A Tale of Pain and Malware Woe
Just before I went to bed last night, I was composing a post that I didn’t have quite finished, and wasn’t sure ought to be posted as was because it intertwined some adventures in computer crud removal with domestic fun and having injured myself Here is what I wrote, and I’ll add to it at the end:
Today while Deb went to the doctor, I stayed with Sadie, due to the current car situation, though it would have made sense regardless.
While she was gone, I gave Sadie breakfast. That makes this an unusual day, in that I fed her two meals. Usually I only do supper, and I usually get to be the fun one who introduces new things. Tonight it was apricots. Which were yummy, but not particularly sweet, and not something I would have expected her to go almost as nuts for as blueberries. She has good taste.
Anyway, after breakfast, through which she babbled, Sadie played on the floor, continuing to babble, then went to sleep like flicking a switch. She looked uncomfortable, so I moved her to the crib.
About the time I remembered I ought to take a shower while she was sleeping, as she’d already been for a while, I got e-mail from a client. The problem I spent several hours on Saturday evening, after an initial four hours a couple days before, was back.
It had involved machine gun popups out of the blue. We’re talking fifty plus popups of browser windows and fake, browser-based “error” windows prompting you to infect your system further, so fast they were rendered useless to the purveyor.
It had ultimately involved many scans with Ad-Aware and other utilities, Norton Antivirus, turning off system restore in XP, scanning in safe mode, killing the stuff in the Norton recycle bin, and a lot of manual purging of stuff in command prompt safe mode as administrator. Of course, dir/p/tc/o-d doesn’t do much good if malware puts itself on there with a date of several years ago and looks like an operating system file.
It appeared Saturday to be clean, but today there was a popup incident again, which they made sound like it was more of the machine gun popups. I was annoyed and sure this meant fdisking.
I explained I was home with the baby while Deb was at the doctor, reviewed what we’d probably have to do and what they could do to prepare themselves, and said I since Sadie was asleep I was about to step in the shower so I’d be ready to leave as soon as Deb came home.
I’m stepping into the shower.
The baby is sleeping.
What part of that makes a person think it would be a good idea to call upon receiving the e-mail, potentially waking the baby up and either not getting me or dragging me out of the shower?
Agitated, I started hurrying faster, and something happened that you hear about happening, usually to old people, but it never happens to you.
I fell. The tub got slippery with soap in the usual spot, and I was felled like a big old tree on its way to becoming materials in overpriced houses.
Slammed down on my right shoulder, so it and the elbow hurt like hell, and slammed my head against the back end of the enclosure. Luckily it only hurt, and there were no more than seconds of daze. I was worried about what if I’d hurt myself enough not to get to Sadie if needed. That and I was supremely embarrassed. Mad too.
Bizarrely, the result has been that it hurts to use my left hand, and it doesn’t want to close and grip normally without pain. Almost an arthritic feeling. Up and down the arm feels odd, centered on the elbow, and my upper right back is fairly painful. The other arm merely feels a little stiff at times, with a modest flareup of elbow pain (both elbows were damaged in the past and pain is still not especially unusual), just enough to know something happened to it but not enough to be bothersome. Heck, I can feel where I hit my head, but it’s not pain so much as awareness.
Yay.
Currently it hurts to drive with the left hand, it’s hard to hold a glass, I can’t carry my briefcase with it, and holding a small bowl in that hand hurt enough to switch after a moment. Hopefully this will go away quickly. I don’t remember where or how the left landed or what that hand and arm might have done to try to break my fall. Obviously it was more involved than I thought initially.
Deb got home as I was finishing the shower, and I eventually got up to the client to see what was going on. They didn’t tell me that it was all of a couple of little popups, and nothing like the problem had been. I’d decided to try cleaning again and maybe to start backing up files off the machine. I ended up identifying an unwanted process I hadn’t seen before, ending it, and deleting the file, which was in the system folder, rather than system32, a more customary place to look.
I am feeling good about the prospects for remission. I covered new ground and was comprehensive. It didn’t blow up after a while of being teased into it. We’ll see. At least that seemed to go well.
This morning I feel better, but the left arm is still stiff and mildly sore, the elbow hurts, and the hand still bothers me. My right shoulder hurts vigorously, feeling if not looking like it’s bruised, and being tender to the touch. It bothered me to sleep on that side overnight. The right arm, mostly the upper part, feels a bit of the same as the left, with more of a hot and cold sensation running down from the shoulder and out from the elbow. The right hand is fine, the back is barely noticable anymore, but there. There’s a little bit of pain running from the shoulder into the right side of my neck, and a very mild, reduced feeling on the side of my head that I’d call an echo of awareness that it was banged up yesterday. It’s all more noticable, naturally, if I sit here and try to take stock of what I feel where, rather than focusing on something else, and it varies depending what I am doing.
Hopefully it’ll go away fast! Meanwhile, no further signs of malware so far. Only $880 to cleanup one computer and spend time almost incidental by comparison checking other machines and helping to update their antivirus software. It’s like a war. It’s gotten to where malware cleanups are the primary component of my job, and that’s no more what I’d prefer than anyone else. This particular incident also showcased the limitations of the software for scanning and detecting visuses and malware. Ultimately four such programs missed what kept bringing it back.
What does it do to the economy to have computers brought to their knees by these scum? It’s insane.
It’s called a doctor, and I suggest you go. The LEFT side issues make me nervous. The right side sounds like normal post-fall aches. You could have a pinched nerve on that left, though.....
Posted by caltechgirl on 03/22 at 02:13 PMbelieve it or not, Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta found a lot of stuff that AdAware, SpyBot and HijackThis missed & left my system squeeky-clean.
I don’t even bother with those others anymore.
Posted by Rob@L&R on 03/22 at 03:57 PMAs Jerry Pournelle points out, it would take several incidents of very public and very violent action on the physical beings of the spammers to deter them.
Posted by Ranten N. Raven on 03/22 at 04:11 PMYou probably have a pinched nerve in your upper back or neck. I’m no doctor, but I did have a similar experience. I broke my right collarbone in a wreck, and after it healed I started having pain on the left side when the weather changed. My regular doctor said it was because of the nerve bundle by the collarbone, and the fact that the jerk who set it didn’t get it quite in the right place. You really should go to the doctor, and he’ll probably give you some anti-inflammatory medication. I’m just guessing though.
Posted by Denise on 03/25 at 06:17 AM
Next entry: Doctors in a Pinch
Previous entry: Your Daily Sadie