Probably shouldn't have clicked That

Ramblings Post #425
The internet is a dangerous place. All kinds of foolishness on here. Promises of riches for just dreaming of work. People with no idea how things believing their opinion is on par whose put in the 10,000 hours. Short people who listed themselves as NBA height, knowing you forgot about Muggsy. Gurus who live in their mother's basement selling the keys to life (hint: it involves a basement). And finally, viruses and intrusions of all kinds. Which brings us to here. 

I used to be good at that, that thing where you could spot a virus. I'd get a piece of email and something would just say that this item is not to be trifled with. I spot a kink in the spelling, or the color of the logo would be off or something that set of the ol' spidey senses and I'd click this is phishing button or just delete it out of habit. But since my current email is chock full of "New Position" and "Job Opportunity" amongst the "Travel Planning for 2027" and CLE classes, I guess a new something just caught me eye. Or rather didn't. 

And that kids is how they get you. 

Because I'm simultaneously doing something on my laptop, which is right beside my main when suddenly the screen on the main goes blue with the message "Don't Turn off your Computer." But the mouse is still moving. So, I turned off my computer. It didn't say updating, it just said don't turn it off. This is of course right thing to do because I notice someone tried to access one of my accounts that has two factor authentication on it. So it's not like it was a question of what was happening, it was exactly what I thought it was. 

So, I spent a good part of last night and this morning confabing with Google figuring out how to turn this fucking issue off in Services, then change file ownership (which I didn't need to do) then go into command and remove them manually. Which upon reboot didn't work. Then I did all that again, then really tried to edit my own registry which resulted in a whole system reset, which wouldn't let my machine even boot, so I to then go for a fix which did let it boot, which put me back at the beginning, again. Then I found some other stuff, how to remove them from Services entirely, found some arcane writings from a very unhelpful company and there was learning a some Powershell before building an small shrine in front yard and sacrificing a goat before I covered myself with binary paint and joined forces to shrink down with the tiny man in my pen to call upon the power of Poke-Pac man to defeat the forces of computer evil with a pitchfork and bug spray. Okay some of that was made up. But the goat was delicious. 

I'm going to look back on it as a challenge. Which as of right now I've conquered, at least according to the goat bones and the shape of burning sage embers. But I've also felt it prudent to set all my accounts to two factor authentication, even the dumb ones. And reset some passwords. It's a weird feeling of violation. I wonder if they read any of my half finished writing, which was NOT ready for outside eyes. It's almost a blessing that I'm broke right now, so there was little take. Okay fine, yes, I unplugged my network cable before I went to the bathroom. And again when I made lunch. 

Sigh. It's gonna be a minute. 

Barkeep. A coffee and some toast. I need to stay frisky. And unplug my network cable.