An Apology from Me!

Nick Reed · Post by **Nick Reed** » 16 Sep 2004 4:15 pm

I APOLOGIZE!
Last week I attempted to tell everyone about Steve Stallings EZ board Pedalsteeler Website. That site is obviously virus infected and caused many of you to get a COMPUTER VIRUS. I was included in that with my own Computer as well. All I know to say is. . . .I humbly apologize for this and DID NOT intentionally try to sabbotash your computers. Mine got hit bad and right now (while it's being repaired) I'm having to use a H-P back-up thats a real piece of crap. I meant well in telling you guys about the site but some wiseguy out there wanted to ruin it for alot of people. Again let me say how Sorry I am about the problem.

Nick[This message was edited by Nick Reed on 16 September 2004 at 05:24 PM.]

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 16 Sep 2004 4:22 pm

I understand, Nick. It could have happened to anyone.

Tom Callahan · Post by **Tom Callahan** » 16 Sep 2004 4:52 pm

Nick;
It took me over eight hours to get rid of the mess. There is no way I could even begin to blame you for someone elses actions. That thought never entered my mind.
I have changed my anti virus set up as a precaution for this happening agin.
Well goot go before Ivan washes us off the mountain.

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Tom Callahan
Emmons S-10
Rayline SD-10 (#46)
Nashville 400

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 16 Sep 2004 4:52 pm

Nick,
I went to that site and just looked, didn't post. Nothing unusual on my set.....yet.

Bill

Herman Visser · Post by **Herman Visser** » 16 Sep 2004 6:13 pm

Ha Nick: NO problem,things happen like this at times. Your heart was in the right place.Could have happen to any of us with or without your post. Im always on the look out for info. on the web.Good luck with your computer,mine is almost back up to speed.And thanks for the apology. Your a good man for it

Nick Reed · Post by **Nick Reed** » 17 Sep 2004 10:09 pm

Thought some of you might like to see the hate e-mail I recieved from forum member "Duncan Hodge" over the Virus problem I accidently caused.
Nick

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From: "Duncan Hodge" <dunc1957@cfl.rr.com> [Add to Address Book] [View Source]
To: <wekt@comcast.net>
Subject: You Suck
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 02:37:01 +0000

you sent me to a site where my virus alarm went off repeatly and I now have to clean my system or various bullshit trojons that will ctry and hijack my system for the next month or so.

I hope that they pull your membership from the forum you dick.

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Pretty nasty e-Mail there Duncan, maybe you should consider some "Anger Management" counseling.

Nick [This message was edited by Nick Reed on 18 September 2004 at 12:31 PM.]

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 17 Sep 2004 11:08 pm

Well maybe not your membership but a few short hairs will do..

I'm still fighting this thing.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 17 Sep 2004 11:13 pm

Nick I didn't go there, actually never saw the post, I wasn't here to.

But the last thing I would think is that the person who sent me to a website
in his own publically acknowledged name,
would also be a virus designer trying to set me up.

These guys try to hide as much as possible,
not directly send people to computer hell with their own coordinates.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 18 September 2004 at 04:46 AM.]

Herman Visser · Post by **Herman Visser** » 18 Sep 2004 7:33 am

I tkink we are missing the point here, the real evel here isnt Nick. Its Pedalsteeler.com.THats the guy we should be going after with all this hate. Nick Apology what more can he do!Thank god I didnt find that site first or it would be me everyone is going after. We all want to vent our hate let it be on the other site not ours.Dungan someday you will make an honest mistake and we can go after your menbership.But to call people by body parts, uncall for here on the FORUM or use this foruns info. to call them at home.Thats the kind of stuff 12 year olds do.

Peter · Post by **Peter** » 18 Sep 2004 9:28 am

Hoi Herman, NOW you made me curious! What body-parts names were used?

I missed it! I wanna know. After all, they call me by a body part all the time!

Regards

Peter

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 18 Sep 2004 3:20 pm

Duncan has to be a newbie member here, not knowing all that Nick has done and meant to us as a member.

We all try to be gentleman here, be it a forum post or an email to someone. Let's get with the program.

Duncan Hodge · Post by **Duncan Hodge** » 18 Sep 2004 4:35 pm

I don't know Mr. Reed, or how many wonderful things he has done, but I know what damage his link caused. I am now having to wipe out my hard drive and do a total system restore. This is a major inconvenience to me and will take many more hours work. I have already spent the greater part of the past two days tring to gain some control of my computer again None of the solutions presented here worked for me. Excuse me for not joining the crowd to pat good old Nick on the back for apologizing after creating creating all this havoc.
Maybe I do need some anger management. For the language used in the email that Mr Reed so helpfully posted, I do apologize to the forum.[This message was edited by Duncan Hodge on 18 September 2004 at 05:42 PM.]

Herman Visser · Post by **Herman Visser** » 18 Sep 2004 11:10 pm

Ha peter! People have called me all kinds of body parts in the past( its lonely at the top).So, I always said this :you can call me anything you want but dont call me late for diner.In saying that, this is my last post on this topic. If you see Nic soon tell him we are still praying for him.Time to check out what is more inportant on this Forum, Steel Guitars and other great people.Have a great Sunday. Im going to a BQ and checking out a great country band my son wants to see on Sunday.

Chippy Wood · Post by **Chippy Wood** » 19 Sep 2004 1:57 am

I run the forum from my business computer and can't afford to have any virus's so I use virus protection + the one my ISP uses and, yes , I visited the site and picked up a lot of junk but the protection weeded it all out.
Yes I also have had these virus infections in the past and know the trouble they cause but Nick would not knowingly be the cause of any mayhem in this way nor can I imagine any forum member knowingly doing this.

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Ron (Chippy) Wood
Emmons D10
Carter SD10

richard burton · Post by **richard burton** » 19 Sep 2004 2:22 am

I have my security and privacy settings at the highest level in Tools/Internet options.
This prohibits active x. Only when I look at my email to I go back to the default settings. I suppose that if I was a prolific internet surfer my settings would be too high, but I find most sites are available. I also use a firewall, of course.
R B

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 19 Sep 2004 5:04 am

The likelyhood that the actually owner of pedalsteeler.com
is also the virus culprit is pretty small too.

99 44/100% the odds are he was hacked and the virus planted,
and he had no clue till his own computer was trashed.

And even then he might still be assuming he got it somewhere else. Since he would normaly have no reason to believe there is a virus on his own site.

But that's what the designers want,
some body ELSE to get all the blame.
[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 19 September 2004 at 06:09 AM.]

James Morehead · Post by **James Morehead** » 19 Sep 2004 12:04 pm

I have done buisness with Nick and have read Nick's fine post on this forum, and consider him my friend. He made an honest mistake---not his fault----soooooo get over it. Lifes to short. Move on and get happy.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 19 Sep 2004 8:14 pm

I seriously doubt that Steve Stallings, the owner of the site, would have done this deliberately. I haven't seen Steve online in quite a while.

More likely, someone has targeted EZBoard, and Pedalsteeler.com is just one of the EZBoard sites that they hit.

Lighten up on Nick. He had no way of knowing the chaos this would cause.

Bill Crook · Post by **Bill Crook** » 20 Sep 2004 12:22 pm

Personally........... I would say'

Lets let Nick Reed alone..... He didn't mean to have this happen, He went lookin' for a web-site that he thought would be intresting to us Steel players. It was only after he went to the site and had his computer infectived,did he realize what had happened !!!

Nick,I fully understand what happend,and do NOT blame you for the resulting problems. While I do not personally speak for the NTSGA(which you started), I only want you to know and understand that often times, things happen that we cannot fathom the results.

All in all folks, Lets not disk Nick for what happended !!

I think he is a true member of the Steel comunity,and like most others of us, do not not really understand how hackers use the internet to create havoc and disrupt the normal flow of the internet (read this as web-sites). HIs intentions were good and honest.

Just my 2 cents worth...............

Bill Crook

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http://home.comcast.net/~crookwf/

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/crookwf/my_photos

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 20 Sep 2004 12:32 pm

I'm gettin' a real education about how to fight this thing. You oughta see some of the utilities my hacker friends have come out of the woodwork with. Hijack (lets you see what processes are loaded and what registry entries initiate them) PE Builder (lets you get into and fix NTFS volumes without firing them up, runs from CDRom), plus the Ad-Aware/Spybot/SpySweeper stuff.

Nick, coulda happened to anybody. Don't sweat it.

Duncan Hodge · Post by **Duncan Hodge** » 30 Sep 2004 4:52 pm

To Nick Reed,
My apologies for the very nasty email that I sent you. I sent it immediately after having my browser hijacked and, not knowing you, thought you were one of those wonderful people who love to lead people to these links that do this sort of things. From what I understand you are a person of integrity and not deserving of the venom and language that I sent your way. To all, and especially to you, I am sorry.
I'm sorry it took me so long to get this public apology to you, but, and don't take offense at this, I just got my computer up and running again a few days ago after wiping out my system from the hijack. My admiration goes out to those who were able to escape with their system intact. I was not so lucky, or smart enough. So I guess you can add stupid to jerk when describing me.
Again my apologies to Nick.
Duncan

Jim Peters · Post by **Jim Peters** » 1 Oct 2004 5:50 am

Duncan, you sold your ZB, and look what happened to you! I'm on pins and needles now, waiting for my own disaster! It wasn't Nick's fault, as I guess you know now, my advise to all is get Mozilla or Opera, and stop using IE. There are several threads on this subject . JimP

Terry Sneed · Post by **Terry Sneed** » 1 Oct 2004 3:55 pm

I know what damage his link caused. I am now having to wipe out my hard drive and do a total system restore.

Same here, a total restore that cost me $49, but I don't blame Nick, I blame the administrator of that site!

I visited that site one stinkin time, and it messed my computer up completely! He should be made to pay for any money that any of us were out on virus infected computers!
that was all uncalled for!!

Terry

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84 SKH Emmons Legrand D10
session 400'rd Steelin for my Lord.

[This message was edited by Terry Sneed on 01 October 2004 at 05:03 PM.]

Duncan Hodge · Post by **Duncan Hodge** » 2 Oct 2004 5:40 pm

Jim, I'm not at all certain that this is a ZB related problem. It appears to be yet another example of a beautiful idea hijacked by the powers of evil. In any event, I ended up with a Marlen that sounds incredible, as good as the ZB, but it's a D-10. Apparantly, my old ZB is now heading to another home in Arlington, VA. Again to Nick I apologize. I forgot the first rule which states: "before shooting mouth... load brain."
In other news, I am looking for someone to play with down here, if anyone wants a steel player prone to flying off the handle.
Duncan

Mike Wheeler · Post by **Mike Wheeler** » 22 Mar 2005 6:52 am

Hi everyone,

I posted this in the other thread where this all started. In hopes of helping, I'll post it again here......

I use 6 free programs that compliment each other and I haven't had any infections, virus, malware or anything else for a couple years. A couple have been mentioned above.

1: Adaware - Adware and popup scanner
I scan weekly

2: Spybot Search and Destroy - Spyware and malware scanner
I scan weekly

3: SpywareBlaster - malware blocker
Runs in the background - My Favorite app

4: HiJackThis - Browser hijack scanner
I scan weekly

5: CWShredder - Browser toolbar scanner
I scan weekly

and last but ablolutely not least...

6: Firefox - Best and safest web browser I've found

Haven't used IE for 3 years now - IT'S GREAT!

Updates are all free and they do a great job of keeping your comp clean and healthy. Besides defragmenting every week or two, there's no other maintenance I've needed.

Just so you know, I work at my computer 8 to 12 hours a day, and use the web extensively.

P.S. I also use Norton Antivirus, but it's not free at all.

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Every day is a Great day,
Mike
(aka Sideman)