dear IT guys

[minxnim]

please fix my printer. when i called saying it wasn't working, i didn't mean that it's out of toner. don't ask me to take the toner cartridge out and shake it ever again, okay? because i'm just not doing that more than 20 times a day like i already do. when i said 'it won't turn on' that doesn't mean it's not plugged in. you don't need to go to IT school to figure that out. what i mean is, IT'S OLD AND BUSTED AND SO ARE YOU NOW FIX IT. and don't call me back again asking 'is it working now?' when you haven't come to check on it.

i'm having fun making a voodoo doll of you while waiting to have it fixed.

love,
amanda AKA that skinny bitch

 

[xfer]

Geeks Put the Unsavvy on Alert: Learn or Log Off

February 5, 2004
By AMY HARMON





When Scott Granneman, a technology instructor, heard that
one of his former students had clicked on a strange e-mail
attachment and infected her computer with the MyDoom
Internet virus last week, empathy did not figure anywhere
in his immediate response.

"You actually got infected by the virus?" he wrote in an
e-mail message to the former student, Robin Woltman, a
university grant administrator. "You, Robin? For shame!"

As MyDoom, the fastest-spreading virus ever, continues to
clog e-mail in-boxes and disrupt business, the
computer-savvy are becoming openly hostile toward the
not-so-savvy who unwittingly play into the hands of virus
writers.

The tension over the MyDoom virus underscores a growing
friction between technophiles and what they see as a breed
of technophobes who want to enjoy the benefits of digital
technology without making the effort to use it responsibly.


The virus spreads when Internet users ignore a basic rule
of Internet life: never click on an unknown e-mail
attachment. Once someone does, MyDoom begins to send itself
to the names in that person's e-mail address book. If no
one opened the attachment, the virus's destructive power
would never be unleashed.

"It takes affirmative action on the part of the clueless
user to become infected," wrote Scott Bowling, president of
the World Wide Web Artists Consortium, expressing
frustration on the group's discussion forum. "How to beat
this into these people's heads?"

Many of the million or so people who have so far infected
their computers with MyDoom say it is not their fault. The
virus often comes in a message that appears to be from
someone they know, with an innocuous subject line like
"test" or "error." It is human nature, they say, to open
the mail and attachments.

But computer sophisticates say it reflects a willful
ignorance of basic computer skills that goes well beyond
virus etiquette. At a time when more than two-thirds of
American adults use the Internet, they say, such
carelessness is no longer excusable, particularly when it
messes things up for everyone else.

For years, many self-described computer geeks seemed eager
to usher outsiders onto their electronic frontier.
Everyone, it seemed, had a friend or family member in the
geek elite who could be summoned - often frequently - in
times of computer crisis.

But as those same friends and family members are called
upon again and again to save the computer incompetents from
themselves, the geeks' patience is growing thin. As it
does, a new kind of digital divide is opening up between
populations of computer users who must coexist in the same
digital world.

"Viruses are just the tip of the iceberg," said Bill
Melcher, who runs his own technical support business in San
Francisco. "When it comes to computers, a lot of
intelligent people and fast learners just decide that they
don't know."

Many of the computationally confused say they suffer from
genuine intimidation and even panic over how to handle the
mysterious machines they have come to rely on for so much
of daily life. Virus writers, spammers and scammers, they
say, are the ones who should be held accountable for the
chaos they cause.

But as the same people equip themselves with fancy
computers and take advantage of the Internet for things
like shopping and banking, critics say that their perpetual
state of confusion has begun to get tiresome. And while the
Internet's traditional villains remain elusive, those
inadvertently helping them tend to be friends and
neighbors.

Some in the technocamp imagine requiring a license to
operate a computer, just like the one required to drive a
car. Others are calling for a punishment that fits a
careless crime. People who click on virus attachments, for
instance, could be cut off by their Internet service
providers until they proved that their machines had been
disinfected.

And some, tired of being treated like free help lines, are
beginning to rebel. They are telling friends, relatives and
random acquaintances to figure it out on their own.

"Go out, get a book," suggests Zack Rubenstein, 28, who has
for years provided free technical support for his extended
social network. "You went to college and you got a degree,
you obviously can learn something. Play around with it;
it's not going to kill you."

Mr. Rubenstein, a member of the technical support staff at
a New York City law school he thought it best not to
identify, is not at liberty to dispense such advice at
work. Instead, he answers endless calls about
malfunctioning monitors that turn out not to be plugged in,
and broken printers that start working again as soon as he
removes the single piece of paper obviously jamming them.

"Especially dealing with academics," Mr. Rubenstein added,
"you'd think they'd have some ability to deduce or think
problems through for a minute."

Not so long ago, he took pleasure in showing people around
the brave new digital world that he moved in with such
ease. Now that everyone has a technical question, he says,
being a tour guide has lost its charm.

But his girlfriend, Miriam Tauber, 24, makes no apologies
for her lack of computer knowledge. To her, computers are
like "moody people" who behave illogically. If people like
Mr. Rubenstein expect her to understand them, she suggests,
perhaps they should learn to speak in a language she can
understand, rather than ridiculous acronyms and suffixes.

"There are these MP3's and PDF's and a million other things
that you don't even know what they are," Ms. Tauber said.
"I don't feel like I need to figure out computers, because
my instinct is there's just no way."

Still, if there is any evidence that the antagonism of the
technical elite is having an effect, it may be in the
mounting degree of shame among those who make obvious
mistakes, or ask obvious questions too often.

When Julie Dillon, 33, had trouble installing a wireless
card in her Macintosh laptop last weekend, for instance,
she stopped herself from calling a friend three blocks away
who works for Apple Computer because she knows he is
besieged.

"There's this whole complicated interchange - are you
calling them as a friend or are you calling them as tech
support - and I definitely feel a little bit guilty," said
Ms. Dillon, a musician in San Francisco. "It's a fine line
that has changed because I remember a few years ago it was
no big deal."

Instead, Ms. Dillon called Mr. Melcher, who has built his
technical support business in part on referrals from
friends who no longer wanted to handle the demands of other
friends.

Ms. Dillon, who considers her laptop "a blessing" that
helps her promote her music, said she was happy to pay for
the help. She has also frequently received technical
support in exchange for dinner, and, once, for a song.

Even parents are being left to fend for themselves as their
children tire of dispensing advice.

David Hale, 25, a lawyer in St. Louis, said he had rebuilt
his parents' virus-ridden computer from scratch several
times in recent months before he learned that his father,
Dale, was replying to every piece of his spam e-mail,
asking to be taken off the spammers' mailing lists. Dale
Hale, 47, also frequently clicked on pop-up ads that
appeared to be messages from Microsoft telling him to
upgrade his computer.

"It would cause fights between my parents because they
would argue about whether a particular one was legitimate
and I'm like, `It is NEVER legitimate,' " said Mr. Hale,
who explained as patiently as he could that answering spam
and clicking on pop-ups only invite more of the same.

After that, Dale Hale said, his son would sometimes become
frustrated by his and his wife's questions. They in turn
would get frustrated with their son's instructions,
especially over the phone. Eventually they bought antivirus
software.

"We've learned by the lumps and bumps," the father said.


(People who had installed the major antivirus software
programs from companies like McAfee were largely protected
from the MyDoom virus after downloading updates available a
few hours after the virus's appearance on Jan. 26.)

Perhaps the one thing that technophobes and technophiles
can agree on is that software companies like Microsoft
should make things easier and more secure for all kinds of
computer users. But Microsoft, whose Web site has so far
withstood a continuing attack by the MyDoom virus, had a
reminder for users, too.

"Responsibility is shared," said Scott Charney, Microsoft's
chief security strategist. "With some of these viruses that
require user action, people have a responsibility to be
careful and protect themselves."

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/technology/05VIRU.html?ex=1077001671&ei=1&en=6\
e1edf324c821dd0[/url]

 

[xfer]

i sent that article to a bunch of techie friends and then realised "oh hm i'm always treating them like a free tech support line" oh well!

 

[minxnim]

thus fucking guy... STILL no printer. and if V ever tells me it's CUTE that i drink carrot juice again he's getting it in the jugular with a fucking letter opener.