Blogtrek

Internet Threat

I have seen my Internet service get worse and worse the past few months. On the web it seems that every site that you go to, other than personal sites like mine, throw uninvited popup windows in your face, as well as ads on the page. These slow down downloading of the web page, and can even lead to a weird looking page. If you use Norton Internet Security's ad blocking, and go to an editorial on the Washington Post, you will get a misshapen window. I suppose the ads are so tied to the structure of the page that eliminating them results in a weird page.

Viruses are becoming more threatening, too. Actually it is just one virus, w32.Klez.H @ mm, which sees fit to pull names off address books for both From: and To: blocks, and I get lots of virus messages accusing me of sending something I didn't send. And spam is getting worse. The latest spam atrocity was something that pulled names from address books and paired them with random email addresses. I then get squawks from places that can't receive the email saying that I, Linda Rodriguez (not a real name), with my correct email address, sent something to them and that it failed for some reason. In my opinion, spam such as this is a virus.

Today I could not get money out of a Bank of America ATM. That was probably due to an attack on servers by a Code Red like virus. Even non-Internet activities such as banking are affected. I think it would help if people put antivirus and site protection software on their computers and servers and use it. That would greatly limit the effectiveness of these Internet monsters. I checked my computer this morning and found no viruses.