count I heard on the news is 100 people are in voluntary quarantine (told to stay in their homes and not have visitors) and being "closely monitored", one hopes that this means there is someone watching each of these homes carefully and making sure no one leaves ("just to run to the store", for example) any of them and that no one drops by and enters. But we do not know this is fact, do we?

I understand the patient (now in isolation at that hospital) did not tell the truth at the airport in Liberia and so was permitted to board and fly to Brussels where he changed airlines and flew to the US. In all, he flew on three planes (at last count): from Liberia to Brussels, from Brussels to New York, and then from New York to Dallas. All of those people on those flights should also be monitored, I would think. And, indeed, the airlines are attempting to contact them. That would be hundreds more in addition to the 100 in Dallas itself.

I think the man lied so he would be allowed to fly out of Liberia and I wonder how many more passengers have lied since this outbreak began?

This is not a Good Thing.

Avoiding Tragedy

I just read an article in our local paper about a 16-year-old girl who died from injuries after being struck by a car this past Monday evening. The story left me with some questions...

The road she was walking along snakes around a bit and never actually goes east (though that was reported in the story), it goes south-southeast then turns to go slightly northeast. There is one section that probably is directly eastbound and it is just after a curve to the right.

She was walking on the right side of the road in the same direction of traffic (which is a no-no everywhere) with her boyfriend (who was to her right) and was, according to the story, on the "roadway near the side of the road." There are no sidewalks along this road but there is adequate room on the grassway alongside. It was dark (sunset occurred a little after 7PM and the accident happened at 7:55)

In my opinion, this could have been avoided by walking on the correct side of the road (facing traffic) and by being completely off the asphalt. Yes, sidewalks could have helped but we don't have many of those in Florida.

And now a young girl has lost her life.

I see people walking the wrong way, and on roads rather than alongside them, as well as people on bicycles on the oncoming side of the road (a violation of traffic laws) and do not understand it.

I was taught to walk on a sidewalk and, if there wasn't one, to walk facing traffic and to not be in the road at all. I was also taught to ride my bicycle on the right (with traffic, not against it). 

New Toys And My Brand Of Luck

I took a few plunges recently. I ordered a new tablet, replaced my backup software, and bought a new phone. And chaos ensued... as it often does for me.

I was getting emails from Carbonite telling me my subscription was about to expire for my laptop. So, on Saturday, I decided I would switch to another company, I-Drive, and purchased the software subscription. It covers all computers in the house for one fee (a much lower fee than Carbonite) but, of course, it required installation after download. And that is when the chaos first happened. In the midst of installing the software on Faye's machine, we lost access to the internet. Not a big problem since I had already downloaded it but an annoyance because it required some interaction with the website... and the cloud.

Eventually, all was well. Faye's, Francis', the laptop, and even the Toshiba tablet had the software installed and running. Initial backups were run on the laptop, my machine, the tablet, and Francis' machine. Feeling exceedingly proud of myself, I thought I was prepared for anything. I did not count on Murphy and his laws.

Yesterday, I bought a new cellphone. It runs Win8. It worked fine except I needed to replace my SIM card with a smaller one after cloning all my contacts to the new one. For that, I went to the local ATT phone store. Ten minutes later, they had the new phone working just fine. I still had to make it work with my Focus. For that, I turned to the salesman at the Ford dealership who sold us the Lincoln. 5 minutes after getting there, the phone was paired, Bluetooth-wise, to the Focus. All was going just fine. I arrived home feeling on top of things.

The doorbell rang. It was the arrival of the new tablet. No problemo, I thought. and it wasn't... except that the Getting Started booklet neglected to tell me how to shut it down (booting it up was easy), nor how to configure the cabling for the charging unit, and I learned that Win8 is different than past versions. Very different.

I also needed updates to bring it up to the more stable version 8.1. That's when we lost the internet again... as I was looking at the manual for the device. Silly me, thinking Comcast wouldn't screw up my internet connection at this crucial point in time. Of course it did. So, I went to dinner with friends (as we do on Tuesdays each week) leaving the new tablet powered on and Faye's machine running its initial backup. Two hours later, we had the internet back and I downloaded the manual for the new tablet but Faye's backup was only 30% complete so it will be running all night (at least till midnight anyway). Woke up this morning to find something had gone wrong and it still wasn't quite finished.

Tomorrow things might be relatively normal around here... but I doubt it.