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A detailed and chronological documentation of a poor defenseless sacrificial Windows 98 computer purposely thrown into the internet jungle to be raped, pillaged, robbed, beaten, shredded, and violated in every sense by every imaginable type of malware, spyware, adware, malicious-ware, crapware and surpriseware the internet has to offer - ON PURPOSE!!!.... so buckle your seatbelts, here we go!!! |
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| DISCLAIMER: The contents of this page are of an experimental nature, the author takes no responsibility whatsover for an damages that may incur should you attempt to duplicate these tests. Any comments made that made that may seem to impune any particular OS or software manufacturer are not done with any malicious intent, but rather are simply opinions. The author believes he is entitled to his opinions, and that the merits and worthiness, or lack thereof, of any OS or operating system will speak for itself. |
INTRODUCTION:This page is the result of an idea I had one day while battling spyware and malware, it was mostly inspired by an ongoing saga with the coolwebsearch / about:blank malware trojan that, despite my best efforts to date, still lurks on the company machine at work.After a lot of frustration with updating all the wondermous programs that are supposed to fix such maladies, an idea hit me. What if I went the opposite direction and instead of trying to rid the machine of all this kind of crap, what if I had a computer I could 'sacrifice'. Haven't you ever wondered what would happen if you just went hog wild? Do all the stuff you are never supposed to do on the internet. Forget everything you've ever heard about safe computing . Break all the rules!!! Open strange email attatchments from people you don't know, click on banners! Enlarge your penis, refinance your house for 2.9%, get $500 of grocery coupons for free. Sign up for that free Satelite dish and get your college degree and Rolek wristwatch. Take a survey, what harm could possibly happen? Make sure to give them your real name, phone number, address and date of birth. After all, identity fraud could never happen to you! Sure - go ahead!!! Answer yes when some strange web page wants to install something to 'enhance' your browsing performance. Don't laugh, people fall for that [explicative deleted] every day!!! Obviously, a computer saavy person would never ever ever engage in such risky internet behaviour. But I am, right now ON PURPOSE with a Pentium 75 that was put out to pasture. Oh yeah!!! I'm your host, 'Crazy Matt!!!' so buckle your seatbelts, and get ready to CRASH AND BURN, BABEEEEEE !!!!! 'But....but.... why me???? Why are you doing this to me?', cried the innocent Pentium 75 on the verge of tears as 'Crazy Matt' set her on the table, stripped off her cabinet and the last of her remaining dignity, exposing her naked chassis for all to see, and with prying and twisting tools installed a new CDrom drive, subjected her to a thorough hard drive formatting, and with experienced hands found a virgin ISA slot which swiftly recieved it's very first modem. Windows 95 was installed. No firewall, no antivirus, no preventative anti spyware or adware. The poor defenseless computer trembled in anticipation of what was to come and shrieked in horror as Crazy Matt approached with a phone cord and found her modems waiting receptacle. Alas my tearful child, you were already dead when I found you, and I have given you life again. Through your sacrifice in this project, it is hoped that other computers may live, if their owners are willing to learn the lessons here. Though you were, and still are, a fully functional computer, without even the tiniest of scratches or flaws on your beautiful case and hardly a even a hint of dust, obviously well cared for in a non-smoking household, your previous owner has abandoned you, and put you on the curb, just minutes away from when the giant blue truck with the menacing hydraulic claws would have grabbed you and hauled you off to the local landfill, to be crushed and rot away with banana peels and broken furniture for an eternity. Regaining her composure somewhat, the misty eyed computer asked, 'Well, okay, I suppose I feel better knowing at least I still have some purpose left here on earth, and it's nice to have electrons flowing through me again and to be sitting here next to your kitchen table with all these other friendly looking computers that were also saved from a similar fate, I suppose this is better than rotting away in a landfill, but what do you possibly hope to gain? And why did my owner throw me out in the first place???? There is much to gain, my child, through your 'death' other windows user will see what happens when they surf the internet with windows based machines, and will see what is guaranteed to happen should they not protect themselves with endless updates, anti-spyware, antivirus, and firewall programs. They will (hopefully) learn of the perils of Active X, Java, and Javascript. They will (I hope) learn what NOT to do through your martyrdom and eventual demise. Maybe some of them will even consider alternative, and safer ways to surf the internet and do email, such as DOS and LINUX, for example. But many will stay with the windows platforms, but at least they will hopefully take heed of the lessons learned here and take efforts to protect themselves.
'I understand', sighed the computer, knowing her fate was sealed. 'So I guess this is the end, but you still haven't answered my question, why has my previous owner forsaken me, and thrown me out to the curb, and now I suppose when you've had your fun with me, you will do the same? After all this it looks like I will end up in a landfill anyway. Thanks a lot. Fear not my lovely computer, such is not your fate! Although there is some very dangerous viri and malware out there that can do physical damage to some of your components, and render them unusable, such as your hard drive, most virus and malware take advantage of 'features' and weaknesses in the windows operating system. After your 'death', I can wipe your hard drive clean of all the evil computer code, much of it having found it's way through javascript, then reinstall an operating system, and you will be reborn. We may continue this project again and again, perhaps others will continue to learn through your repeated 'deaths' and rebirths. It's one thing when a computer such as yourself is purposely submitted to this gruelling experimentation, but it's altogether a very serious issue when other computers are trashed or compromised because of virus', malware, and spyware, and their owners important, and often irretreivable data is lost forever. Perhaps they will become enlightended through this web page, and who knows, maybe someone will even show they're gratitude through a paypal donation . Even only a dollar or two will be an enormous help to me, and will undoubtably give me inspiration to continue this project, and to research and add helpful information to this site. But please don't worry about me putting you on the curb, my fair complexioned Pentium 75, I would never do such a thing. For one thing, there are plenty of recycling alternatives for older hardware such as yourself, and notwithstanding that, I have personally fixed up many computers such as yourself, and either use them personally, or given them to friends and colleagues, many of whom were 'computer phobic', or simply couldn't afford a computer. In answer to your question as to why you were put on the curb in the first place, there are many reasons why such useful computers such as yourself end up in landfills. I'm sure an intelligent person can do a little research and figure it out for himself or herself. Suffice it to say, you don't need a 2 ghz machine with a 40 gb hard drive and 500 megs RAM to surf the internet and do email, as many are falsely lead to believe. I'm going to resist the temptation to get on my soapbox and let the viewers of this website draw their own conclusions about bloatware and why they are continuously being forced to buy new computers just to view a web page loaded with useless javajunk. THE INTERNET SHOULD BE FOR EVERYBODY! Not just for people with Gold and Platinum Visa and Master cards, and nobody should be forced to have the latest and greatest in hardware and bloatware just to type a letter, send a fax, email and view a web page. You shouldn't have to be subjected to endless updates I'm all for progress, but it's just gotten reeeeeeeeediculous, and it's getting worse!!! What if you went to buy tires for you car and you were told, 'I'm sorry sir, we don't make tires that will fit your car anymore'. You'll have to upgrade to CarXP. That's exactly what's happened in the computer industry. Progress is good. Change is good. I'm all for it. But I know the difference between what's necessary to get the job done, and when I'm being raked over the coals. Your car gets you from point A to point B without you having to rebuild the engine everytime you want to go somewhere, your computer should be able to handle your email, websurfing, and other basic things you expect computers to do without becoming 'obsolete' everytime you boot it up. SO WHY DO YOU PUT UP WITH IT? Think about it . Bookmark this page and check back to read the logfile as this poor pentium 75 descends into windows oblivian. Sure, this page is meant to have a humorous slant and be entertaining on the surface. See if you can find the not so funny message. There is plenty of blame to go around, not just you know who, but web designers, software companies, and hardware manufacterers. Maybe, just maybe, if enough voices are heard and pressure is put on the industry to stop this ridiculous feeding frenzy cycle of having people believe they must have the latest and greatest CRAPWARE we could see some beneficial changes take place. Realistically, that's not very likely to happen, but hopefully this page will open some consumers eyes to some real alternatives
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MIRRORS
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why is the internet so dangerous? what can I do to protect myself? are there alternatives? This has really gotten out of hand, how can I make my voice heard? Crazy Matt's 10 commandments to a safer internet experience Tell me how Crazy Matt stays safe on the internet when he uses a windows machine! Yes, I'd like to donate Crazy Matt a buck or two to inspire him to update this page so I can learn more about internet survival ! ! |
