Today I received a call from a friend informing me that they had malware loaded on their computer and that every time they were using their browser regardless of which browser they were using they were getting this nag screen claiming that Microsoft was informing them that their computer was infected by malware and to contact Microsoft to have the problem resolved.
The quick solution is to use a malware detector and remover, there are a few free ones available online.
If that doesn’t clean your computer then you may have to take your computer to a technician to remove the malware from your computer depending on the complexity of the malware that it may be an expensive venture with no guarantees that all has been removed.
Manually removing viruses, rootkits, malware and trojans can be very time consuming, I have known people to run bills over three hundred dollars.
So the cheaper solution is reinstalling the operating system, and reinstalling all your software (pain in the ass).
It is always good practice to backup you datafiles for two reasons, the first in the event that you have to reinstall your operating system the second hard drive failure.
Below is a link that will show you what this Microsoft popup window looks like.
(A dead giveaway is that if you are using a Linux os or mac os and you get a Microsoft message ) then you are being scammed … lol
The other version of this fake tech support scam is the telephone call, with this scam you are called on the telephone telling you that your computer is infected and that they can fix your problem. (Yeah Right!),
For the Microsoft Tech Support scam here are two images that you might recognise if you have encountered the experience.
Then you may choose to click okay and immediately the next pop-up comes up.
If you want to know more about these Tech supports scam check out the following video.
In Part II the focus was on how HTML described content. A very simple primitive web page was created with no styling applied to the web page. The output to the browser window looks more like something that you would see in a word processor, something very generic like a letter or essay.
Part III builds upon part II. In this part cascading style sheets will be introduced at the most basic level
Three different ways of using style sheets will be discussed and they are:
External Style Sheets
Internal Style Sheets
Inline Style Sheets.
Each Style sheet has its own use, if you’re setting up multiple pages then the external style sheet is the better choice, on the other hand, if you are creating a single page then the internal style sheet is the best choice. If you are just intending of change the style inside a previously declared id or a single occurrence of a style the inline style sheet may be worth consider. All three are discussed in the video.
Selectors have three main components to them and they are
declaration
Property
value
There are three types of selectors;
The Element Selector
The Class Selector
The Id Selector.
Selectors are talked about in greater details in the video and the notes.
To conclude style sheets determine the appearance, feel and layout of your webpage or websites.
files for this tutorial can be downloaded here click here to download
Part II is a continuation from part one before the basics. The video demonstrates how to build a very basic primitive web page. The div, span, hr, and br tags are introduced. Once the tutorial is completed you should be able to replicate the page.
When you display the page on your browser all you will see is the content, it will not look pretty because all that has been accomplished is that the Markup language (HTML) has only described the content to be displayed.
In Part III CSS2 & 3 will be introduced to demonstrate how you can change the appearance of your page, like all the videos you learn by doing.
Each video has the accompanying working files and notes for those who wish to have some theory to what they are doing.
The corresponding files and notes to the video can be found here. You will need an unzipping program like winzip, or 7-zip. You can download 7-zip for free at http://www.7-zip.org/
In the demonstration, I use the opensource text editor brackets here is the link where you can download this editor: http://brackets.io/
This series of HTML tutorials are for those who have absolutely no experience with HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Each Tutorial includes a Video, Notes and Skeleton files. The Video focuses on learning by example and learns by doing, while it is not necessary to read the notes the notes may be helpful for those who likes written instruction.
This first tutorial “Your First Web Site: Before The Basics” discusses and demonstrates;
The four essential HTML tags to technically produce a web page.
Tags without content will produce a blank web page.
The Structure and Format of the four essential tags.
The why its is good practice to include the DOCTYPE declaration on line 1
The use of meta tags to let the browsers know what Character set that will be used and to tell the browsers that your page is scalable to the view port of any devices which may view your web page.
A demonstration of the <h1, h2, h3> Tags and the <p> tags.
One of the biggest concern for those who do not know how browsing and the internet work.
There is a lot of bad information in regards to cookies, and the browser’s cache. Unfortunately, misinformation of this kind leads to some anxiety about cookies and other digital items downloaded into your computer’s cache.
With the early browsers, not with cookies but with JavaScript underhanded activities were common. Today’s modern browsers are programmed to recognize malicious JavaScript and won’t allow the script to run or to be downloaded. So what is loaded in the cache is really the least of a users worry.
Anything that is loaded in the cache whether its Cookies or other software is loaded to increase the efficiency of the browser. Disabling the cache will affect the performance of your browser.
Malware, viruses and other undesirable unwanted software are usually bundled with other software which you consent to install.
It is common that any software, addons, etc that are offered for free has other bundled software included. Even a reputable corporation like Adobe, when you install their flash plugin, and if you don’t check off any to install Norton security. The installation will install Norton security.
TOR is a browser that has been designed to help you browse anonymously if you use TOR and follow TOR’s instructions.
In Part I Anonymous Browsing The Experiment discusses in depth what information your computers gives out and what information it gives out. In addition, Part one discusses the strength and weakness of TOR and VPN’s Virtual Personal Networks.
The installation is pretty straight forward for what every the platform that you are using, Windows, Linux and Macs. It is just a matter of going to their site and follows the installation instructions.
There are many stories about the information that you give when you are online, some of the stories are accurate and others are exaggerations.
To separate fact from fiction, I created a web page located on my site to collect any information from anyone landing on the page. The page does not keep any of the information that it displays. Once the user closes their browser the information is lost forever.
Using the page three tests were performed, the first test was with Firefox, the second with the browser TOR and the final test was with a VPN (Virtual Personal Network).
The first two test were strictly browser tests. The VPN tests was a hybrid test, it tested both the browser, information that is sent from the user computer online when they are not using a browser.
Two computers located on the same network were used to conduct this experiment/test. Computer A has geolocation software installed while computer B hasn’t.
Most computers don’t have geolocation software or hardware installed so for those, accurate geolocation is highly unlikely. The test will show the difference in accuracy between the both computers.
However, the tests did show that it is possible to get a person’s location under the right conditions.
What the experiment revealed is that when you are using a standard browser that has geolocation API (Application Program Interface )the browser will ask the user for permission.
Not to create any confusion, there is a difference between geolocation software and hardware and a browser geolocation API. The difference is that the software and hardware can give your exact location if your computer is communicating to the internet through a browser or not whereas the browser geolocation API detects if a request is made from the website for your geolocation.
Not all browsers have geolocation API built into them, Chrome is an example of a browser that doesn’t have the API included. When a browser does not support a geolocation API, the user’s location is not given.
The Result of the experiment/test is that you can browse with anonymity with TOR, with Firefox, Your IP address is given, The IP address that is given is the IP address that your internet service provider assigns to your router. While the IP address will identify the Internet Service Provider and the Internet Service Providers Address the IP Address will not give your location. The only way that that could be found is if someone has the legal authority to request to request that information.
Outside of geolocation, the results did show that when you visit a site, you give your IP address, you’re the browser that you are using, some of the plugins your using, your screen resolution and your operating system.
If the site requests your Geolocation, the user’s browser will ask permission to proceed, if the user declines then no information is broadcasted.
The VPN tests were successful at spoofing the IP but failed at providing any of the other information, like browser brand, plugins, screen resolution and operating system. The VPN to spoof the IP address is independent of the browser.
Outside for someone to do statistical analysis, one can browser without giving out information that can Identify the user.
Most of the personal information that a user gives is when the user fills out online forms. That is where the majority of the personal information is given, so you really have to trust the site that they will not sell or give that information out.
The focus is on information that is broadcasted while online. Cookies and browser cache was not looked at as part of the experiment/test. That is another topic. A quick word on cookies, most of the cookies are downloaded to your browser’s cache are helpful to the user and when cookies are disabled the user will lose some of the advantages of cookies.
The page that was used for this video can be found at http://jafaust.com/whoami/ It is a good tool to use because it does all three finds the users IP address, the location of the Internet Provider as well as a whois to identify the Internet Service Provider and location of the Internet Service provider
André The Tech Guy 