A Very Sneaky And Annoying New Virus … and my Job Application

NOT copyrighted … share widely … Mark McWiggins 2024

My computer recently broke down and I had an old Windows computer around that I hadn’t used for years. I logged into it and it worked fine for a few days then started having funny symptoms … wouldn’t stay connected to our fast computer network, and other weird experiences.

It finally occurred to me in the middle of the night: it’s a computer virus!

This message starts coming up and is impossible to get rid of “you have a virus” Mcafee needs to run!

But it wanted payment and we are quite financially between paychecks these days and I realized in the middle of the night .. I was trying to uninstall the stupid thing until I realized I was trying to find it in the list of programs late at night just before I went to bed … then I realized … computer virus.

I realized too late that the Windows 11 upgrade had come with firewall turned off by default, which is how it got infected in the first place.

My plan is to convert the system to Linux, but this required a USB boot to get this going and the only USB I have is either formatted for a different system or the virus was keeping it from being recognized or I’m not sure. But my Linux upgrade is delayed until I can get a new one of these.

More on USB drives: they can be a virus vector in the first place … the Stuxnet virus was developed by the US to destroy the computer infrastructure of the Iranian nuclear program by leaving a virus-laden USB drive in the parking lot of the thing as a trojan horse, and the Iranians took it in and the rest is history.

What does this mean for you: only use USB drives that (a) you just open from the manufacturer’s packaging and (b) don’t let out of your sight … keep it in a chain around your neck or in your pocket or purse.

That’s it … I hope this is helpful. If you did find this useful and are interested in my help I have 30+ years of experience in systems software and managment … I have a paper here in Medium.com called Manager as Player Coach and a few others that show part of the range of my skill set:

A New Engine for Easy Database Access (featuring the superfast Python (improper superset) called Mojo, which is 35000x faster than C Python (Source: CACM January 2024)

Also: Email Advice for Corporations and You … on recruiting without dealing with Workday and its ilk, which is often completely off line after midnight, meaning that recruiters miss a lot of options to get qualified candidates.

Finally, A Better Way to Automate Tests.

I also have a background in compiler development with PLY and the Lark parser generator as well as ANTLR … and computer language design and implmentataion as well, from DSLs to a custom database language at the dawn of my career.

If you are interested in hiring me after reading this, please do call 425–369–8286. Thanks, Mark McWiggins