Ask Slashdot: Rescuing a PC That's Been Hit By Scammers? 320
New submitter malcus writes "My father was hit by scammers the other day and even though he has handed over all computer service tasks to me they were able to sweet-talk him into: (1) Running some 'checks' to confirm the 'grave situation' that his computer was heading for (bad). (2) Start some remote-control program (worse). (3) Giving them his social security number (terrible). When they asked him for his credit card information he stopped and is now probably expecting them to call again. Meanwhile I have told him to dump the computer in holy-water or aqua regis and cut the internet cable. I am heading over to his place later and wonder what measures I should take."
Re:Just the obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
THIS!! Which is why the laptop I take for these kinds of 911 calls to guilible relatives/friends whose Windows machines have been screwed up by malware is a Linux machine. I'm the defacto tech support for my church/neighborhood. I've had several "clients" who are the typical "click on EVERYTHING" types, and who would call frequently when their machines got so slow that they couldn't do anything.. In the first case, the machine was so hozed that only a clean reinstall of windows would be effective. But of course the owner didn't have the recovery disks for XP. The machine maxed out at 2GB, so getting the user to buy Win7 was a non-starter. To save the day, I loaded an Ubuntu LiveCD and showed what Ubuntu looked like, and asked "Can you live with that??" with an unspoken "You have no choice..".. The user said "whatever you say, I gotta have my computer!!".. So I backed up the docs to a USB drive via the LiveCD, and wiped/installed Ubuntu.. After a couple of calls from the user, saying "how do I do X??", I'm not hearing much from her anymore. As far as I know she still clicks on everything in sight, but I've not gotten anymore "my computers slow" issues. In fact, her husband, once he saw how well Ubuntu worked, he wanted to be "upgraded" to Ubuntu, and now he's a happy camper.. Word has spread, and I'm doing a fair number of these "upgrades"... Still using 10.04, as I'm still trying to decide if MATE or Cinnamon OR X/Lubuntu is the best way to replace Unity on 12.04..
Re:MATE or Cinnamon OR X/Lubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)
I really enjoy my Zorin Linux distribution. It's so Window-like that there's almost no cognitive friction in switching. Comes with Wine pre-installed too, if for some reason, running a windows app is absolutely necessary.
Re:Just the obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
I moved to open source so I would not have to pirate software any more. Since I am not an autocad user and GIMP meets my needs, I don't need photoshop.
I move other people to open source so I don't have to pirate software for them.
People don't make recovery disk sets. They lose the CDs/DVDs they do have. They "borrow" software from friends, family and work to install on their computer. Once the computer is riddled with spyware and a nuke and pave is the only way to fix it they have a few choices
1. Provide me DVDs to reinstall the OS and whatever software you want
2. Let me install Linux and learn to use the free alternatieves
3. Take it so someone eles
4. Learn to live with a slow, crashing and comprised PC.