I seem to have picked up something that used my computer to send packets of information on its own to the Straight Dope boards, and only the Straight Dope boards. On Thursday evening, it sent enough of these whatever-ther-weres to cause the tech staff to think I had launched a denial of-service attack against the SDMB. That’s when you would first have seen BANNED under my name.
After working all day yesterday and today with Ed and Jerry, we determined that it was something in Netscape that had got compromised. It was not a known virus or trojan, as avast! and Spybot Search & Destroy and AVG turned up nothing.
Well, after a whole day investigating, I have been declared a non-hazard to the boards, and my membership has been restored.
Huge thanks to Ed and Jerry for working through the process of discovery and elimination with me.
[ul]
[li]Determined the real Kennedy assassin[/li][li]Resolved the Iraq war[/li][li]Said “Hi Opal”[/li][li]Brought pie and ate same[/li][li]Boiled the ocean[/li][li]Solved world hunger for about 20 minutes[/li][/ul]
I’m glad to be back. I really missed not being able to come here.
We never did find out what it was that got into Nutscrape that was sending out those thingies. After all the virus/trojan/bot scans turned up nothing, and we could not determine whether it was my home or work computer doing it, I went looking for internet activity monitoring software. I found one called SpyAgent, and set it up. Sure enough, it was sending messages to the Dope at semi-regular intervals. If anyone reading this ever needs such a program, I can recommend SpyAgent, because it does what it says it does. You can only use it for 30 minutes at a time for free. Although it identifed that there was activity, it didn’t say what was making it happen.
After several tests, we determined that it worked when Netscape was open; it didn’t even have to be connected to the boards. So I saved all my bookmarks and mail and uninstalled Netscape 7.2, and got version 9. I’m using that now, and since I started, the unauthorized sending of data has stopped. I have to say, right out of the box, I hate Netscape 9. It has no mail client, and its browser won’t accept AdBlock, so I can’t disable cookies for everybody except those sites where I need them.
Still, it’s good to be back. Quitting the boards would be hard. I missed you guys, and I was only gone three days! I wonder if anyone else has ever got banned and reinstated…
We also resolved the airplane on a treadmill question and found another word that ended in -gry. We resolved our differences with TBTMNBN and we all agreed to get cats and post pictures of them. We struck a reasonable balance on the Bush presidency, Iraq, gay marriage, whether psychiatry works, and global warming. But don’t feel bad–I’m pretty sure that tomorrow we’ll figure out what women want and resolve some of those embarassing TMI penis-related questions.
Yeah, well, I have to buck up–it was me all along. I was trying to hack into the Pentagon to give SkyNET a chance to become self-aware, and accidentally switched you to ‘Banned’. Sorry about that man, but it was funny at the moment.
Tripler
Now about tomorrow’s major drop in the Madrid stock indexes? I do apologize for that. . . :smack:
Good to hear that your name was cleared. I’m a recent fan of avast, and it seems to be a pretty good program AFAIC.
There was one thing you missed here though. We perfected the hardware/software/lubrication/heat management/user interface for a working robot vagina.It seems that Cecil is looking to become the worlds first trillionaire, and is protecting his pending patent like an angry mama bear. All of the threads/pics/testimonials/schematics/friction coefficients etc. were disappeared from the site.
Good thing that I d/l’d the necessary construction instructions, and ordered the proprietary “perfect vagina” mold, “98.6” heating module, synthetic skin formula, and vaginal-lubricant-approximation gel.
I almost forgot, we determined a fool-proof way to increase the intensity of an orgasm (male or female), by just eating a combination of two very common vegetables. :smack: It’s SO obvious!
Did you get banned before or after the offer we got for that super high yield money market account? My ten dollar investment has already grown to a three thousand dollar value. SkipMagic made the most of this opportunity, and made a mint! I hear that he’s going to parlay that cash into learning actual magic!!
I’m pretty sure you were still here when all charter members were grandfathered-in to lifetime subscription waivers. Cool huh?
Besides Quadgop turning Stephen Hawking into an immortal cyborg, not much else has happened lately.
Oh, how was it to be in that limbo?, there was a vast sand duned expanse of nothingness exept for a giant black and white banded snake like monstrosity roaming for a chow?
Oh, limbo was terrible! It was unbearably hot. There were burning dogs everywhere and zombies coming back from 20 minutes in the Marianas trench holding out pies. The only thing on the menu at restaurants was pan-fried semen, and the only utensils were ladles, and you could only imagine where they’d been!
However, we still have absolutely no clue what the %@#$ happens if you put a plane on a treadmill. So if you’ve had any ideas on that over the last few days, don’t hold back.
Welcome back! I’m glad to hear what had happened after my post in ATMB.
(Sorry, got nothing exciting for you, that you might have missed. It rained this weekend.)
