The average computer user
Over the past 18 months I have come to realize that the average person knows less about using their computers than they do about maintaining cars. Take for example my customer from earlier this week (which is an amazing exemplar for the average customer), who had a 2 year old Dell running Windows XP. Nothing unusual about their computer, 1.8Ghz P4, 128MB Ram (I still want to know how any manufacturer can sell that with an XP box in good conscious), connected through a Comcast cable connection to the internet. Of course, the next part is where the fun begins:
- No firewall (Even the XP firewall was turned off)
- McAfee AV installed with definitions from 5/2003
- Kazaa
- Morpheus
- No anti-spyware of any sort
This machine litterally took between twenty and thiry minutes to boot from the time you hit the power button to the time a desktop would load. Granted that this was partly from the lack of RAM, but my customer had stated too me that they had been having problems like this for almost six months before they called me out to take care of it for them. Six months? Your computer has been unusable for nearly six months and you just now decided to call me out to take care of this for you?!?!
Wanting to see how bad this really was, I booted to my GeekCD and ran HijackThis! to see what came up. I ended up removing 184 items with HijackThis! and just stared at the computer in amazement. I knew it was bad before that, but I seriously was shocked that this computer booted, ever. I kindly explained to my customer that the machine needed some serious TLC and I could bring it back the next day all fixed (I had to take it offsite as the customer was a heavy chainsmoker, extremely allergic) and that we were going to upgrade the RAM to something more acceptable than 128MB. This customer was very price sensitive, so they were looking for any free programs that I could use to keep cost down.
Step 1: Install 256MB PC2100. Much Better, actually boots under 10 minutes now.
Step 2: Cleanup (BartPE)
- Quick manual registry editing (Approx 20 keys)
- Virus removal: 247 virii (mostly trojans/downloaders)
- Spyware removal
- Ad-aware: 1249 registry keys, 333 files
- Spy Sweeper: 1174 registry keys, 871 files
Step 3: Boot to Windows and install/run Microsoft’s Antispyware (removed another 13 threats)
Step 4: Install SP2 and post-SP2 Windows Updates
Step 5: Install Firefox
Step 6: Install latest version of Sun Java
Step 7: Install Zonealarm free version
Step 8: Install Avast! Anti-virus
Step 9: Crack a beer and relax
Step 10: Prepare for the next battle
Come back the next day, drop off computer and present customer with bill. Customer is ecstatic that machine works, while I am satisfied that another genius learns that you can’t just do anything you want on the internet and not have issues if you don’t take any steps to protect yourself. If nothing else, the more people we can touch and explain the evils of spyware and how to prevent it from ever reaching their machine the safer the internet will become for all.
The entire time I worked on this computer, and those like it, I just keep thinking how dumbfounded most people are when they are informed that they are riddled with spyware and viruses. They never seem to understand how those file sharing programs or all the porn they are looking at could ever possibly cause any problems, after all they have Norton installed (with definitions from 2004 and the real-time scanner disabled due to a virus). It’s amazing how a big repair bill can open peoples eyes and get them to understand how the things they do on the internet can dramatically affect the performance of their PC.
One of my favorite questions came from a lady I met one day while working on her daughter’s computer that was little with CWS-NS3 among other things. Her question was very innoccent, but very disturbing:
“If my grandkids come over and use AOL (by logging on as a guest, the woman doesn’t have her own internet access) can my computer get infected by this stuff?”
Obviously, my answer was yes. After which she basically told me that she has no Anti-virus, no firewall, nothing to protect her from even the most base threat. It is days like those that make me feel like some lone warrior, armed with the weapons of the greatest blacksmiths of the land, fighting the endless horde till the day I die. Something needs to be done about the general lack of computer knowledge possessed by John and Jane Doe, simply because it is their general lack of basic computer security that is proliferating the rapid growth of spyware and viruses to the point that the internet simply isn’t enjoyable anymore. How to go about disseminatingthat iformation? Well that is a different topic for a different time.