I know that I'm writing less and less, but this time it's because of something besides laziness and lack of inspiration. I received a letter from my Internet service provider informing me that last month my Internet account used over 60 more GB than normal. It went on to explain that that could be caused by several things, all of them terrible. Viruses and spyware were the first listed and that scared me so bad that I can't even think about it. This is my one computer, if something happens to it, or if it needs to be repaired for some reason, that's the end of my relationship with pretty much everyone I know. What makes me fearful is the fact that every time I check my email I have about 1,000 "returned mail" emails, informing me that my message "Tits (expletive) cum (expletive, expletive) dick" could not be delivered. These emails are NOT from me. Where are they coming from? Who is doing this? And, most importantly, how can it be stopped? Could that be what is causing this increase in Internet usage? I suspect this could be the problem. In the time it's taken me to write this I've gotten five of these emails. Now six.
The other cause listed in the letter is that if you have a wireless router (which I do) I may have unauthorized users logging on to my account. When I set up the router I was on the phone with India for about two hours and was exhausted and in tears most of that time. By the time the Internet was working, I didn't want to mess with anything else, anything else being setting up a password protected account. That is not a mistake I will soon make again. I imagine all of my neighbors having wild Internet parties where all the guests are told to bring their computers and hand-held devices for a night of YouTube and porn compliments of the sucker who is actually paying for Internet. I attempted yesterday - when I had Internet - to secure my account and now I don't have Internet. None of us have Internet. I don't know what happened. I managed to lock the account, but now even I can't get in.
Other causes include innocuous things such as someone leaving a streaming music player on or a newsreader set to automatically download message bodies. I suspect my problem is one of the two things I mentioned above, or a combination of the two, or as my attitude towards my thieving neighbors grows increasingly hostile, one was somehow caused by the other. How else would such explicit stuff be being sent from my virgin computer?
Right now I'm sitting on the floor in front of the TV tethered to the modem. Story is on my back "driving a truck." I just wanted to send out this urgent call to the more computer literate masses. I can't go another round with India tonight. How is this happening and how can this be fixed? My back is hurting and don't care to sit on the floor and angrily pound at my keyboard any longer. Although I guess it is my fault for not securing my Internet account... I'll be checking my email when I can.
Wait, time-out. So the other words aren't worse than the expletives?! ;)
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear it, I know how frustrating that is. I'll see if I can find someone to help :)
2+ years later I read your post above. All indications are you had a Bot program loaded on your computer that someone remotely accessed to launch SPAM email. That is how they do it. They never send the SPAM from their own computer so they can't be caught. The sent SPAM has clogged up and filled your bandwidth.
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