Here we go again - more Rogueware & Ransomware

I don't know what it is about me and viruses.  Or perhaps it's trojans, worms, malware, whatever.  I don't know what it is.  Once again my computer is unusable.

I wasn't doing anything weird.  Well, I was for me - for some reason I decided to check out the Drudge Report.   I don't really like the Drudge Report, not for any reasons that are important, but for completely superficial reasons.  I don't like the font it uses.  It irritates me.  But, there it was on my favorites so I decided to check it out.

I don't think I even clicked a link on the site.  I was just staring at it wondering why I was there, when a PDF file began loading.  I remember thinking, "why is a pdf file loading?"  That was the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do would have been to pull the plug.  Not push the button, but pull the plug, immediately switch off the power, no matter how unadvised that normally is.

A few seconds later I recieved warnings that my firewall was turned off, and a scan from something called "Windows XP Anti-Virus Pro" begin running, finding of course, a million evil things, which for the most part, I'm sure don't exist.  It perfectly mimics windows security, except it wants me to register the product.  I didn't do that, because then it's going to ask for money, and there is no way I'll send money to whoever I'd be sending it to.

As seems to be common with these things, it disables the normal anti-virus type software I run, and I don't seem to be able to do anything about it.  It also doesn't allow downloads, system restores, etc etc etc etc etc. This makes it very dangerous to spend any amount of time online.

This little post is coming to you via my laptop, the one which the system thinks has counterfit software on it.  It doesn't.  When I switched security software awhile back, that message popped up, and I cannot find the key used when the software was orginally loaded.  So screw it.

Anyway this little PC seems to come in very handy as a back up. 

So I guess I'll have to run down to Ron the Computer Guy down on Main Street, 'cause I can't figure out how to fix it on my own.  This is the 2nd time in the last 2 or 3 months, so this can't continue to happen. 

But I don't know what to do - it is extremely frustrating.  I don't know how to keep this from happening or how to fix it when it does.  The security software is apparently useless against this.