Viruses

January 22, 2005

I was sick earlier this week.  I'm feeling much better, but that was the most sick I've been in awhile.  I was nauseous and fatigued most of Monday through Wednesday and started feeling better on Thursday.  I had chest congestion both before and after I got sick, so I don't know if I had two illnesses or just one...

I can't remember the last time I got so sick that I was throwing up (and I hadn't been drinking...).  I don't think I've been that sick since I was a kid.  In fact, I don't think I've gotten the flu since I was a kid.
(Note: I didn't throw up and I didn't have the flu last week.  My mom was confused about the wording I used, so I figured someone else may have been confused...)

Anyway, I stayed home from work on Monday (I was sick, remember?).  I didn't have any books to read, I was up on my online comics, and I wasn't currently playing any computer games.  I was bored.  I then decided to start playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time again on my Gamecube.  I had stopped playing the game back when we were still living in the condo, and hadn't had the chance to get back into it since then.  That's pretty much what I ended up doing all day on Monday (and periodic free time I've had since then).

I read a scary article on CNN.COM yesterday, check it out.  I get "phishing" e-mails periodically and a couple of them have been pretty tricky.  One of them was a (fake) e-mail from Paypal support that said an account had been successfully added to my existing account and that if I did not authorize this change to click on the link below and login to correct the mistake.  Now, if I had clicked on that link it would have taken me to a phisher's fake web page designed to spoof the Paypal page and trick me into logging in and providing the scammer with my login and password at which point they would empty my bank account.  One way to avoid these is that if you get any suspicious e-mails, don't click on the link, but go to the real web page (in my case I opened my web browser and logged into Paypal on my own to verify that no changes had been made).  Also, most businesses are actively fighting these phishers and if you check their customer support pages they will usually provide an e-mail address you can send the spoof e-mail to in order to help stop or catch the scammers.  The scary part of that article is how sophisticated these crooks are getting and how they are using spyware and other tools to trick even wary people.  The key is to be sure to run regular spyware scans and maybe even use a less popular web browser like Firefox.  We really need to stay ahead of the crooks.  As long as they are making money off of unaware people, we are going to have to stay alert.

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