How I came to make this web site

I started doing telephone tech support for Microsoft in 2000, when the use of broadband networking by home users was in its infancy and spyware was still virtually unknown. By 2002 broadband was becoming common, and with it spyware started to make an appearance. In 2002 very few of the calls we handled had to do with spyware. In the next two years the percentage of calls involving adware and spyware increased from just a few to over half. This increased presence of spyware created difficulty, as the cause of the problem is not always immediately apparent when malware is involved. In one case I recall a customer calling in complaining that his CD drive did not work. As he was having trouble using his computer to follow my instructions because of numerous pop-ups and the fact that his computer was running very slowly, I had him scan with Ad-aware, figuring this was going to be necessary anyway. Much to my surprise, this also cured his CD problem! The idea that spyware could knock out a CD drive seemed pretty strange at that time. I started mentioning this case to other phone techs, as well as to higher level mentors.

It was apparent that the customers that were having the worst problems were the ones who were taking no protective measures. Customers who were taking precautions had fewer problems. A number of antispyware products had become available, and it was becoming apparent that two of them were better than the rest: Spybot and Ad-Aware. The rest were less effective, or even made the problem worse. (Since that time a few other products have appeared that are reliable.) This was a source of confusion for Windows users, who were as a result uncertain about what, if anything to use. Fortunately, other security products such as routers, antivirus software and firewalls did not have this problem.

As the prevalence of spyware and adware started increasing, accompanied by the sometimes unusual problems in diagnosing spyware, I started assessing my customer's security vulnerability at the beginning of my calls, and developed the following list of questions I would ask:

Are you using dial-up or a broadband (cable or DSL) connection. If broadband, do you have a router?
Do you have an antivirus program? Is it running? Do you get updates and scan regularly?
Do you have a software firewall program on your computer?
Do you have Ad-aware and/or Spybot, keep them updated and scan regularly?
Do you get Windows critical updates regularly?

Based on the answers to these questions I could assess the caller's risk of having viruses, worms, spyware, adware or other malware on his computer, and adjust the way I handled the call accordingly.

Most of the caller's would be deficient on one or more areas. I only had about 10 callers who achieved perfect scores. The first of these a 14-year-old from Scottsdale, and then the rest were adults. As you might expect, all gave the impression of being very savvy computer users. As you might also suspect, they did not have virus or spyware problems. Then I got a call from a little old lady from somewhere in the mid-west who seemed to have mild spyware problems. She did not score a perfect score, but she came close, her only deficiency being that she had the previous version of Ad-aware, and this version could not download the latest definition files correctly. This problem was easily cured by having her update Ad-aware. The next scan removed a few adware items that had gotten through, and her problem was fixed. I noticed however, that she seemed to be a beginner with computers. I asked her, and she explained that she had just gotten this computer (her first) 5 months earlier. This surprised me! Here was a little old lady just beginning to use computers, and yet she was doing much better than most of my callers, many of whom had much more experience than her. I asked her how she had learned how to keep spyware down, and she explained that the salesman in the store down the street where she got her computer had told her what to do.

This call caused me to start thinking. First, it was clear that the salesman had done a very good job of taking care of his customer. Secondly, if a neophyte little old lady can learn how to effectively keep viruses and spyware off of her computer, anyone should be able to do so. Thirdly, if a salesman in a mom-and-pop computer store somewhere in the mid-west can do the teaching, perhaps an experienced tech can also do it. Hence this site. (I also modified my checklist to include making sure that the customer not only has Ad-aware, but has the latest version.)