I am trying your advice in #19 again at this time. Though there are still significant problems and I suspect a very deeply embedded malware, the computer is running faster with thanks to your expert assistance and patience but still hangs. The screens pop up when programs usually at least partially populated rather than with blanks, for example, TASK MANAGER would just open blank then slowly show indecipherable icons with no process or app name and no data before we started. Now, it mostly fills initially, and after a second or two populates the rest,. My word processor now opens to offer me a document format screen with selections instead of blank. As far as I can tell I still have data files I have looked for.
I may have previously selected upgrade this computer when downloading the WIN 10 file, but I certainly checked for another computer this time. Hopefully, that may resolve some of it. I was actually able to type a document (22 pages) yesterday and upload it to court. But while in the process I had to repeatedly disconnect from the internet because problems were arising while connected. I believe there is a hacker on my system. I have 1 computer and use the cell phone wifi or a wifi router in my possession and have chosen public network for added safety, but still at times while the wifi is active the word processor will hang from time to time and the computer hang.
Did I mention that COMMAND screens would open during the boot up after entry of the password and they had the title windows\system32\ but nothing n the black box. They would pop up open for very brief periods once logged on, and sporadically thereafter. So maybe the system32 files may yield a clue.
My account and Administrator accounts should be the only ones and I am the sole user of the computer, but there are several registry keys for various users, and perhaps that is a clue? My user account is an Administrator yet I get "access is denied" or "permission is needed" at times, and when I try to grant access or permission it refuses. I think I did do a grant access to my user name for the C drive, and then I still had access denied, administrative rights necessary, and was unable to grant access in the security tab. Perhaps that is a clue. It suggests some third party process has taken over the machine.
On or about April 3, 2022 while preparing to finish a document for filing the document scrambled on the screen before my eyes destroying my work and interfering with a deadline. I have to believe that was hacking.
Years ago I had a very interesting project against a horse track and its tote system. I discovered the pool totals and prizes were algorithmic rather than based on actual wagers, and that it appeared that the totalizator company and or track were shifting bets within the pools to make losing ticket numbers become willing numbers. This was discovered by closely watching the betting pool and odds postings on the OTB monitor. The race had only 6 entries, one of which was a heavy favorite taking 98% of the bets in the win, place, and show pools to have odds reduced to 1/10 meaning bet $10 to win $1 for an $11 payoff. I thought, why bother betting such a favorite ? There is nothing to gain. So instead we bet $50 on each of the other 5 horses which went off at very long odds between $30- $50 to 1 tp win. It was uncanny, but the place pool (horse finish in 1st or 2nd place) and show pool (horse finish in 1st, 2md or 3rd) had similar betting distributions over all. This indicated to me that betting for place or show would yield a significant return far in excess of the total of the $250 wager. We joked, unfortunately, that this favorite would not finish the race, and sure enough he broke down in the turn before the final stretch and sent the jockey flying like a cannon ball. Unfortunately the horse had to be destroyed. I don't know what happened to the jockey but I do know his favorite mount was like 20 lengths ahead of the remaining 5 horses so he got out of the way and was not trampled. We calculated what we should have been paid on each of the three places. In a show ticket 1/3 of the total bet to show goes to holders of tickets on the horse who came in first, 1/3rd to that finishing 2nd, and 1/3rd to that finishing third, after the track's commission of 17%. What we were paid was far less than the math suggested, so I asked the state racing commission to investigate, they directed the totalizator company to provide me with the "official price report" showing the sums paid, and the "worksheet" showing the calculations. In examining the worksheet it appeared that greater sums somehow were wagered on the correct horses than as posted in the final pool information posted on the monitor as the race commenced. When the "starter" pushes the button to open the gates to release the horses to start the race, the betting system rings a bell and "locks out all further wagers" supposedly. Electronic communication is real time, but some tracks have a brief (like 5 second delay until the lock out of further bets is activated, but that didn't matter because the breakdown did not occur until at least 45-50 seconds later, so delayed posting of late bets could not explain it (those placed within 5 seconds of the race start). What appeared from the Official Worksheet was that losing wager tickets, which the holders would have no reason to attempt to redeem, were recorded in the database to show winning horse numbers by someone at the track or totalizator company, who could then reprint the tickets with the correct horse entered instead of a loser, and cash them, a form of stealing. And not one unknown, it happened during a breeder's cup race and created a huge scandal and I'd be happy to find the news and give you the links if you are interested.
2002 Breeders' Cup betting scandal - Wikipedia
So part of what this worksheet suggested is that we were shortchanged thousands of dollars in winnings, and the explanation seemed obvious from the discrepancy arising from less being reported on the report on the losing favorite than was actually bet on him, and more being reported on the horses who finished in the money than was actually bet on them. That would reduce the payout to legitimate winning tickets. I asked the tote company for all of the betting input data and a large report was sent via e-mall, perhaps I can find it. After opening and printing the report showing the hundreds of global betting outlets, and aggregate wagers by horse from each outlet on each race stated in dollars, I noticed that wager amounts were carried out to several decimal points, and some inputs showing less than $1 US dollar wagered on this US race. That was a red flag. So I contacted the totalizator company to inquire, and asked for an explanation as to how any wager on an American horse race could be placed for a fraction of a US dollar, wherever it was placed in the world, because US tracks only accepted whole dollar bets in the Win Place & Show pools. They turned me over to the legal department who indicated that there is algorithmic rounding to explain it, and that my friend ,explained what happened to the pool distribution in my race, At first they claimed it was due to dollar conversion calculations from Canadian tracks, but that made no sense. The next discovery I made was that instead of charging only 17% commission to the wager pool, actually 34% was taken out. The explanation was that each of the hosting track (where the race was conducted) and each betting outlet took 17% for a total of 34%, but this is not disclosed in the track's program, and seemingly was a huge fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation, alone worth in aggregate a princely sum. Between the three discoveries of data tampering and stealing the track and tote company especially had must to be concerned about, like being put out of business by the US Justice Dept. as an illegal gambling enterprise in violation of federal law. The State regulator had no interest investigating the matter and the federal government has little interest if there is not a federal gambling offense, based upon a violation of state law, this is not to say they would not be interested in wire fraud.
After opening the providing files my computer hard-drive started humming at a furious rate, and ever single document in the word processor file was stripped of the ability to be opened. When I looked at the directory document files were disappearing rapidly before my eyes. I turned it off, took it to a Spint software engineer who could not recover the data or explain it. I was hacked but had a backup of most of it.
In another example, I was working on a case against a major company here who was in the 900 phone number provision business. The way that worked was the phone company would take 10% of the charges earned by 900 number sponsors (horoscope lines, sports odds lines, games, phone chat lines and others than charged premium rates per minute, or a flat rate that was substantial for each call). It so happened that some sponsors set up boiler rooms where hundreds of phone numbers were installed to call their own premium billed 900 lines. One customer generated $35 million in revenue by placing calls to itself from its own boiler room, on numbers it refused pay the local phone company bill. But the dispute would not occur until 90% of that $35 mlloin was paid out within 60 days of the calls having been placed to the sponsor, who then disappeared causing a sizeable loss to AT&T. So AT&T commenced claiming deductions from other sponsors by asserting the deductions were for charge back of disputed caller bills when in fact there was no dispute. We discovered this based upon very sophisticated data required to be entered to use the client's service. As a brief in the lawsuit was due the "header" would become repeatedly stripped off of my document so that it could not be opened, and it was a very complex and long document, so that the court was angered by the need to ask for extensions. Had no extension been granted we would have lost on that basis alone. I had to use IBM (the author of the word processor software) to attempt to recover the file and who explained the header was stripped.
I am giving you these examples just to point out that there are corporations and their law firms who are willing to sabotage an opposing lawyer's computer at just the right time to cause a case to be lost or severe prejudice in the mind of the court when computer compromise is mentioned to explain a deadline problem. When it happens repeatedly in the same case it is viewed as inexcusable and the lawyer unbelievable and they may lose the case or worse.
So, I am very concerned. I will have 1 chance to attempt to undo the damage caused to the case in which the document was scrambled, and doubt a judge would have any empathy for a repeat problem if relief would be granted. This is why I really need help getting deeply into the system, even BIOS or other places where a hack tool or entry point may exist, and to remove all malware. I also would like your suggestions on how to disguise the presence of my particular MAC address being on the web, as well as IP addresses so that opposing counsel will not be able to find my box to gain entry to it by any means. I heard there is "honeypot" software that can assist in protecting, but it seems, if there is something that has been embedded it must first be removed, and in addition to malware removal, what would you suggest in terms of robust security (anti-malware, rootkit, firewall, etc.)?
The first goal though is getting the computer operating system operational which I will continue to focus on with your instructions to guide. Finally, there is a consulting opportunity for pay, and it has to do with slot machine operations, which are not only algorithmically determined, but there are issues of player specific interfaces to increase losses or award prizes, and these are suggested in patents and slot manufacturer publications that have been examined I don't have a chance to discuss this more fully until I get things fixed.
Again, thanks for helping.