So living in the sticks, the only broadband available is satellite. If you don’t know this already satellite sucks. Big time. You get so much “data allowance” per month, then they throttle you. Hugh$net, in the spirit of generosity, recently upped our monthly allotment by 505 – from 20 Gb per month to 30 Gb per month. Wow. Now we do get an additional 50 Gb in the “bonus zone” (or should that read Bone Us Zone?). This is data we can use between the hours of 2AM and 8AM. Again. Wow. The past couple of months our data has drained in 4 days. All 30 Gb.
From what I can tell, my primary computer is the culprit a Window$ 10 machine. No I’m not watching THOSE videos (well, not a lot anyway). From what I can tell, this is because W10 is a data hog. Why not? It sucks up every other resource. At first I thought it was downloading, updating and all that jazz. Now I’m not so sure. Instead I think it sucks up data just by keeping tabs on my and reporting my activity to M$. Okay, maybe I am crazy but there haven’t been any downloads or updates this past month and I’ve managed to make it to the last four days with 20% of my data intact – mostly from limiting access to this machine. So you tell me. Now for the other thing I call the Data Burglar.
A bit a background first… I can see what’s connected to my system and also see how they are connected – Lan or Wireless and what connects via what network. So far so good. Today I see this “mystery device” identified only as LU115041. What the heck is that? It’s wired in, but rather than go and check the router I looked up the MAC address. (This is a unique number assigned to every device that connects to a network.) What comes up is the vendor/manufacturer. In this case it is “Universal Global Scientific Industrial Co., Ltd.”. Of course the company is Chinese. I’m told nothing else about this device, so I go to their website. Well they make a bunch of products but I see nothing that looks like anything of the sort of thing I’ve got hooked up. What I did see was the slogan. “We Know Your Business”. Think about that if you must but it sends chills down my spine.
Here’s a Chinese company that makes network connected devices and they brag about “knowing my business.”
Yeah. That. Call me paranoid. So, after going back and forth a few times I finally realize the culprit is my W10 machine! Why didn’t I realize this sooner? Let’s not explore the obvious reasons. I’ll just say, I renamed this computer to something I would recognize and for some reason the system insists on calling it “LU115041”. In my own defense, I was looking at what was there rather than what wasn’t there. Then again, now I know where my “IBM ThinkCentre” came from. Buy American.