posted 2007/09/20 at 23:31
I've had full-fledged Internet access for thirteen years now, if you want to put the start date as when I first got my account at Antioch. (For about nine months before that I did have limited Internet access through some of the local computer bulletin boards I dialed into.) In all this time I've had to deal with relatively few viruses, and although I've always practiced safe computing since my BBS days, I think that to a large extent I've kind of been lucky in that regard. Although I've never been one for conducting file sharing or other not-exactly-legal business over the Internet, I still have visited my share of shady Websites over the years, and no, I'm not going to elaborate on that, thank you very much. (Seriously, do I need to spell it out for you?)
Particularly in my younger years, my father got on my case over some of the Websites I was visiting. (When I was younger I wasn't so good about covering my tracks.) He kept warning me that visiting some of these Websites was basically just inviting viruses and other such things on my computer. The irony here is that over the years I'd never had to deal with anything serious on my computer, whereas I've had to remove a slew of viruses from my father's computers when he just visits professional Websites and discussion boards related to the work his companies do. Granted, I'm far more Internet-savvy than he is, but I still find this a delicious bit of irony that I'm quick to remind my father of when he starts complaining about some of the stuff that happens on the Internet.
Well, yesterday I finally got my first real taste of having a malicious Website hijack my computer. Although I didn't get infected with any viruses, the combination of multiple attempts to download viruses onto my computer and other malicious code basically ground my computer to a screaming halt, and right in the middle of when I was in some real important work that I couldn't afford to throw away. I had to spend most of my afternoon trying to undo the damage wrought by this Website. What kind of debeaucherous Website was I looking at when I finally got bitten in the butt by malicious code? It was a Website on logical fallacies. I went looking for Internet resources on logical fallacies I could point my students to, and one of the top Google searches looked like a legitimate domain and had a good-looking first page, but when I clicked on a link to a specific branch of logical fallacies, BOOM, my computer nearly chokes to death on the crap that got launched from it.
If I hadn't had so much important work to do there, I might have found some kind of humour in this. Given the circumstances, though, I was sitting here at my computer for a good portion of my afternoon steaming mad. Seriously, of all the kinds of Websites to finally slug my computer, a Website on logical fallacies? Unbelievable. (I've run a full scan since then and my computer is safe, but I'm still mad at Norton for not catching that stuff before it could mess me up so badly.)
Have you ever heard of a malicious website hijacking someone's OSX Mac? Me neither. Maybe some of your other readers could elaborate on that.
Okay, what is up with all the Mac loyalists coming here to give me grief? I have nothing against Macs, I just don't find them as easy to use as PCs. Seriously, aren't there thousands of better Websites you all could target rather than this one?
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon