Extra Help

For extra help should you feel your computer is under threat or you are dealing with harassment situations, technical problems and more useful to know information!

1. Help! Someone threatened to hack my computer!

Don't worry! Furcadia has been built so that it is impossible to hack your computer through it. Unfortunately, some abusers may find other ways to make trouble. Here's a few of them.

Controlling you with fear

Most of the time, hacking threats are just empty talk, where the abuser tries to get control over you. They may say what they could do to you.. if only they would bother to do it. In most cases, empty talk never forms into any kind of real vandalism (not to say that the threat wouldn't be a form of vandalism though!). Remember that 99% of the threats never lead to anything. Don't be too scared, most of the online game players do get threats like this at some point of their lives.


Sending a Trojan horse

As the popularity of the Internet and the use of standardized programs (read "Microsoft products") has grown with the time, it is possible that hostile users may try to send you a program through email, or make you download one from their web pages. With bad luck, the program you download may contain a virus, or a so-called "Trojan horse", which opens your computer to anyone who knows how to use the inimical program ("Trojan horse").

You can't get a virus or a Trojan horse without running the program infected with one, or in case of so-called macro viruses, opening documents in programs such as Microsoft Word.

Fortunately, this kind of trouble is very easy to fix. Make sure that you are always running an up-to-date virus scanner, such as McAffee VirusScan. Confirm that the program checks all the program files before running them, and you should have no troubles with viruses or Trojan horses afterwards. Remember to update your virus protectors at least once in a month!


Freezing your computer

Something rather easy for an abuser to try to do is to freeze your computer by sending you flawed data. For this, the abuser must know your IP-address. This kind of information cannot be received through Furcadia, but if you are using other user-online programs, such as ICQ, or AIM, or Skype, your IP-address can be figured out without your permission.

The best solution is not to stop using the programs! Oh no, that would be letting the abuser control you. Keep your programs, but make sure that you update them frequently. You should also update your network drivers if you can.

A harasser may try to coax you to visit a web page, which secretly sends the information about your IP-address to the third party, such as the abuser. To prevent this kind of situation, make sure that you use the Proxy-service your Internet Service Provider provides, or hide your IP-address with services such as the Anonymizer.

In general, this is quite a minor threat, but if you want to get completely rid of it, ask from your ISP if they can offer firewall services for you, or get a personal firewall for your computer.

To ensure your safety on the international network, we suggest you to do two things.

For more information, visit:

2. Dealing with online harassment

By Woodrow

This article is available in:
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3. I have a technical problem, who should I turn to?

First of all, we'd like to remind you that the Guardians are here only to enforce the rules.
The Beekin Volunteers help you with the questions related to Furcadia.

Perhaps some of these sites could help you:

The Technical Support Forums
Technical Trouble Shooting and Bug Reports

Frequently Asked Questions About Furcadia
From Furcadia's Support Site

4. Real life online help.

American Association of Suicidology
Contains a list of crisis centers and crisis phones operating in North America.

The Samaritans
Provides help and crisis counseling through email.

Account E-Mail

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