I Still Don't Sleep At Night

WISH I'D BOUGHT A LINUX

It's way too weird now. I guess I can't expect anyone to believe how everything is all "synched" up as we used to say in the Sixties. And I have to say it's a good thing I did take a lot of hallucinogens because this is one trippy reality. Living the psychedelic life teaches you to maintain regardless. I'm maintaining so far. I get up in the morning, go to work, research the vulnerabilities of Windows XP. The reality of this is too much to bear at times--most of the time. I suppose it also helps that I've already been crazy. No big fear about being driven there when I know what a short walk it is to get there. I might be there already. Who knows.

Okay, I had lots to blow my mind with about the "Network" before I just now went to Blogpatrol. Now it's worse. I mentioned the network's logon access and their signing in under different names, and on August 16th I quoted from the security event viewer about the "advapi" logon process. Briefly. Just wrote down the word because it was there. I don't even know what it means. Well, today I learned from Blogpatrol that it is now one of my top 20 search terms. Google has requests for "logon process advapi," "advapi logon," "advapi logon process," "logon process name chap," "logon process %3A advapi," and the worst one of all, "My Network Web Client Network," which is one of the three names listed under networks in my network places. Are all these searches from other hacker victims? Or are all these searches from my captors playing more mind games with me, despite the different IP addresses? They're certainly clever enough to pull that off somehow.

So Microsoft was my last hope. They told me to physically move the computer to another location (and to use a phone that's not bugged), and a technician would help me. They even offered me an 800 number. The problem was finding someone willing to let me bring the thing to their house. Turns out it's like asking if you can bring your cousin with the plague over. My mother got so upset she had to get off the phone. I never should have asked her. My dear friend Ellen and I had a terrible fight because she told me to leave the computer alone, that it was just an addiction. ( I hate it when people tell you that because you love to do something it's an addiction. I wanted to tell her that going to France twice this year is an addiction.) Then she said she didn't want to get involved. I found this unforgivable and hung up on her. We made up the next day. She found me a friend of hers who works on computers who was supposed to be really good. For some desperate reason, against my better instincts, I paid him to finish what I had started to do: re-format and re-install. I had stopped the re-install process about six times because the computer kept trying to add the network. I shut it off everytime. Why did I think he could do it when I couldn't? I told the man not to let the computer add it. He told me he did a clean install and re-did everything including drivers. Did he listen to me about the network? He says to me, "Well you have to have a network for the internet." Not like that you don't. Don't men think they know best?


He brought the computer out to me. I didn't see it working. I took it home and it is more flagrant than ever. Now when I turn it off it actually says, "The network is shutting down." The event viewer immediately began to list all the different log ons that shouldn't have been there. (The event viewer only goes on when I log on.) They let me go online for about an hour and then began to play password games and connection games with me. Same old same old. I know I shouldn't go online, even with my three firewalls but it's an addiction. I just cancelled the DSL connection that they're using because it's in my name. It turns out they signed me up for another account without my knowledge. Honestly! But I can't use it. Get this: I don't know the password. If I call AOL and get it, they'll be another problem. I re-installed the zone.alarm firewall which they had dismantled prior to the re-install and it held at least for the night. There were some blocked attempts where they attempted entry 74, 123, 57, and 64 times before trying a different program to see if I'd fall for that. They do not quit. The firewall log is set to record up to 300 incidents but I may have to lengthen it.

There are more files that I'm not allowed to see, even ones with my name on it. There are properties of files that I'm not allowed to see. It will say "access denied." When they won't let me online I get even by calling up the task manager and ending processes that they are running. I love deleting their windows explorer which usually is using about 20K memory. They retaliate by removing the start menu with control panel which leaves me no choice but to log off.

There's more but I don't want to bore you. No one can help. No one knows what to do. I called more computer repair places today. Their solutions were all the same: Re-format, re-install and put on windows updates. I tried to put on security patches, windows updates and additional security programs last night. Everytime I get close to a download or page it will say something like "forbidden" or "internet connection lost" or "must enable cookies and active x" which no matter how I configure them is never right. When I have downloaded patches at another computer to a floppy and then tried to open them to my computer they turn into something else while still in drive A. I'm not kidding. The computer tells me that it's not the security patch I think it is. It is a cabinet extractor or some kind of thing. My computer reminds me of the possessed girl in The Exorcist. I expect pea soup to spit from its tower at any moment and my cat to go flying through the window. That reminds me, once as an evil joke, they flashed a sign on the screen to load a disc in drive A. I did so. All my missing documents that they had removed magically loaded. Before I could remove the disc for safekeeping, they were gone. That's the kind of mean-spirited folks I'm dealing with.

Here's the worst so far: They told me in their manifesto that if my computer were to become disabled, as I imagine it was when I kept it in limbo because I didn't want the re-install to add the network, or when I moved it to another site for another re-format and re-install, and all those bad things would happen because other computers would fail to start, about the only thing that I read that would happen to my computer was that it would not be able to record music and the sound would fail. When I came home with the computer tower last night there was something very odd on my desk. One of my speakers was covered in black stuff. I rubbed paper towel on it and it appears to be ink. The inside of a broken ball-point pen was sitting in front of my keyboard. The body of the pen was nowhere around. I am the only one who was in the house. At least that's the way it's supposed to be. I didn't put ink on my speaker. I didn't break a pen. I don't use ball-point pens and doubt that there's one in the house. My speakers don't work anymore. I don't have the heart to find out if I can record music. P.S. It's not the first time I've suspected someone has been in my place. And the other day I came home from work to find the back door wide open. Just a little test of my nerves.

I want out of this nightmare. I want the good old days when I could get my adrenaline going by simply making fun of George Bush or worrying about the FCC. I am numb and living on ongoing shocked senseless, walking wounded, what's next in this house of horrors trauma. And I don't tell you the worst because I don't want to get locked up or to have you think I'm crazy. But my phone is tapped. When I called the Chicago office of the FBI this morning, I was just talking to the hackers. They hack the three computers where I go to blog and do research. And the other night at the library I copied a bunch of articles about how to block some holes in my vulnerability. I discarded all the doubles. I was very careful about this. I'm cheap and I didn't want to pay for the ones the printer just felt like making two of. When I got home I did not have the articles I needed to help me with my problem. I had four copies of an introductory article. Yes, it's impossible. But true. I left my backpack alone a few times, but...

They hack the nearby pay phones. I've learned to tell from the menus if it's the fake menu or the real place. I swear the last two Dell calls were fake. Fake Indian accents too. I'm not all the way around the bend though. I didn't let myself think that the computer repair guy was one of them just because he let the network back in. I did think it for a little while, but rational thinking took over. Ellen has known this guy for years. It's not like he volunteered to work on my computer.

I started reading a book today about what makes hackers tick and their whole underground way of life. Many of them do hold respectable jobs by day. Could be they're computer programmers. Could be they actually do work for Microsoft. I'm telling you I shouldn't have said what I said about MS. Or maybe I shouldn't have said what I said about George Bush, America, the Flag, Republicans, Patriot Act, the Attorney General, the Vice President, the online chats at the White House... who knows? Maybe all my paranoid fears are finally here and come to get me.

I don't know if I can take much more. What would you do? I know this much. If I can get Dell to return my money the way they ought to, I am definitely getting a Linux.


Do YOU Think? COMMENTS
So What