Malware again
Dec. 12th, 2014 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueMalware on my work computer again; I'm going to have to spend tomorrow waiting for I.T. to contact me, and then probably wipe the machine and spend four hours reinstalling everything. I can see how, rationally, I should embrace this as a sort of vacation, something that definitely falls into a "not my problem" field, something that lets me hang out and listen to podcasts and still get paid. But I find it excruciating. This is the third time in the last four months*, and I am surrounded by broken things in all the not-work areas of my life. I just want to go in and do my very stressful job** and not have it disrupted by anything.
I am at least cheered by finally hearing an explanation of ad-bot fraud. Before now, I couldn't understand the point of most malware. Why soup up some random person's registry with a bunch of downloaders? It didn't make sense. But in fact there is a reason for doing this: you create malware that acts that way because you are paid to generate extra traffic for a website or group of websites, culminating in extra ad dollars. This closes a satisfying loop for me, because most viruses don't seem to get to you because you click something; they're coming through scripts on banner ads. But also, the asshole who trashes random computers because he needs computers is a very different asshole from the asshole who trashes random computers because he likes making random strangers miserable. It's still obnoxious as hell, but a less No Country For Old Men obnoxious as hell.
* I'm running a very old version of Internet Explorer which is full of security holes. I am not allowed to download another browser. I am not allowed to update it or in any way modify it. I can theoretically update it at a future date, but only if I also do a bundle of other updates, which I am not authorized do until I am issued a new microphone, because of driver issues that have nothing to do with Internet Explorer. I won't have a new microphone until the company negotiates a better deal with a company that sells the kind of microphone we need.
** I don't know whether I've talked about it here particularly, but the kind of live-to-air captioning I do requires most of the same skills and produces most of the same stresses as air traffic control, to the extent that the company's about to start screening recruits using the same tests used for air traffic controllers. It's also like being a Jeopardy contestant; you have to know everything about everything and be able to spit it out very quickly. And on top of that, you have to practice intense, unwavering emotional suppression, because you cannot allow your voice to distort when something awful happens. Monday, for instance, I finished my day with the account of an unspeakably grisly lynching. Which of course I spoke, perfectly and without pause.
I am at least cheered by finally hearing an explanation of ad-bot fraud. Before now, I couldn't understand the point of most malware. Why soup up some random person's registry with a bunch of downloaders? It didn't make sense. But in fact there is a reason for doing this: you create malware that acts that way because you are paid to generate extra traffic for a website or group of websites, culminating in extra ad dollars. This closes a satisfying loop for me, because most viruses don't seem to get to you because you click something; they're coming through scripts on banner ads. But also, the asshole who trashes random computers because he needs computers is a very different asshole from the asshole who trashes random computers because he likes making random strangers miserable. It's still obnoxious as hell, but a less No Country For Old Men obnoxious as hell.
* I'm running a very old version of Internet Explorer which is full of security holes. I am not allowed to download another browser. I am not allowed to update it or in any way modify it. I can theoretically update it at a future date, but only if I also do a bundle of other updates, which I am not authorized do until I am issued a new microphone, because of driver issues that have nothing to do with Internet Explorer. I won't have a new microphone until the company negotiates a better deal with a company that sells the kind of microphone we need.
** I don't know whether I've talked about it here particularly, but the kind of live-to-air captioning I do requires most of the same skills and produces most of the same stresses as air traffic control, to the extent that the company's about to start screening recruits using the same tests used for air traffic controllers. It's also like being a Jeopardy contestant; you have to know everything about everything and be able to spit it out very quickly. And on top of that, you have to practice intense, unwavering emotional suppression, because you cannot allow your voice to distort when something awful happens. Monday, for instance, I finished my day with the account of an unspeakably grisly lynching. Which of course I spoke, perfectly and without pause.
