Experiences with non-techies

[BingoFishy]

1 hour ago, matrix07012 said:

I like how br0kenrabbit literally said Valve would not ask for username/password, then went ahead, said he worked for valve and asked for the username and password.

[themctipers]

2 hours ago, matrix07012 said:

And in my area that's not a thing. Doing chores for a neighbor is looked down upon and I don't even speak their language.  

 

donate muny pls

[DocSwag]

35 minutes ago, themctipers said:

And in my area that's not a thing. Doing chores for a neighbor is looked down upon and I don't even speak their language.  

 

donate muny pls

Wat. Where do you live?

[Space Reptile]

2 hours ago, matrix07012 said:

 

that is just simply amazing , i wish it wasnt so awfully compressed   nvm i was dumb and looked at the wrong one ha

[themctipers]

14 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Wat. Where do you live?

Suburbia. There's no whites people here, only Chinese people..

[DocSwag]

6 minutes ago, themctipers said:

Suburbia. There's no whites people here, only Chinese people..

Is that a city in Canada?

 

I guess they don't expect you to work for money, but rather to study all day and then become a doctor  

[themctipers]

2 hours ago, DocSwag said:

Is that a city in Canada?

 

I guess they don't expect you to work for money, but rather to study all day and then become a doctor  

Suburbia is what I call my area, which is a part of my area. Which is apart of my city which is apart of Toronto (not in GTA)

[DocSwag]

Ok, so this happened quite recently. It's a type of story that we've all probably heard multiple times but whatever, we can always hear it again!

 

So I was at this store where they sell herbs yesterday, and this guy is asking if they have a certain herb that stars with a "j" (I forgot the name of the herb). So I watch as the people there look around the store seeing if they could find it and they also look at the computer which they use when people buy stuff there (I assumed they were looking through their catalogs of all the things they had in stock). Upon not finding any results I watch as one of the people there goes over to another one of their computers that has the monitor positioned so I could see it. I was far enough away that I couldn't completely make out the words on the screen but I was close enough that I could sorta guess what they were typing. So I watch as they go over to the computer and delete whatever was in the url bar and then start typing. Wait, that's strange, it looks like the word they typed start with a "g". I thought the person said the word starts with a j. Maybe he said g (the guy's English wasn't the best) or maybe I just can't see the letter properly. I then watch as the person types out the word. Wait a second, it doesn't seem long enough. They hit enter.

 

Then I realized they typed Google. So yeah. They googled Google in order to google herb.

After that they clicked on the first result and then typed in the herb.

 

I'd heard a lot of the googling Google stories before, but I never thought I would ever experience it. I guess I was wrong.

 

Still, it escapes me how people don't realize that whatever they pe in the url address bar is getting googled... Don't they ever realize the page they get after typing Google in there is awfully similar to the one they search in?

[RahulR]

My brother told me that you we couldn't delete our 24GBs of movies because they were on the F:\ Drive and our C:\ Drive only had ~11GBs left. He thought that there was one Recycle Bin and it was stored on the C:\ Drive  He already knows that files still remain on the drive after being deleted, but I had to explain to him that deleted files remain on the drive they were deleted from.

[Kichkinet]

I think my personal favorite was a guy who brought in 2 pcs one was his the other was his little brother's.  One was a Pentium 3 i think and the other was an old Athlon (this was in the summer of 2015).  His was completely fried out due to a roach infestation.  His little brother's computer on the other hand was clean (almost brand new clean). Went though the usual trouble shooting steps and eventually pulled the heatsink and there was his CPU clean enough to eat off of.  A few minutes later (they were very impatient) he walked into the store in spite of not being called so I walked them back to their computers to show them what was going on. I asked the brother about his computer and he said it had been shutting down so he looked it up and found out it was a heat issue so he pulled the heatsink and "removed some greenish corrosion" off the CPU and heatsink.  He had completely removed any trace of thermal paste to the point that the heatsink looked polished.

 

we regularly got people who would misidentify parts or insist on using the wrong names the most common of which were "UBS" drives or needing a new "PCU" but also had many call the tower a modem and even had one elderly gentleman call the tower a monitor.  I understand not knowing the proper names for things but when someone is trying to gently correct you from "UBS" to USB for the entirety of a 20min interaction think about what your saying.

 

We got called to do an emergency onsite call to a major company that had an office in our area because they had received a cease and desist order from their ISP because there were tens of thousands of spam emails coming from their server.  Turns out that when Geek Squad had gone out and setup their server they had left the RDP port open to the internet.  It had at least 50 hacker created accounts on most of which were sending spam emails.

 

Our store had partnered with a recycler so we offered free electronic recycling we had a few people who "removed their hard drive" before bringing it in to be recycled.  These "hard drives" included, on various occasions, 2 sound cards 1 NIC at least a dozen RAM sticks and a zip drive.  Each time I found a miss a hard drive in the computers I would show them what the hard drive was and offer to securely destroy it for them by drilling half a dozen 3/4 inch holes in them after running a disk eraser on them.

 

I have seen people snap off PS2 and USB cables in the ports and seen people snap the center portion of a USB port off causing the pins to touch the outer ring and short the pc.

 

We had a customer who brought in his laptop because it was running slow. when i booted it up I saw that it had a relatively small amount of RAM so I pulled the RAM cover off and there was the last inch and a half or so of his marijuana cigarette where his other RAM stick should be(apparently he did one hell of a magic trick).  We reported it to the authorities who promptly confiscated the roach and did nothing else since they could not prove that it was his. 

 

 

this is just a few of the good ones.

[SecGuy]

15 hours ago, matrix07012 said:

I can't see it since the font is so small!  

3 hours ago, RahulR said:

My brother told me that you we couldn't delete our 24GBs of movies because they were on the F:\ Drive and our C:\ Drive only had ~11GBs left. He thought that there was one Recycle Bin and it was stored on the C:\ Drive  He already knows that files still remain on the drive after being deleted, but I had to explain to him that deleted files remain on the drive they were deleted from.

Well, deleted files are still physically on the drive, but Windows will say they are gone...  But yeah you can delete those movies... otherwise there is an access control problem.

4 hours ago, DocSwag said:

Ok, so this happened quite recently. It's a type of story that we've all probably heard multiple times but whatever, we can always hear it again!

 

So I was at this store where they sell herbs yesterday, and this guy is asking if they have a certain herb that stars with a "j" (I forgot the name of the herb). So I watch as the people there look around the store seeing if they could find it and they also look at the computer which they use when people buy stuff there (I assumed they were looking through their catalogs of all the things they had in stock). Upon not finding any results I watch as one of the people there goes over to another one of their computers that has the monitor positioned so I could see it. I was far enough away that I couldn't completely make out the words on the screen but I was close enough that I could sorta guess what they were typing. So I watch as they go over to the computer and delete whatever was in the url bar and then start typing. Wait, that's strange, it looks like the word they typed start with a "g". I thought the person said the word starts with a j. Maybe he said g (the guy's English wasn't the best) or maybe I just can't see the letter properly. I then watch as the person types out the word. Wait a second, it doesn't seem long enough. They hit enter.

 

Then I realized they typed Google. So yeah. They googled Google in order to google herb.

After that they clicked on the first result and then typed in the herb.

 

I'd heard a lot of the googling Google stories before, but I never thought I would ever experience it. I guess I was wrong.

 

Still, it escapes me how people don't realize that whatever they pe in the url address bar is getting googled... Don't they ever realize the page they get after typing Google in there is awfully similar to the one they search in?

Oh... so it was a... "herb" store?  

 

But I get what you mean, it's stupid.  There are people in my computer science class and we are doing networking and computer science (representing data with bits, encoding, formal languages etc) and people are doing that in OUR CLASS! 

Part of me thinks it's out of laziness, but it would literally be faster even just to make a computer shortcut for https://google.com.  I'm absolutely gobsmacked! 

11 minutes ago, Kichkinet said:

I think my personal favorite was a guy who brought in 2 pcs one was his the other was his little brother's.  One was a Pentium 3 i think and the other was an old Athlon (this was in the summer of 2015).  His was completely fried out due to a roach infestation.  His little brother's computer on the other hand was clean (almost brand new clean). Went though the usual trouble shooting steps and eventually pulled the heatsink and there was his CPU clean enough to eat off of.  A few minutes later (they were very impatient) he walked into the store in spite of not being called so I walked them back to their computers to show them what was going on. I asked the brother about his computer and he said it had been shutting down so he looked it up and found out it was a heat issue so he pulled the heatsink and "removed some greenish corrosion" off the CPU and heatsink.  He had completely removed any trace of thermal paste to the point that the heatsink looked polished.

 

we regularly got people who would misidentify parts or insist on using the wrong names the most common of which were "UBS" drives or needing a new "PCU" but also had many call the tower a modem and even had one elderly gentleman call the tower a monitor.  I understand not knowing the proper names for things but when someone is trying to gently correct you from "UBS" to USB for the entirety of a 20min interaction think about what your saying.

 

We got called to do an emergency onsite call to a major company that had an office in our area because they had received a cease and desist order from their ISP because there were tens of thousands of spam emails coming from their server.  Turns out that when Geek Squad had gone out and setup their server they had left the RDP port open to the internet.  It had at least 50 hacker created accounts on most of which were sending spam emails.

 

Our store had partnered with a recycler so we offered free electronic recycling we had a few people who "removed their hard drive" before bringing it in to be recycled.  These "hard drives" included, on various occasions, 2 sound cards 1 NIC at least a dozen RAM sticks and a zip drive.  Each time I found a miss a hard drive in the computers I would show them what the hard drive was and offer to securely destroy it for them by drilling half a dozen 3/4 inch holes in them after running a disk eraser on them.

 

I have seen people snap off PS2 and USB cables in the ports and seen people snap the center portion of a USB port off causing the pins to touch the outer ring and short the pc.

 

We had a customer who brought in his laptop because it was running slow. when i booted it up I saw that it had a relatively small amount of RAM so I pulled the RAM cover off and there was the last inch and a half or so of his marijuana cigarette where his other RAM stick should be(apparently he did one hell of a magic trick).  We reported it to the authorities who promptly confiscated the roach and did nothing else since they could not prove that it was his. 

 

 

this is just a few of the good ones.

I've heard of people removing the thermal paste before. It has a lot to do with people not reading the documentation before actually building the computer, I think one of the issues here is that building a computer is so damn easy that it's harder to understand what each component does nowadays.  That's actually a really good idea I just thought of... A 5 page website which is sort of like a website for dummies on how to build computers in less than 1000 words. 

 

I think that people get confused when they hear people talking about computers as PCs or Modems or CPUs or whatever.  I just call them computers, because they are.  I wish I could tell everyone to call it a computer, because it suits everything.  Computer-Security, Computer-Networking, Computer-Engineering, Computer-Programming, Computer-User.  It all works and all makes sense, because they are all computers.  

 

I don't know what fucking company would let geek squad setup their servers. They need to fire their system administrator or IT operation manager. Because that is really stupid.  I understand someone leaving the RDP port open to the internet, but that's normally why people use VPN tunnels.  If I'm pentesting a server, I normally look for things like the changing of ssh ports, the disabling of passwords and the smart use of VPN tunnels, which can be used as an authentication way, and can then connect to RDP through that VPN connection.  Much Safer. 

 

I got offered a job at one of those PC technician places, I declined, I probably should have accepted.  I admire you though, being able to put up with a lot of shit.  At least you get some good times and good laughs out of it though. 

[Kichkinet]

10 minutes ago, SecGuy said:

I've heard of people removing the thermal paste before. It has a lot to do with people not reading the documentation before actually building the computer, I think one of the issues here is that building a computer is so damn easy that it's harder to understand what each component does nowadays.  That's actually a really good idea I just thought of... A 5 page website which is sort of like a website for dummies on how to build computers in less than 1000 words. 

this was an old HP iirc that he had tired to diagnose and fix himself and just thought the thermal paste was corrosion preventing normal heat dissipation. ya ive seen some crazy stuff from DIY builds too i think the worst was a gentleman who was using a watercooling setup and somehow between how he installed the CPU, how the cooler's pipes were run, and how the cooler was tightened managed he managed to bend the CPU and a few pins on the motherboard.  It had worked for over a year but he had some issues so he took it apart and I think during his trouble shooting he managed to damage the CPU and motherboard.

 

 

[Space Reptile]

I personally love in movies when they "destroy a computer" by shooting the monitor / smashing it

[andpeterson]

5 hours ago, DocSwag said:

Ok, so this happened quite recently. It's a type of story that we've all probably heard multiple times but whatever, we can always hear it again!

 

So I was at this store where they sell herbs yesterday, and this guy is asking if they have a certain herb that stars with a "j" (I forgot the name of the herb). So I watch as the people there look around the store seeing if they could find it and they also look at the computer which they use when people buy stuff there (I assumed they were looking through their catalogs of all the things they had in stock). Upon not finding any results I watch as one of the people there goes over to another one of their computers that has the monitor positioned so I could see it. I was far enough away that I couldn't completely make out the words on the screen but I was close enough that I could sorta guess what they were typing. So I watch as they go over to the computer and delete whatever was in the url bar and then start typing. Wait, that's strange, it looks like the word they typed start with a "g". I thought the person said the word starts with a j. Maybe he said g (the guy's English wasn't the best) or maybe I just can't see the letter properly. I then watch as the person types out the word. Wait a second, it doesn't seem long enough. They hit enter.

 

Then I realized they typed Google. So yeah. They googled Google in order to google herb.

After that they clicked on the first result and then typed in the herb.

 

I'd heard a lot of the googling Google stories before, but I never thought I would ever experience it. I guess I was wrong.

 

Still, it escapes me how people don't realize that whatever they pe in the url address bar is getting googled... Don't they ever realize the page they get after typing Google in there is awfully similar to the one they search in?

I hate when I first get a new browser and its setup to yahoo search by default (which I doubt anyone really uses). I end up having to yahoo google to do a google search. I know that you can google.com and it will auto do a google search but I'm too lazy  and certainly too lazy to change to default as well

[SecGuy]

7 minutes ago, Space Reptile said:

I personally love in movies when they "destroy a computer" by shooting the monitor / smashing it

1. A criminal runs into an office (confidential info on the computer) 
2. The criminal shoots the computer monitor and runs out.
3. An FBI Agent walks into the office
4. *FBI Agent is confused.*
5. *FBI Agent grabs hard drive.*
6. *FBI Agent walks out with confidential data*

If that happened on a movie, I would cry. 

 

[Space Reptile]

1 minute ago, SecGuy said:

1. A criminal runs into an office (confidential info on the computer) 
2. The criminal shoots the computer monitor and runs out.
3. An FBI Agent walks into the office
4. *FBI Agent is confused.*
5. *FBI Agent grabs hard drive.*
6. *FBI Agent walks out with confidential data*

If that happened on a movie, I would cry. 

 

7. FBI agent plugs some things into the HDD 

8. Screen shows "encrypting [#######__40%__________]"
9. frantic keyboard mashing

10. ???

11. profit 

[RahulR]

46 minutes ago, SecGuy said:

Well, deleted files are still physically on the drive, but Windows will say they are gone...  But yeah you can delete those movies... otherwise there is an access control problem.

 

4 hours ago, RahulR said:

He already knows that files still remain on the drive after being deleted, but I had to explain to him that deleted files remain on the drive they were deleted from.

 

[DocSwag]

6 hours ago, SecGuy said:

I can't see it since the font is so small!  

 

-super snip-

Click (or tap) on the image and then click full size in the bottom left, that should make it readable.

 

Also when you quote a SUPER long post try to just delete all of the post that isn't really relevant and replace it with "-snip-" or something. That way we don't have to go scrolling through all of it!

[matrix07012]

11 hours ago, Space Reptile said:

I personally love in movies when they "destroy a computer" by shooting the monitor / smashing it

Or how they can wipe a drive in the matter of seconds.

[TheGamingLanceYT]

Get Microsoft agent on them to help them out with their pc

[MoonlightSylv]

2 minutes ago, coollance2015 said:

Get Microsoft agent on them to help them out with their pc

A great example of why to never do that:

Quote

My previous motherboard didn't work so I asked Microsoft, and they told me that the motherboard wasn't supported.. 

From here:

 

[Thaldor]

46 minutes ago, coollance2015 said:

Get Microsoft agent on them to help them out with their pc

The best idea ever

 

I just today used 2 hours to troubleshoot wifes PC. Symptom was random restarts (after she had "fixed" a BSOD). She said she had done everything she had found from the web and updated her drivers. Turns out she had done what Microsoft supports "Technical Engineer" had adviced: restoring default settings and drivers on W10. Took me 2 hours to put settings right again and to get a nice informative BSOD. Turned out she hadn't updated her GPU drivers which were giving the BSOD and she had restored all drivers from the windows update. Ah, the best feature on W10, restart if error turns up. Also she had googled about kernel-power 41 error and read a lot about power settings of W7 and W8.1 and went and restored them also and put them on some super battery saver state, because Microsofts "Technical engineer" didn't know that kernel-power 41 is just power on flag for windows not shutting down correctly last time.

[GirlFromYonder]

ooh hey look

 

[IronTechno]

So, I have this non-techie friend, who claimed to have 64 GB of RAM. When I checked, it was 4 Gigs. And then he points at the 64- bit OS, and, he's like, "Told ya!"

[Ifree2pay]

Something I always had to deal with is explain to people the difference between someone who uses a computer vs an IT vs a programmer. In my community these are always meshed up together. It gets a mess when talking about jobs.