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White House Insider spam posts

TheOriginalHappyGoat

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Oct 4, 2010
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Margaritaville
This guy has been hitting us hard lately. A few things to remember:

1. He operates at least two sites that he links here, White House Insider and "thenews-zone.com", which often includes a fake subdomain such as "buzzfeed" or "huffpost" or "cbsnews" at the beginning of the link, in an attempt to trick you into thinking it is a legitimate site. There may be others, as well. He also operates social media feeds so that he can embed Twitter and Facebook posts that link to his sites, instead of posting them directly.
2. By all accounts, his sites are spam at best, but they appear to operate as redirects that may try to download malware to your computer. It is highly recommended that you run some sort of anti-virus program, and also download and install Malwarebytes. They will try to upgrade you to premium, but the free version is good enough for most purposes. If you have any other questions about general cybersecurity, please be sure to tag @UncleMark. He gets off on helping people protect their hardware.
3. He creates a new account every time he posts, even if he has current accounts that haven't been banned yet. It appears he does not ever sign in with an account twice. So responding to him to tell him he's an idiot might make you feel better, but it doesn't do anything to him.
4. The best thing to do if you see one of these posts is to immediately report it as spam, and a moderator will clean it up as soon as they see your report.
 
This guy has been hitting us hard lately. A few things to remember:

1. He operates at least two sites that he links here, White House Insider and "thenews-zone.com", which often includes a fake subdomain such as "buzzfeed" or "huffpost" or "cbsnews" at the beginning of the link, in an attempt to trick you into thinking it is a legitimate site. There may be others, as well. He also operates social media feeds so that he can embed Twitter and Facebook posts that link to his sites, instead of posting them directly.
2. By all accounts, his sites are spam at best, but they appear to operate as redirects that may try to download malware to your computer. It is highly recommended that you run some sort of anti-virus program, and also download and install Malwarebytes. They will try to upgrade you to premium, but the free version is good enough for most purposes. If you have any other questions about general cybersecurity, please be sure to tag @UncleMark. He gets off on helping people protect their hardware.
3. He creates a new account every time he posts, even if he has current accounts that haven't been banned yet. It appears he does not ever sign in with an account twice. So responding to him to tell him he's an idiot might make you feel better, but it doesn't do anything to him.
4. The best thing to do if you see one of these posts is to immediately report it as spam, and a moderator will clean it up as soon as they see your report.
Is AVG anti-virus software any good? I had a computer consultant recommend the free version of that software to me recently.
 
Is AVG anti-virus software any good? I had a computer consultant recommend the free version of that software to me recently.
It used to be, before it got all heavy and bloated and trying to make itself into a "Security Suite".

Too much "security" software is window dressing. It also opens up more possibilities for compromise, since by it's very nature AV software has to have the highest admin privileges possible on the machine. If the AV software itself has a exploitable hook, then your system is a sitting duck. Additionally, if the AV software itself gets corrupted in some fashion, it can make your machine unusable. Norton is notorious for this.

My personal opinion on desktop security software is to keep it simple:
  • The built in Windows Defender anti-virus provides adequate baseline protection.
  • Install the uBlock Origin addon in your browser to block shady ads and scripts and third party crap from accessing the machine. I also highly recommend enabling the MSVP Hosts Third Party Filter in uBlock.
  • Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) free version will give you very good on demand scanning and cleaning if you want to see if you've picked up any junk. The premium $$$ version runs resident and will block anything it detects if you think you really need it.
 
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It used to be, before it got all heavy and bloated and trying to make itself into a "Security Suite".

Too much "security" software is window dressing. It also opens up more possibilities for compromise, since by it's very nature AV software has to have the highest admin privileges possible on the machine. If the AV software itself has a exploitable hook, then your system is a sitting duck. Additionally, if the AV software itself gets corrupted in some fashion, it can make your machine unusable. Norton is notorious for this.

My personal opinion on desktop security software is to keep it simple:
  • The built in Windows Defender anti-virus provides adequate baseline protection.
  • Install the uBlock Origin addon in your browser to block shady ads and scripts and third party crap from accessing the machine. I also highly recommend enabling the MSVP Hosts Third Party Filter in uBlock.
  • Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) free version will give you very good on demand scanning and cleaning if you want to see if you've picked up and junk. The premium $$$ version runs resident and will block anything it detects if you think you really need it.
Your three step model is exactly how I do it.
 
It used to be, before it got all heavy and bloated and trying to make itself into a "Security Suite".

Too much "security" software is window dressing. It also opens up more possibilities for compromise, since by it's very nature AV software has to have the highest admin privileges possible on the machine. If the AV software itself has a exploitable hook, then your system is a sitting duck. Additionally, if the AV software itself gets corrupted in some fashion, it can make your machine unusable. Norton is notorious for this.

My personal opinion on desktop security software is to keep it simple:
  • The built in Windows Defender anti-virus provides adequate baseline protection.
  • Install the uBlock Origin addon in your browser to block shady ads and scripts and third party crap from accessing the machine. I also highly recommend enabling the MSVP Hosts Third Party Filter in uBlock.
  • Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) free version will give you very good on demand scanning and cleaning if you want to see if you've picked up any junk. The premium $$$ version runs resident and will block anything it detects if you think you really need it.
And for a Mac?
 
And for a Mac?

Do steps 2 and 3 from Mark's post, those are exactly the same on both platforms. For step 1, substitute turning on FileVault and the built-in Firewall and you're in pretty good shape.

Apple has stronger sandboxing, which is annoying for some things but good for typical user security. Don't do things like allow your web browser the "Full Disk Access" permission or installing apps from outside the App Store unless you know what you're doing.

No clue. Call Tim Cook.

He goes by Tim Apple now.
 
Do steps 2 and 3 from Mark's post, those are exactly the same on both platforms. For step 1, substitute turning on FileVault and the built-in Firewall and you're in pretty good shape.

Apple has stronger sandboxing, which is annoying for some things but good for typical user security. Don't do things like allow your web browser the "Full Disk Access" permission or installing apps from outside the App Store unless you know what you're doing.



He goes by Tim Apple now.
Hmmmm . . . how about running Windows on a Mac, via bootcamp?
 
This guy has been hitting us hard lately. A few things to remember:

1. He operates at least two sites that he links here, White House Insider and "thenews-zone.com", which often includes a fake subdomain such as "buzzfeed" or "huffpost" or "cbsnews" at the beginning of the link, in an attempt to trick you into thinking it is a legitimate site. There may be others, as well. He also operates social media feeds so that he can embed Twitter and Facebook posts that link to his sites, instead of posting them directly.
2. By all accounts, his sites are spam at best, but they appear to operate as redirects that may try to download malware to your computer. It is highly recommended that you run some sort of anti-virus program, and also download and install Malwarebytes. They will try to upgrade you to premium, but the free version is good enough for most purposes. If you have any other questions about general cybersecurity, please be sure to tag @UncleMark. He gets off on helping people protect their hardware.
3. He creates a new account every time he posts, even if he has current accounts that haven't been banned yet. It appears he does not ever sign in with an account twice. So responding to him to tell him he's an idiot might make you feel better, but it doesn't do anything to him.
4. The best thing to do if you see one of these posts is to immediately report it as spam, and a moderator will clean it up as soon as they see your report.
He gets exactly what he wants and that is people replying to him.
 
Could you have this all wrong and it’s not a he at all? It’s a SHE????

:p
 
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