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microsoft wont phone people up,they especialy cannot tell what operating system any random person uses,or even if they use a computer,the only way someone coud do that is if they infected the computer with a RAT server before hand then 'd0xed' [as the term goes] them for their address/details.
they play on the fact that windows has a majority userbase,and that many wont understand what theyre looking at in their event logs.
the best way to deal with them is to screw them around-ask them to explain how they know there is a virus..if have got the time;waste their time for a bit as its their phone bill-asking what is a virus,what is it doing on there,who put it there etc-any novice type question,then tell them are using a linux distro,eg; slackware,ubuntu,backtrack etc/freeBSD/mac OSX,so how exactly have they found a windows operating system in use,ask them for their name and address to check they are genuine,they will probably scarper quickly.
3goodeggs,
some of these microsoft scammers manage to get away with it legally as they extort money by giving a genuine but crappy product,the big issue is if they install a FUD/fully undetected virus or a financialy aimed botnet like zeus,which seems to be the more common pattern followed in the UK-microsoft scammers are more interested in monitoring and personal gain than destroying a partition but anti virus scans wont find the offending files until they descramble the code that disguises it.
woud recommend taking some extra security measures if tend to get lapses of concentration on the computer,or if are not to advanced on internet safety-install sandboxie;
http://www.sandboxie.com/ a free worthwhile program,especialy when used with netstat on the command prompt to look for outgoing connections whilst the suspect program is running.
sandboxie allows the user to launch programs in it to see if its what it says it is,or if it has any dodgy binded files,plus it allows the internet browser to run inside it so anything dodgy that is come upon on the internet are safely contained within the sandbox.
and woud recommend using linux over windows for better security,there are very few viruses written for it and windows crapware cannot affect it,and its much more accessible for non computer geeks now with ubuntu and suSE being very user friendly.
if are going to go along to a technician,woud strongly recommend trying to get a mate/someone known to self to do it instead,not a profesional who does it for a living-many of them take advantage of computer users whom are not advanced on the subject or not in full control of their mental capabilities at the time,well more so the major chain store ones,give a mate who knows their stuff something small for checking it out and it will be sorted.
There is a new cookie that is a "survey"cookie that can't be deleted that way. Hackers are EVERYWHERE!
not heard of that one,but am guessing they have probably FUD it.
hackers are most definitely everywhere,theyre all over BYC-have a go,
http://hackertyper.net/ type away in front of people to make them think are making srs leet haxor business.
hacker typer purposely takes the pee out of hacking like its seen in the media and general public,green lettering on black background,sitting typing code all day to break into infrastructures and so on,its not like that,a huge number of people who hack cannot program in any form nor understand what they are doing exactly as they use programs which only show the end user results.
speaking as a penetration tester,greyhat and .NET coder [not a very good one].
