Vocal Voices

Just a quick update:

We were supposed to move house in August, but the solicitors we were recommended in Birmingham turned out to be a bit of a nightmare, had to be constantly chased up for action, so we did not get completion and arrive down here in Darzet until 7th September.

The next problem were BT, who completely mucked up our order for the installation of the landline and broadband services, and eventually only got around to connecting us to the internet middle of last week. I could write pages about the number of times I phoned them and they promised to phone me back to update me on progress "before 8 p.m. tomorrow" - but then failed to call! In fact I have written pages and they've gone off to the Complaints Department in Durham. Not that I've had the courtesy of a reply, mind you.

I made sure their front line operatives at the 150 Call Centre knew I was very unhappy, and formally raised a complaint and demand for compensation with them. Eventually they offered me £15. I told them that was an insult. 40 minutes and three different operatives later, I'd got it up to £35! I told them to go away and reconsider, and to bear in mind I was a BT shareholder; see you at the AGM, suckers! The latest is that they have said a senior complaints wallah will phone me back by next Friday. We'll see ....

On top of that, both PC and laptop have been infected by malware since mid-July. In consequence, my internet time has been strictly limited to checking emails, no browsing or social media as that was triggering the malware. To cut a long story short, my computer guy concluded that somehow it was residing in our TP-Link router and thus re-infecting both machines every time they'd been cleaned - a very unusual occurrence, I'm told, but not unknown with TP-Link routers. I've now got a different hub so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I think I'm going to be lurking rather than actively posting (on all social media) for a bit until I'm sure the malware has definitely disappeared.

Message for Kaz - there's an item in this week's Western Gazette down here about Mick's brother's commendation. If you'd like a copy of the article, I can scan it and email it to you - let me know!

Message to Ally - do not trust any football club that describes its burgers as "gourmet". This is merely a device to put the price up by £2 ..... Salisbury FC 5 Barnstaple Town 0 this afternoon, plus a happy hour before the game watching the skydiving at Old Sarum Airfield next door.

And best wishes to everyone!

Ossie

Sad to hear you are having to much hassle Ossie.

You could, of course, have taken a Three sim for a cheap mobile and used their monthly plan which gives you 30 gig of tethering for £23. I know this because I've just taken one and my Netflix and laptop are running on the Three Sim. I have another 20GB on my Vodafone so I'm balancing that at the moment.

Using your phone would have allowed you to immediately verify if it was the router or not by having a clean PC and checking it against the phone then against the router. I have read about the TPLink router issue (I used to use two of them), but I understood it was in the DNS pathing. You could have worked around that, in the first instance, by fixing your network connection at home to the public google dns server 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 which would have taken the router DNS out of the loop.

If it was the router then you should not have the problem with your home machines now, so long as they have a clean bill of health.

Funnily enough I had a long running argument with my brother about the benefits of Zone Alarm and AVG. I told him they were not to be trusted and he told me that he used them all the time and they were great. Until the day he told me about his partner's Aunt who had her PC full of viruses and junk. He'd cleaned the whole machine up, re-installed the AVG and Z/A then run it for a week at home. As soon as he took it to the house and set it up for her, within 20 minutes it started to fill up with all the junk.

It was at that point that I reminded him that his home router had a firewall and that the USB internet device he was plugging into the PC at it's normal home did not. Which then gave an identifying name and exposed AVG and Z/A to the full weight of the Internets malicious programs. Notably it failed within 20 minutes.

I know I go on about this quite a lot but the top 3 AV suites have safe surfing built in. One of the things they do is to verify the returned DNS values with their own DNS servers. If the returned IP addresses are not registered to the same organisation on both sides, it assumes you are a victim of a DNS redirect attack and blocks it. Something the cheaper/free software tends not to have because it costs money to upkeep.

You get what you pay for.

Hopefully the new router will make things better. I've been switching to Edimax A/C routers with 3 aerials and 3 different modes of operation. At £35 each it's been a reasonable experience.

Oh and on a slight other note, did you notice that the Linux owners have admitted there is a 0Day flaw in Linux which will allow a guest account to escalate and gain root. Pretty much every consumer router on the planet runs Linux. It means you have to go to the advanced config and ensure that the WAN side access is off, that the default passwords are removed and that the wifi passphrase is large enough to make it virtually impossible to crack. Also you have to ensure there is no guest account on the router.

This is something I've always done by default. But so many don't bother and there are billions of insecure devices out there.

Hi Ossie! Great to see you, but such stress for you both for the past couple of months I hope you are both settling in well to your new home in deepest Darzet

Great to 'see' you again Ossie! I have missed our footy banter!

Sorry you've had a stressy time.

Thanks for the burger tip!

Hi Ossie, it's great to have you back!!!!

Sorry you've had so much hassle since you moved, but hope that you are otherwise happy with things - Dorset is such a beautiful area

I would love that article, thanks very much! We did hear a whisper about the commendation, but M's brother likes to hide his light under a bushel so we hadn't seen the article. D is particular would be thrilled to read it, so thank you

Welcome home

Welcome back Ossie,
I too liked reading your football stories.
I hope I have better service from BT than you have had. I am changing to them as they have a good deal for broadband and phone line w for only twelve months which is much cheaper than I am at present paying. They will let me know by email when the change will take place.
Discovered on Friday morning that my router had developed a fault which meant that I could not get onto the internet.
After contacting my ISP, they said they would send a new one but it could take a few days to be delivered.
It arrived on Saturday morning and it was easy to set up and everything is now back to normal.
Keep posting when you can

Hi ossie nice to see you I hope your pc and internet stay ok I haven't a clue I just switch mine on and pray
Glad you have moved ok to deepest Dorset enjoy your new home take care

Hello Os! Very nice to have you back again, sorry you've had such a nightmare with the house move and computer. Dorset is such a lovely county, I always think.

Hopefully things will settle down at Ostrich Manor now!

Wotcha Ossie xx Missed you.

Deepest Darzet? Isn't that where our Vic is heading?

Hope you and the Ossie familia are settling into your new nest, and your footie stories can continue soonest

Hiya Ossie! Lovely to see you but sorry to read that you've been messed around. I remember that when we moved it took Openreach two months to come out and connect our landline, it was so frustrating but we did manage to get a cancellation so it ended up being 'just' 5 weeks.