Here is wishing all my customers and readers a most Happy Thanksgiving!
Its been a tough year – recovering from the Mt Vernon Fire that destroyed my store last Christmas Day!
Right after the fire, I was horribly depressed. Thought – ‘how can I go on’ and the like. It was pretty rough at first!
But – the outpouring of support I got from you all was wonderful. And uplifting.
Fortunately – nothing important was destroyed. By which I mean, my wonderful co workers Alex and Danko were fine, and
no one was hurt in the fire!
Yes, I lost a lot of STUFF. About $400000 worth. and no, I didnt have insurance. My homeowners paid a fraction of it for personal losses, and I have to
My customer computers – I’ve replaced things where possible and done the best I can where it was not. And many of you who had a laptop in the shop told me ‘they didnt like it anyway and not to worry about it’ – truly heartwarming.
What REALLY got me about the fire though – was all the customers who called up and said ‘I was thinking of buying THIS’ or ‘I was going to get THAT’ – and I would almost cry out ‘well WHY DIDNT YOU?? At least you would have that item – but now its all destroyed!
Our new shop (TopTech at 8332 Richmond Highway) is up and going nicely. and we have been joined by Mohamed of Or-Logic.
We have quite a few local repair shops bringing us things to fix and our abilities to fix ANY computer ANY problem are only getting stronger!
Much – much to be thankful for. And I am.
Many customers (and myself as well) have been receiving threatening emails claiming access to your system, planting viruses, got proof you are into child pornography and the like.
–EXAMPLE–
Hi
So I am the hacker who cracked your e-mail and device a several months back.
You typed in your password on one of the web pages you visited, and I intercepted this.
Here is your password from **YOURACTUALEMAILADDRESS** on time of hack: **YOURACTUALPASSWORD**
Of course you can will change it, or even already changed it.
However this doesn’t mean much, my malicious software modified it each and every time.
Do not try to get in touch with me or even find me, it is impossible, since I sent you email from your account only.
By means of your email, I uploaded malicious program code to your Operation System. I saved your entire contacts along with buddies, colleagues, loved ones and also a comprehensive history of visits to the World-wide-web resources.
Furthermore I installed a Virus on your system. You aren’t my only victim, I typically lock pcs and ask for the ransom.
Nonetheless I ended up being struck by the sites of close material that you normally pay a visit to. I am in impact of your own fantasies! I have never ever observed anything at all like this! So, when you had fun on piquant web-sites (you know what I am talking about!) I made screenshot with using my
program from your camera of yours system. After that, I combined them to the content of the currently viewed site. Now there is going to be fun when I send these images to your connections! Although I am sure you do not need that. Hence, I expect to have payment from you for my quiet.
I feel $900 is an adequate cost regarding it! Pay with Bitcoins.
My Bitcoin wallet address is 12m9psxbsR19YFNCyRtb8NcvMSLMDkMWK3 If you do not really know how to do this – enter into
Google ‘how to transfer money to a bitcoin wallet’. It is easy. Right after getting the specified amount, all your data will be promptly destroyed automatically. My computer virus will additionally remove itself through your os. My Virus possess auto alert, so I know when this particular mail is read. I give you two days (48 hours) to make a payment. If this does not occur – every your friends will get nuts shots from your darker secret life and your device will be blocked as well after 48 hours.
Don’t be silly! Cops or pals won’t support you for certain …
p.s I can present you with advice with regard to the future. Don’t key in your passwords on unsafe websites.
I wish for your wisdom.
–END EXAMPLE–
I’ve seen (and received) dozens very much like this. Now the customer who received this – panicked – and not unreasonably because it DOES have the right email address AND a valid (maybe old) password!
BUT BUT BUT – *** ITS ONLY A BLUFF ***
They have *NOT* accessed your computer. OR planted viruses. OR downloaded anything (let alone proof of child pornography)!
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE???
They have purchased off the Dark Web the list of emails and passwords – from some recent BigSite data breach. Yahoo has lost 4 billion accounts. Facebook. Gmail. Sears. Target. Bank of America. The list goes on – and on – and on!
Now they email everyone on the list with the above email (or something like it). And they wait for their bitcoin wallet to get fatter. And make the ka-ching (you have money) sound! (I actually left their REAL bitcoin address there if you want to send
them some $$$).
THEY HAVE NEVER ACCESSED **YOUR** COMPUTER. Only Yahoo, Gmail etc.
SO – what do you need to do?
If it IS your real email address and password – CHANGE it. They could try to login to say your yahoo account. Most big providers will notice that the login is from Romania, not Virginia and may ask them your secret questions. (which they may well NOT have). And – worst case – they could read some of your emails. That’s it. CHANGE your password, and then make a note to CLOSE your account at Yahoo, Target, whatever. After all you might not want to reward them with your business!}
And you might want to contact them and complain that THEIR security holes allowed your information to be stolen. There are various class
action lawsuits in the works over this kind of loss – and you may get a few months free service as a reimbursement.
Now what is the chance that they have ACTUALLY read your emails? Pretty close to ZERO. Why? Because reading your emails does not get them any
Bitcoin. THREATENING YOU WITH THE ‘proof’ THAT THEY CAN READ YOUR EMAILS – MAY make their Bitcoin fatter. And they can do a blast email
to millions of potential victims all at once! Reading millions of folks emails would be MOST time consuming – and likely VERY boring!
SO – word to the wise. DON’T PANIC. Bring it by my shop if you want me to check out your system after receiving this kind of threat (I’ve done
this for about a dozen customers so far – so this is WIDESPREAD. But – also so far – no trace of any infection on any of the customer computers!)
WINDOWS 1809 AMUSEMENTS
Microsoft has started rolling 1809 out again as an update. This is the one they aborted the release of a few months ago – because the upgrade
deleted some customers Document Folders! It still should be avoided. Reports are they have removed support from some older Intel HD graphics
families – and obviously that would be a problem if you actually HAVE one of those graphics chips! They hopefully will get things right soon,
but for now RESIST! RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE here!
MOJAVE?
Not ready to recommend the upgrade yet I have been experimenting with it on 3 different macs. So far – looks good, but I will beat on it more!
BUT – NOTHING so far that is a killer feature that you all have been dying for!
AND we have already had a casualty! One customer who did the mojave upgrade would up killing the GPU graphics processor chip!!
ADOPTION CORNER
Lots of nice systems on hand – I’m making up a page especially for adoptions!
A SUPER NICE Touchbar 15in 2.9ghz i7 16gb 256gb SSD.
Various 13in unibodies and 15in unibodies.
A VERY nice 7th generation Dell Latitude – thin, and FAST with SSD
drive, 8gb ram.
ASUS VERY nice 15in gamer!
Nice 2013 Imac 21.5 inch i5 – the new thin screen model!
Also have been building some Mac Pro (Cheesegrater Silver Desktop) boxes
– and I have been most impressed! I upgraded one I bought last spring
and have now a dual Hexcore (12 core) 3.45 Xeon cpu, 32gb of ram, USB 3,
a good Radeon R9 4gb graphics card, and NICE 2TB SSD drives. This
system LOOKS like an old G5, but its a screamer!
and others as well ALL with 6 month warranties! Its getting near Christmas – tell me what you are looking for!