Iron Mountain ski jump

Iron Mountain ski jump

Saturday, December 7, 2019

SECURITY INSECURITY [12-7-19]


Amidst dire warnings of catastrophe, my McAfee computer security ended today. They’ve been threatening it for weeks, ever since I bought this new Lenovo computer, because it was cheap, sort of. Apparently, Lenovo and McAfee are in cahoots, since McAfee always claims Lenovo recommends them. Some forgotten number of weeks of McAfee security came with the purchase of the computer.

But almost every day, sometimes more than once a day, every day, there arises a popup telling me that some dastardly but vague evil entity will take my first-born child and all my hopes and dreams, via my computer, if I don’t pay up. [The price keeps decreasing, I guess as an incentive to get a recalcitrant like myself hooked in.]

And the only available responses are, “Yes, charge me for security I don’t need, since Microsoft builds in its own security system, Windows Defender, into its computers,” or “Accept Risk,” you moron.

To make it worse, they themselves hold my computer hostage. The popup won’t close until I have responded to it. I can’t do anything else on the computer until I have responded to the  McAfee popup. I guess that’s an example of what will happen if I don’t pay them, but it doesn’t work with me, because…

…I do not like to be bullied or manipulated. On those rare occasions when I look at Facebook, if some post says “I’ll bet nobody will ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ this picture of…a wounded veteran… a cute puppy… a child with cancer…” I refuse to Like or Share, even though I’m an advocate for wounded veterans and cute puppies and children with cancer. If you’re supporting wounded veterans because you’re manipulated into it, that’s not support.

It has occurred to me that McAfee himself obviously knows how to stop my computer, since nothing will work until I have responded to his popups. So, if you don’t see anything here next week, you’ll know what happened, because I’m going to keep putting stuff on this blog to show McAfee my computer still works, even without his security.

Wait a minute. I stopped writing… and I refuse to be manipulated into anything…

…but I’m writing stuff on a computer blog because McAfee tried to manipulate me into computer security… just to show McAfee I don’t need his security…

…there’s something backward going on here…

John Robert McFarland

Another one popped up just as I finished typing this.

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