Mini-bio of someone you Don't want to Cross, and a story of how-it-Is for folks notlike-you: post beastinfection. But not the usual not-like-you: This one Learns, delves, takes notes, looks stuff up: Applies The Stuff! (And has a sense of humor about the whole schmeer - so you Know she ain't no Repo, neither.)

Am ~amazed at the tenacity of my neighbor L - horses, critters, organic farm and such enviro, but keeps books for their business stuff; clearly she digs Boolean re troubleshooting, and now: re much more of the Guts than ever would I have expected.

Partly, she is motivated by the surliness (think the typ Beastly Arrogance of a wet-behind-ears MCSEIEIO twerp) == the local Geek Squad types hired out by Best Bye-Bye-your-CC-$$. These were sent out, at Big Bux to deinfest her hP/ExPee notebook ticking time bomb.

They pronounced it clean (dunno yet if they even reported if/what they might have found.) It wasn't. Clean, that is. Twice. Then - -

They poo-poohed her hand-written LIST of the events still occurring, ignored her digi-cam pics! of silly things in task bar, permissions changing and other.. even disdained the red-underlined items in her list of objects found in folders: Those With Refs to Web Descriptions of their origins in malware.

(And yes - she already had AVG (replacing Norton earlier, at my suggestion via IWE lore), Spy-Bot SD, Ad-A - in fact it was the resident SpyBot ap she also activated - which first flagged TILT. Linksys router + ZA in operation; so this bug came from her own clicky-clicky, as she realizes.)

She is determined to find the pedigree of George, her ID of the keeper of root - or by whatever sinister facsimile. Is learning about some of the tools mentioned in these parts, the logic of step-by-step -- for the bugs that reinstall seconds after erasure. Appreciates why some of these need HD access via some Non-toy OS for cleansing ie. why you cannot let Doze run at all, under some conditions of auto-destruct-in-progress. (That's a lot to grok, for a non-tech, I'd say.)

I think she will pay $$ for some of the better tools; and not just the automated kind. Perhaps one of our sleuths can list a few handy items beyond HiJack This - presuming she'd need to follow a recipe and not intuit the order of applying such diagnostics. She recalls a bit of DOS lore, but without say, XTree running, I doubt she could use attribs (a rilly powerful util for finding stuff IIRC, apart from doing what its name says. Recall several .bats that made very clever use of its sys access.)

Hmmm - good review for my little grey cells too.
I don't know if there are ten or a thousand vaguely-similar utils now for the daily bug-hunt; mayhap Google can enlighten moi. I lack the patience to sample everything that sez I Da Best\ufffd.

Then too, since it would be like the Maytag Repairman, looking for OSX bugs re her G-4 - she just may end up keeping the late hP notebook, become the Kenwood Bug-Lady and retire on profits to the Bahamas.. join the rest of the Gross National Product buried thereabouts. (This game may prove more rewarding for her than the faux-poker stuff! which lay behind the interest in faux-PC on the Mac.) Well, I guess gamers would understand such mind melds..

So then - just thought y'all would like to hear of an Exception to the kind of brain-dead responses as drive HelpDesk folks into underground assassin cults with sharp eviscerating knives.

Further adventures may be reported - incl. how the judge takes to her winning personality, pictures + 2# of annotated data + clear synopsis <-VS-> Geek Squad weenies. Unless Best Buy Elsewhere recognizes the Problem and gives back. But hey, they're a corporation; surely the MBA will say No. Love. It.


moi

Kenwood..
Soon to be: Billyware Decontamination Capital of Sonoma County LLC BFD YPB
Tomorrow, Die Welt