Posted 11/13/2007 at 05:39:15pm

I’ve always made it a policy to format new drives.. The extra hour of time could save days if not weeks of restoring if the partition is bunk OTB. And with this there is more of a reason to do so. If I were to say who should be held responsible for this i would say both. China for not checking the drives they sent out and Seagate for not following up with the reports they were getting to see if it was a valid issue. As for that rep.. I personally do not know anyone who works on computers who doesn't know what a boot sector virus is and what it can do.. So to me that guy sounds like a suit tring to do damage control. Rather then someone that knew what was going on.. I’m sure there was a lot of techs out there that did a head slap or got at least a good chuckle out of it after they read that. Finaly it does not surprise me that there targeting wow accounts. I've seen sites that sell 1000 gold for $110+/-(depending on the server). Why bother stealing credit card numbers when people are more than willing give you there money.. If people didn't buy it. It wouldn't be sold in the first place.. And this would never have happend. In the end, Antiviruses will be patched (if they haven't already), boot sectors will be fixed, and this will all be swept under the rug and forgotten like a lot of things are now a days. IMO Steve J. L.

Posted 11/12/2007 at 11:16:55pm

Working with numbers. I find that most of the spam I get will have a set of numbers (sometimes before sometimes after) if you see this most likely it's not going to be worth your time.. To Read or Not to Read When signing up for a contest or even registering at some forums and sites ALWAYS take the time to read the TOS. (or Terms of Service) A lot of times (but not always) your email address is sold to companies and by blindly clicking that box you give them every right to do it. (On a side note someone once won $1000 for just reading a TOS*)So a good way to prevent spam is not to give your email out in the first place. Docking in Port 25? Stmp mail is sent via port 25 and its one of the bigest targets of spamers.. Even comcast has put a block on it to prevent spam**. If your that concerned about not geting spam. Avoid mail systems that use port 25 for outgoing mail. Know Your Role Just installing an antivirus isn't really enough. You should take the time to learn how to configure it properly. As well as check it once in a while.. I use Kasperski which its popups will sometimes auto hide after a while. I'm not saying check it every time your on it but once in a while to posslbly catch something that may be a biger problem later. IMO Steve J. L. source> *:Proof That (Almost) No One Reads End User License Agreements **:Comcast takes hard line against spam