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Tech News & Commentary
Dana in Middleton, Delaware listening on WDEL asked us: “My computer has been hacked. They hacked me three years ago. They’re still in there. They shut me down. They do the DDOS, they scramble my tweets. They aggravate me and my family. Everyone who comes into this house gets hacked. I’m learning e-hacking so I can make my computer a little more secure and maybe I can locate them. I tried contacting the FBI and I’m not getting any help. Do you have any suggestions? I tried Kaspersky, but because they hacked my computer, they dismantle all my anti-malware and stuff like that. They hacked me through Twitter and got my IP address and they just keep attacking me.”
Dana, There’s only so much that people can do with your computer, no one can scramble your tweets unless they’re Twitter, and Twitter doesn’t make users IP Addresses public, so they can’t be getting you IP from there either.
DDOS stands for Distributed Denial Of Service, and by that very definition it’s a type of attack that requires several people at different locations to attack you at the same time… unless you really, really made someone mad, we don’t think anyone would keep up periodic DDOS attacks on you for years.
How does everyone that goes into your house get hacked? What happens to them? What specifically is happening to you that makes you suspect that people have been attacking you for 3 years?
Also, what do you mean by “dismantling your anti-malware”? Do you just mean uninstall it?
It’s very unlikely that anyone has been willing and able to do all of this to your computer in a sustained fashion over the course of 3 years.
Unless you have a static IP address from your Internet Service Provider, which is very unusual for a residential customer, your IP address will change each time you disconnect and reconnect to their network. Now it will try to give you the same address if you’re only gone for a brief time, so if you want to force a new address, you should probably power down your modem or router, whatever device you use to actually connect to the provider, and leave it off for a while.
What is more likely here is that you have a particularly stubborn computer virus here and it keeps re-infecting your machine. The ultimate solution to that is to reformat the computer’s hard drive, reinstall the operating system from scratch, and reload all your applications. This is a very serious move, however, as it wipes out all the data on your computer, including the virus, so you’ll need to be extremely careful about making sure you have all the backups of your data files before you undertake this.
Wiping the computer of its data and starting over is, however, the only 100% reliable way to remove all computer viruses and malware. There has only been one virus in history that could survive such an action, it actually reprogrammed the computer’s BIOS chips, but all modern computers are immune to that kind of thing now.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Karen in London, Tennessee calling in via the App asked us: “My mom has an iPad Mini that she takes on a lot of trips with her. Is there a way to hook up a USB to the charging port to be able to pull her pictures from for storage?”
Karen, First of all, if she had one of many Android Tablets, that wouldn’t be a problem! 🙂
What she needs is not a common product you can usually find in stores, but there are plenty of products you can use that can hook up to your charging port in order to use it as a USB drive.
We weren’t able to find any in local electronics stores like Best Buy, but online, Best Buy offers the lightning connector for about $20. Online, you’ll find similar products on different websites for as low as $3– so you definitely want to look around, although Best Buy’s product I just mentioned is actually manufactured by Apple, so you can’t go wrong with that! Also make sure you get the right connector, one that will fit both your charging port and the USB data cable you wish to use.
If you are running iOS 7 or 8, however, you’re out of luck. Apple has locked down the USB port capability of their devices. There are no flash drives that will work with it. The Kingston Wi-Drive, a wireless USB drive, can be used with iOS 7 but not iOS 8.
Frankly, the right way to do this is with a cloud service such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox. You can easily upload all the pictures from the iPad Mini to the cloud, then delete them from the camera roll on the iPad. If you’re using Dropbox for this, you can then view the pictures using the Dropbox app without having to download them back to the iPad, assuming that you’re connected to the Internet of course.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Marc Goodman, FBI Futurist-in-Residence, Interpol Cyber Crimes Expert & author of Future Crimes
“CEA Feature” with Bronwyn Flores
Trade Promotion Authority – also known as TPA – is key to the success of U.S. businesses. And you can support this right with just a few clicks! Bronwyn Flores from the Consumer Electronics Association’s explains how – in this week’s CEA Update.
Jon in Rocklin, California listens to the Podcast and calling via the App asked us: “My eldest son is a major fan of Minecraft. He wants me to build him a system so he can play Minecraft better, faster, stronger. Wondering if anyone out there might have a site that might be a cross reference of hardware that wouldn’t have any issues. I used to build systems and I know that certain configurations are gonna give you problems. For instance, AMD might be cheaper but you’ll have to buy better RAM because cheaper RAM might not work as well with an AMD processor.”
Jon,you may find GooeyPC useful, it basically lets you pick the parts you intend to buy and build a virtual system, and it will alert you of compatibility issues between the parts you’re planning to use to build your system.
PCPartPicker.com works roughly the same way and it will also report any known compatibility issues. PCSpecs.com has a similar system too, with the added advantage that you can compare your homebuilt PC to systems that are out in the market today, and see what kind of performance you can expect from it.
You can also ask experienced system builders, Tom’s Hardware has plenty of posts on it’s forums asking for compatibility checks. You can probably post your own question before actually buying anything and see what the experts have to say about your setup.
Frame rate drops during a Minecraft session are the stuff of myth and legend. Meaning it seems like everybody gets them at some point, but no one can agree on what they come from or what the fix is.
Some people recommend the standard gaming setup: an SSD instead of a traditional hard drive, the latest gaming video card, and plenty of memory. Since Minecraft is a Java program, though, having lots of memory in your computer doesn’t mean that Minecraft will use that memory. There are batch file examples on the official Minecraft forums that show how to launch the game with command line parameters to the Java runtime that allocate more memory to the game.
Some of the hardest of the hardcore Minecraft fans swear by the Linux/Other version, even on a Windows PC. Again, because it runs in Java, getting the Linux version working on a Windows PC is indeed possible, if a bit convoluted.
Because of all the unique real time calculations Minecraft must do just to show you the world, despite its blocky graphics it’s a true stress test of your gaming PC. And, if all else fails, turn down the view distance in your game options. Hope that helps!
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Steve in Lake Villa, Illinois listens to the Podcast – calling via the App asked us: “What online job site do you recommend? I’m thinking of maybe looking around and seeing what else is out there. I know the big sites but I was wondering if there was anything more precise.”
Steve, When you ask if there’s anything more precise, we assume you’re asking about finding specific jobs in your specific field. If your profession is regulated in any way, you may find some good job leads on whatever website the regulating body operates.
For example, let’s say you were a lawyer in Florida. The Florida Bar has a website, floridabar.org. Under the Member Services menu item, there’s a link for Employment Opportunities. That page has in turn links for Career Opportunities, Employment Classified Ads, Available Judicial Appointments, and even jobs at the Florida Bar itself.
You can also target company websites, if you know who you want to work for in your chosen field. Visit their website directly. The jobs listed there are almost always the most recent offerings, and since you’re coming straight in from their website and not through a referral site where they have to pay for the listing, you’ll often find it an easier road to employment. There will usually be an email address where you can submit a resume, or a link to an online employment application.
So don’t assume that these giant mega-mart job sites are the only place, or even the BEST place to find jobs. Doing some online leg work from your kitchen table might just take you closer to the source and get you hired more quickly. Good luck!
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Burg: Burg 16A Smartwatch – connects with iOS and Android phones, offering handsfree calling, text and e-mail notifications and more!
Education.Com: Several “Brainzy” 12-month codes for online early-learning programs for math and reading. If you’ve got Kids … you WANT one of these!
HD Radio: “Into Tomorrow” branded Portable AM/FM/HD Radios – these are in high demand and give you more FREE radio — the way it should be!
LG: An LG ‘G’ Vista Smartphone with an extra large display and good battery life.
NanoTech: Several UltraFlix Gift Cards for 4K Content, like movies and a ton of other cool stuff. Let us know if you have a 4K Ultra HD TV!
NovaPhotos: A couple of their cool Bluetooth off-camera FLASH units for iPhone (that we featured in a recent ITTV piece). Perfect for Selfies. They have 40 LEDs!