Screensaver changed overnight,..not by me!

Has anyone else here had their screensaver change by itself?

No other user of this computer had any such changes.

Now it looks to be a pure white background,but when looked at it from an angle,there is the design of the globe with the lines going through it,sort of reminds me of the U.N. emblem.

Any thoughts?

Ooer,sounds odd.
Been having a heck of a lot of computer weirdness this week.
New installs and harddrives and it is still peculiar.
I think there is something in the network.Not too clued up on this kind of thing though.

A good place to start would be to take a screenshot and post a pic of what your looking at.

[edit on 11/21/09 by AcesInTheHole]

reply to post by AcesInTheHole


I don't know how to do that,but when my "better half" wakes up,I shall ask for help doing that!

It's a bit unsettling,to be sure. I never cared much for computers at all,and only this last year have I taken to doing any kind of correspondence on them.

There is no such thing as privacy or anonynimity. However,the things I do post I am certainly not ashamed of!

It's true we're probably all being evaluated by the PTB. I'm not naiive in that regard!

(I was never "paranoid" either,...not until I realized they were out to kill us!)

As always,I fear the Lord and nothing else!"

Not unusual. Your operating system misfires for a second inputting wrong data. Some new online programs include a screensaver they install automatically

You should be grateful it was something innocuous.

Download a free prpgram calle HiJackThis that checks for intruders on your computer and Malwarebytes Anti-malware that does scans for nasty stuff.


M

i pull the power plug from my cable modem every night...cranks and critters are out of luck during the hacking hours of 12 am to 4 am.

I've had Nortons do this to me in the past. I would boot up and the screen saver and the desktop I choose to use would be completely different. An IT person told me that Anti-virus programs can sometimes revert to default or just change settings on their own. It might be the problem you are experiencing now. Since I have deleted Nortons and use McAfee I have not had anything change on it's own in years.
Zindo

THE ALIENS DID IT

some of you guys need to lay off the conspiracy coolaid.
im almost 100% sure someone else in the house at the time changed it

THE ALIENS DID IT

some of you guys need to lay off the conspiracy coolaid.
im almost 100% sure someone else in the house at the time changed it

reply to post by RoyalCanadian


I'm 110% sure no one else in the house changed it!

How can you claim such things?

Sure,it's probably just some "computer glitch". But it didn't affect anyone elses.(And there is only one other,and that is my husband,who is not into pulling tricks like that.)

My #1 enemy would be the New World Order,the U.N.,and all things Satanic. If they see me as their enemy,too,all the better!

By the way,this IS a conspiracy site,so why don't you go somewhere else if it bothers you? (And a General Conspiracy,at that! I never claimed "Aliens" did it or anything of the kind. I just wondered if it had happened to anyone else here at ATS!)

Let me ask what OS do you have? Vista??? XP??? did you check to see if any major updates were performed? What about your video card was there a firmware update are the settings still the same did this happen after a defrag or virus scan??? there are a lot of reasons that could happen and probably the simplest is someone downloaded a image with the very same file name and that over wrote your screen saver image it could happen with a simple miss click...

reply to post by jimmyx


great idea! More people should do this. I was trained as a network engineer and that was one of the most effective, simple, and useful ways of protecting the network. Fancy computer people use software to automatically "unplug" from the network, but a physical solution is always best, and for less savvy users, much easier.

reply to post by On the Edge


I'm almost definite it wasn't a computer glitch. If a computer messes something up it normally IS messed up, not working, but changed. It'd be pretty unlikely for it to mess something up, but to still get all the steps right, and also then not know that it had messed up. It was almost definitely a malicious website like Yahoo or Google or AOL (especially) or somesuch like that.
To keep bad things from happening, the best way is always to categorically deny the possibility. If you aren't running Windows there goes about 80% or more of malware. If you don't use Internet Explorer there goes most of the rest. And not using iTunes will help a lot too. You can get virus protectors, anti-spyware and such, but that's like using a shield when really the best thing to do is simply stay out of battle. Not that using a shield is in any way bad.
Also it could be something that you deliberately installed but simply didn't know that it was going to do that.

I'm all in favor of the "less savvy" precautions!

My husband can interpret other solutions and possibilities when he wakes up.

I woke him up to look at it when I first saw it,and he had no idea what to say about it,but I told him it was no problem,"Go back to bed".

(I have a history of techno-oddities,but mainly with cameras!)

Thank you all for your input!

if i leave my laptop on overnight when i come back to it it#s almsot always in linux despite leaving it in windows - this is because linux is my first boot option so when windows restarts it boots linux... windows is always installing updates and restarting on its own, msn does it sometimes too if i leave it logged in -basically windows just does stuff on its own.

That said it's also very open to hackers, you most likely just got hacked - if you do online banking then change your pass words, replace credit cards you've used on line (this is wise anyway every now and then) but before you do anything like that do a full sweep of your computer for hidden bugs, best idea would be to use another computer to change your important passwords because the hacked one is most likely compromised.

oh and one last little thing, if you say things like 'i used to think i was paranoid before i realized they are out to kill me' i'm just guessing from my reaction but most people will assume you're nuts and most likely dangerous - just a word of friendly advice

I have no trouble believing that your screensaver was changed and I would bet its from some kind of spyware on your machine, but seriously...the NWO? Yes it will exist someday and possibly already is in the making but they cannot be blamed for mundane everyday things like this. With all due respect its the same as someone calling me and saying "sorry, wrong number" and then me blaming the NWO and calling it a conspiracy. These kind of threads give conspiracy sites a bad name.

P.S. Run 'SpyBot Search & Destroy' to remove any possible problems.

I have had my screen saver and my desktop pic go away.

As for the world/globe pic you kinda see, I wonder if your screen is ghosted from an old image that was left on too long? Just a thought.

The one I have problems with is



see It showed as linky broken, I'm stumped, I tried to re-insert it above.




I have added it to my profile/ATS and this is the only place I can get it to stay!
If I put it in my pics on my PC it disappears, if I use it for a desktop, or screen saver it lasts a few days sometimes a few weeks and then poof, all white, I'm sure it is a format prob or the pic is infected.

[edit on 21-11-2009 by Doc Holiday]

reply to post by NatureBoy


I was only half-joking about the "paranoid" comment! With all the nefarious possibilities of the Flu and all the toxic chemicals added to our food,air,and water...well,you can see why I might feel like that!

Shenanigans. Desktop wallpaper doesn't just change of it's own volition, and no "glitch" is likely to modify the entry in the registry which specifies the image to display. If anything the registry would become corrupt, and in more places than just that specific registry key. Unless a file has been renamed (i.e. a new image was given the same name as the image that was the wallpaper), or someone changed it. There are no other options. Not the FBI, not the NSA, not some hacker.

I bet the screen shot has Mumm Ra's tomb hidden in it somewhere, too.

Any way, in all seriousness - This whole globe/UN emblem deal. Get a screen shot of it. It's easy. A 3rd grader could do it (I know my neighbor's kid does it all the time for Neopets.)

- Press the 'print scr' button on your keyboard, usually found above the insert and delete key, after the F12 key.
- Open Paint / Photoshop / Paintshop Pro / Gimp / what ever image editor you use
- Press ctrl+v or right-click and find 'paste'
- Hit File - Save as
- Enter a file name
- Upload to here or photobucket or tinypic or what ever.
- Insert image.

I'd really like to see what that's all about. (And possibly get a new desktop pic while I'm at it.)