Beware Fifa Hackers, Xbox LIVE users.

I Hate this month now.  Seriously.  Not even my Father's third Wife brought this much ire to my attention in such a short amount of time.  First my hard drive crashes losing my term paper and all my in-progress reviews and lets plays, Indian tech support leads me in circles for Three weeks, and my next major project happens to be based around a faulty disk so old and somehow popular despite it's suckage that new copies cost nearly $200.  Now, now as the year is ending, some Soccer nutjobs are exploiting a flaw in an EA FIFA game to hack my account?  Arrrrrgh.

For those not in the know or want to avoid my starting rant: This pretty much sums it up.  If you are not yet afflicted by this menagerie of douchebaggery, I talked a bit with Customer support and received these helpful tips:

1:  Don't play and EA games!  When you play one, you come up on the EA server, which leads to them being able to hack you.  I own a copy Of Monopoly Streets, so That's how I got in the hackage.
2:  Remove any Credit card Information from your Xbox live and Windows Live accounts.  They can't spend your cash if you only renew your account using the cards purchasable in stores.  For those who like to purchase and download their games over the internet directly to their hard drive, sorry, you kinda luck out.
3:  Lock your account to an Xbox with password.  Kinda self-explanatory.  While you need a password to access your account on a computer, the same isn't always so on an Xbox.  Lock it to it with your password.  This didn't help me, as they had already gotten to the point of changing all my passwords so I got locked out of an active account, requiring me to call out for assistance.  Which leads in to:
4:  If it happens, immediately contact Customer Support.  In the US, the number is (800)-469-9269.  They will immediately lock down your account after aquiring some information from you.  The full investigation will take about three weeks, but if you find that you can't sign in to your account, and someone has it signed in elsewhere: CALL THEM IMMEDIATELY!  Then, call your bank or credit card provider immediately to dispute the charges.  The second investigation apparently speeds up the capture.
5:  Inform your Friends.  Apparently if you have enough common games (ESPECIALLY EA Games), they can piggyback a hack by degrees of separation (...I don't think I'm explaining this part well, I'm not an expert on hacking or computers).  If you care about your gaming circle, don't make them join you in purgatory while Microsoft works to give you back your account.


Yeah, that's all I got, but wanted to spread the knowledge around.  Bastards got a lot of money in Microsoft points, my Gamertag, and usurped control of my windows live account in the span of two hours.  And investigation can take upwards of 25 days.

Files of Fanfic recommendations: the works of Andrew Joshua Talon

While the laptop that can support my recording tech is down, there's not going to be much for me to post for some time.
So, to fill the void, I'm going to be over-viewing some of the works of a few authors I follow for laughs.
We're Starting with the wacky AJ Talon.
Bronies, keep hold of you Abacus'.

System Crash

Yes, Again. Posting this one just to let people know what happened. Laptop was dropped 2 feet, and that caused some corrupted files, which cascaded into a failure to startup and damaged my system restore files. Still working to recover everything, but if not, the remaining data files for the Batman Let's Play, along with the other reviews and projects I've been working on in my spare time would have been lost.
On my backup ye olde laptop right now, will see what can be done with it.