Energy Drink for Mondays

If you downloaded the great Windows program CCleaner between August 15 and September 12 (version 5.33), you probably got an 'altered' version, including malware. The malware took an inventory of your system, uploaded it to a server, and included the capability of downloading viruses. There is no evidence that it downloaded anything and the malware only runs on 32 bit versions of Windows. To find out whether you have 32 or 64 bit Windows, hit START, then right click on computer. Halfway down, under System type, it will tell you.

If you got version 5.33, download 5.34, which will detect and clean the system. You would not be infected if you used a previous version and just ran updates. Piriform, which makes CCleaner, was purchased by Avast, which makes antivirus.  The malware was found to have infected a list of corporations only.

• Here's your yearly reminder to NOT let your browser remember your passwords. If it knows your passwords, anyone who sits at your computer knows them too. Unless you live in a bank vault, with no family and no pets smart enough to use the computer, go ahead and type the password in please.

Here's some comforting news: do you know why no one has shot down any of the North Korean test missiles? Because they can't. In spite of $320 billion spent on missile defense systems, it's a coin toss on a good day.

• To no one's surprise, or everyone's surprise, the (good) neighbor's construction project continues. It's interesting to note that nothing coming from that house or yard makes a sound. Not a peep at all.. until the other day, when Loud Construction Company showed up. Today's noise started late in the afternoon.  The best way to describe it is a basketball game, but instead of basketballs, they're bouncing sledgehammers. This was followed in short order by the rotary saw on concrete noise. It sounded almost as good as trying to saw an old Volkswagen Bug (as opposed to a new Volkswagen Bug) in half.  
• An hour later, when the Bug was finally in two pieces, the Industrial Leaf Blower noise began.  The Industrial Leaf Blower noise is similar to a Regular Leaf Blower noise, only when it's running in very close proximity to your ear. As an experiment, get your leaf blower from the garage or the kids' room. Fire it up and put it on the highest setting. Now go into your bathroom and stand in the tub, with the blower going like mad. Try singing, because it sounds great with all the natural reverb. The Industrial Leaf Blower noise is a lot like this, but different.

It's Say Something Nice About Apple Day!  Well, there's not really any such day, but I can only bring myself to say something nice about once a year, largely because Apple only does something nice once a year. That having been said, in the next version of iOS, Apple introduces browser (Safari) technology that disables pervasive tracking by ads. You know, the cookies that tell sites where you've been and put up 'relevant ads.' The main way to do this is to disable third party cookies, but the ad people found a way to do this with first party cookies, from the site itself.

Predictably, the top ad agencies had a heart attack, writing a letter to Apple, complaining that they're breaking the internet. Apple fired back that the technology is invasive, allowing companies to virtually reconstruct browser history.

Color me impressed.

• Word of advice: you might want to avoid watching Russian military technology on anything other than video.  So much to mine here, but my favorite is "the victims were most likely journalists."

According to a New York plastic surgeon, women are dropping $50,000 for surgery to look like Ivanka Trump.  I guess Real Housewives is over for the season.

• If you use WhatsApp, you may be able to breathe a little easier. WhatsApp declined a request from the government for a back door. You know, they needed it because of 'terrorism'. Of course, we use Signal, which also doesn't have back doors. Can you say Pervasive Government Surveillance?

Useless Fact of the Day: Iceland is the only country without mosquitoes. It may also be one of the countries where you can't name your children anything you want, so that's your tradeoff.

• Taco Bell plans three hundred new locations, all without drive-thru. This is because they will be serving alcohol, and apparently you can't buy alcohol in a drive-thru. You have to go inside to buy it, which makes perfect sense, in that it makes no sense at all. Even PA has drive-thru beer distributors.
• We can't have people ordering alcohol in a drive-thru because they might drive drunk. As opposed to going in side, buying alcohol, and driving.
• The good news is that, well, you can buy alcohol. The other news, and you can decide whether it's good or bad, is that you can now be drunk while your intestines are emptying themselves of the poison you just ate with your alcohol.

Colorado Springs police are looking for a woman they call The Mad Pooper. She jogs and defecates on lawns. Personally I'm opposed to both. If you have to clean up after your dog, why not your jogger? Perhaps she ate at one of the Taco Bells that serve alcohol.

• A Phoenix, Arizona man pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, after he refused to hand over credentials to a company's domain. They wanted to update their domain information and he claimed he didn't have the credentials. He did, of course.  First he screwed up the company's email. The he moved their website to a blank page. Finally, in a bold move, he told the company if they didn't pay him $10,000, he'd direct the company's webpage to teen[sexual orientation][body part].com
• The company, wisely or not, refused the ransom, at which point the man made good and for a few days, the company's site was directed to the porn site. The authorities got involved and Tavis Tso took a plea deal, involving $9,145 in restitution.  There was no jail time because the US Attorney referred to the crime as a One Time Lapse.
• So the next time you come to America as an illegal or rob a bank, make sure you specify that this was a One Time Lapse.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has rejected two NSA encryption algorithms because the NSA is not trusted to put security ahead of surveillance. In plain English, NSA encryption will not be a standard because the NSA can't be trusted not to put in a back door. Finally, some common sense, not to mention a bit of sad, internal laughter.

• As if the Equifax hack weren't fun enough, Equifax sent victims to a fake website. Do you trust this company with most of your important information? That you had no say over?

I got up early this morning, if you want an indicator of how my day's going.

Lastly, I plan to ask Mr. Google why their blogging platform's spellcheck chokes on the word 'internet'.