Josiah T.: Fifteen Minutes Of Fiction

Battleground of the Computer Part 1 - Infection

All was silent on the outskirts of the computer. The firewall patrolled the rim of the operating system, making sure that the many hacking attempts that occurred every second did not do any damage. The Anti-Virus troops sat behind the firewall, confident that they would not be needed tonight.

The User sat in front of the screen doing his normal browsing, nothing out of the ordinary. All was quiet, and in the long silence, some of the AV troops began to get restless.

Suddenly a warning flashed on the screen in front of the user: You're computer is infected with dangerous spyware! Click here to download protection!" Without thinking, the User clicked the link, opening the firewall and bypassing the AV, to start the war of the computer's lifetime.

For a few days, nothing seemed wrong. The User kept on at his normal browsing, and everything seemed OK. Beneath the screen, however, in the depths of the operating system, the AV was quickly being overrun.

The spyware was not just spyware, but a combination of spyware, viruses, and a trojan. It worked very quickly to shut down both the firewall and the AV.

The AV, however, was not going to go down without a fight. It began giving more infection warnings then usual, but in the end, it was overrun. The spyware included programing to send the AV into snooze mode, permanently.

With the firewall shut down and the AV snoozed, the door was open for more attacks, and the User didn't even realize something was wrong.

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Battleground of the Computer - Introduction

The Good Guys

Firewall - The first line of defense. Blocks some 90% of all threats
Anti-Virus (AV) - Second line of defense - attempts to block the other 10% of threats
Anti-Spyware (AS) - Paid subscriptions often try and block spyware, free programs usually just scan for and remove it.
- Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
- Spy-Bot Search and Destroy
- Ad-Aware
- SUPERAntiSpyware
Removal Tools - DOS based tools for removing spyware and cleaning the registry.
User - You. The person using the computer.
Tech - Me. The person fixing the computer.

The Bad Guys
Hackers - Try and hack into computer to steal personal data. Firewall attempts to block hacking attempts.
Virus - Infiltrates computer via web browsing, email, and any other route into the computer. Tends to be very destructive and replicative - it destroys files and replicates itself on the computer, and often emails itself to other users.
Spyware - Infiltrates computer mainly through web browsing and false advertising and false alerts. Tries to steal personal data (credit card numbers, passwords, etc.)
Malware - Can be either spyware or virus. Infiltrates computer by user visiting sites they shouldn't be going to. Once installed, it pops fake infection alerts, and brings more spyware and viruses in.
Trojan - Can fall under either spyware or virus. A Trojan Horse tries to attach itself to files that look legitimate, and then opens security holes for more bad stuff to come in.

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In Between Classes...

After class I go down to the library with my laptop and sit for three and a half hours while I wait for the next one. During that time (unless someone is on messenger) my music is my sole companion. Today I'm listening to the soundtracks from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Now, most people have the original soundtrack. I however, have the complete score for the movie - some three and a half hours of music, just the right amount for this afternoon.

The music is grand and epic. Before long I am swept away into a land of elves, orcs, hobbits, trolls, rings, wizards, warriors, and battles. Soon, I'm reliving the Rohirrim charging down the hill toward Minas Tirith, the Oliphaunts charging down the Rohirrim, and Aragorn leading his men into a final battle.

It's amazing what a good score can do for a movie. It can turn it from good to amazing. Such music... Even though I've listened to it many times, my mouth bursts open in song...

Thirty seconds later I'm walking out of the library wondering what to do for the next three hours.

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A Walk in the Woods

I climb out of the car after an hour and a quarter of waiting. I look around for a trail head, but all I see is a road leading straight on with a chain across it, and a sign reading “Trail closed due to excessive rain damage.” Doug goes over to a little house nearby, where he is told that the sign is for ATVs, not hikers. “The trail head is about twenty minutes brisk walk from here.” He is told. After getting our backpacks on and adjusted, we start down the road. It is about two o'clock in the afternoon when we leave the car. We have packed sandwich fixings for supper, and we hope to be back down the mountain by seven o'clock.

At first it looks like a nice easy walk through the woods. The road slopes downhill slightly, and is quite smooth. After the first bend, however, I see why the sign was posted at the trail head. The road slopes down a little steeper, and rivets and gullies two feet deep are washed cleanly down the road, making even walking down middle of the road treacherous. I work my way more slowly now, careful to not fall and injure myself – that would put a real quick end to this hike.

Everyone else works their way around the water damage as carefully as I do. After a few minutes, we're at the bottom of the hill, and the road continues. I look at dad's GPS that I am carrying. He programmed the coordinates for the peak of the mountain into the GPS before we came. Flipping through the screens, I come across the map screen. According to my reading, the peak is directly to the left of me, but the road continues on straight.

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I'm Sorry

I'm sorry for the times
I've tried before and failed.
Yet you keep on running after me,
Tho it seems to no avail.

I'm sorry for the scars
I left upon your heart.
If I could take them back,
I'd do it from the start.

Every time I try
To get up on my feet,
Something always happens;
I fall back like I'm beat.

I'm sorry for the times
I've tried before and failed.
Yet you keep on running after me,
Tho it seems to no avail.

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Faith

Faith is such a small word, but has such a huge meaning behind it. When someone says “have faith,” do we really know what they mean? Faith is one of those words that is inseparable from God and religion. Faith is a personal journey for each individual, and each must discover their own faith in their own way. I write this in the hope that I can explore and grow in my own faith.

Perhaps the simplest description of faith is found in Hebrews chapter 11: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) The author of Hebrews then goes on to describe how the Ancients of Scripture were commended, each for their own faith. Hebrews 11 is often referred to as the “Faith Hall of Fame,” listing men from Abel to Moses and beyond.

Take an average person living in the United States. This person watches the news every night, as do millions of other Americans. One night the person turns the TV on to see that a massive earthquake has devastated part of China. The news broadcast shows some footage from the area where the earthquake hit hardest, and then moves on to the next story. The person believes that an earthquake has struck China, because it said so on the news. The person believes it because they saw proof.

If the same person saw on the same news channel how thousands of aliens were taking over the earth, they would likely believe that as well because the news service is reputed to be a reliable source.

I can’t think of a more reliable source then God, yet so many people deny His very existence. People often wonder where the “proof” of God is. Having faith is not about having proof. Jesus once said to one of his disciples: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen me and yet have believed.”

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The Internet

There are some things I love about the Internet. There are also some things I hate about it.

One of the things I hate about the Internet is the viruses and spyware the tend to infect computers when their owners are naive enough to go online without properly updated security software.

Recently, I had a computer come in that was running expired versions of two security suites. First off, running two Anti Virus programs at the same time is not a good idea, since they tend to fight each other and forget about the viruses. Second, since they were expired, (and fighting each other) a trojan horse program had got in, and blocked off access to the internet. So, when I removed the other two programs and put mine on, I couldn't update it. And since I couldn't update it, I couldn't scan the Anti Virus. Fortunately, I was able to clean the trojan using the Anti Spyware feature, and was able to go online and update the rest of the security software.

One of the better aspects of it, is the fact that you can find almost anything about anything, making it an extremely valuable resource for students and computer technicians.

I recently had another computer in with viruses spyware on it. It would randomly give a Blue Screen of Death error, and restart Windows, only to give another error.

After a little research, I discovered that this was not, in fact, spyware, but rather a neat little screen saver program that flashed a fake Blue Screen of Death at you. I also found a link to download it. Boy am I going to have fun...

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Thunder Storm

Blinding light flashes outside my window. A deep rumbling noise reverberates off the surrounding mountains. Amid the rumbling and crashing of the thunder, the soft pitter-patter of rain can be heard as it falls on the grass.

A gust of wind rushes by, shaking the trees. More soon follows, and the soft rush becomes a roar. The pitter-patter of the rain turns to loud crashes on the roof.

Standing in front of the back window, I observe the storm from the safety of the house. Hail the size of ping-pong balls is now falling, bouncing off the metal roof, and then melting soon after striking the ground.

I hear a crack loud crack. A branch from the neighbors apple tree has been torn off by the wind. The birch trees in the back yard are swaying dangerously.

I drive through town after the storm is over. Or I try to. Trees are down over the roads and power lines. Most of the town is without electricity. As I drive back toward home, the thought enters my mind: "How can one see this and not believe in the existence of God?"

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Problems With a Copier

It's my job to do the bulletin for church on Sunday. Doing this involves creating the document in Microsoft Publisher on my computer at home, printing it and then copying it at church. Lately, however, I've been thinking that I should start doing the whole copying bit at home.

There's a reason, of course, that we do all the copying for the church at the church. For one thing the church buys it's own toner and paper for the copier, and if we copied the bulletin at home, we would be using our own. However, I'm beginning to wonder if it's really worth all the headaches of using a different copier, because every copier is different.

Take this example: I also print off email updates that we periodically receive from some of our missionaries, Gene and Carol. Last week we received three updates, one long one and two short ones.. These I printed off at home, but was in a rush to get to church I neglected to check what I was printing.

I got to the church and started copying. After I had printed the long update I put the two short one's together and started copying those onto the backside of the copies that I had just made. It was only after I had finished copying them that I discovered I had printed duplicates of one of the short updates at home, so I had just made a bunch of garbage copies.

I went home and printed the correct update, and rushed back to the church, now getting seriously pressed for time. I copied the long update using the top feeder on the copier, but I had to fold the two short updates so I could copy them on the same page. These I put on the scanner bed, since they wouldn't go through the feed.

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