Ok, so it all started when i downloaded what I thought was a patch for the PC game Red Faction so I could play it on my new rig. As it was downloading I realized something wasn't right and thought I had stopped it before it could finish. The next day when I was working on the final touches of the production, I noticed the editing software was behaving strange. Moving slow, edits wasn't editing and the sound kept dropping out. Then the darn thing crashed. I knew right then I was in trouble. I immediately ran my virus software to find the offending software, I have two running on all my rigs, both came up with nothing, and yet my rig was getting worse. I've been debugging computers since the 80's so I knew the conclusion was I had been hacked. It took me a day to find the open back door. Apparently the patch was a dupe that created 5 new user accounts onto my computer and relegated my account to guest. I quickly got rid of them and locked my account, but what I didn't know was all the production work I was doing was under those user accounts. So when I deleted them, 8 months of work went with them. I still have the original parts, but now I have to do the entire assembly from the beginning all over again. So I've been really burning the midnight oil to get it back. However, I had planned to apply improvements I learned from this production to the next episode. Now that I'm doing it again for the 5th time, I'm adding them now. Here is the newest holopad model I'm adding to the holofilm. http://gentaldragon.deviantart.com/art/Quasar-Minipad-511519087?ga_submi... This new model has a higher projection capacity so I can see my holofilm in a larger aspect ratio compared to the older model. I'm tired from all the rework I have to do, but the new results are gratifying. I only hope I can finish the film in time for the festivals.
Post-Production : When your rig gets hacked by Rick James
When your rig gets hacked
Other topics in Post-Production:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
Ric - that's horrible what happened, as a general rule I try to keep all my "work" computers offline, or only dedicated to installing stuff that's work related. I know its tough when you want to have a gaming PC as well, but I have found out the time saved by keeping the stuff separate as much as possible is invaluable. If you can't have a dedicated rig, I highly recommend having a separate bootable drive that is ONLY for gaming and installing non-business related stuff, then you can switch between the two pretty easily. Minipad looks great BTW! -Sam
You're right, I've been doing this long enough to know better, but after a while you become complacent, let your guard down and that's when it happens. I do have a separate game drive and a separate work drive, but if you're working under a pirated account, it doesn't matter what you do, when they go, your stuff goes too. That's the way windows works.
Just to be clear - I don't mean separate logins, I mean completely separate bootable drives - I often disconnect my "work" drive if I am just playing games - that way incase something nefarious gets through, I only have my latest save of Civ5 that got toasted... ;)
Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about, I have 7 external drives and two internal. My work is spread over five of them, games on one and clients on another. Except for the internal drives the others can be switched off. But that doesn't stop windows from erasing stuff if it's under another user account. It doesn't matter what you do, if you put your work under a hijacked account and you erase that account, (like I did) windows erases everything associated with that account, everything. I didn't loose the production, I have all the rendered files, lost a few audio files. I work with the Adobe suite, Premier Pro, After Effects and other graphics rendering software. What was on the hacked account was the application that tells premier how to assemble the edited work. So I had to start over again, it's a pain in the butt, but I have to admit, the improvements look great. I'm in the home stretch, doing act three. I only had to render a few bridge scenes I think will make the story flow better. When finished, I'll go back and add foley, SFX, music and end titles and I'm done.
Maybe I'm missing something here, not talking about 2 accounts, I am talking about 2 completely separate installs of Windows running on two separate drives. That way windows doesn't even know the other exists. Then you just use your boot menu from your bios to choose which drive to boot from. That way if your gaming rig gets a virus or something, you don't loose your work rig... Does that make sense?
Ok, yeah I did that on my older rig, I have XP on one and Windows 7 on the other. When I brought the new machine, it's custom build and I can't do it this time. So I have a lot of external units.
That makes sense. Well if you can squeeze a $70 drive in there for your gaming rig, I'd highly suggest it.
Oh yeah.