~Kat~

I agree absolutely. I have never said, nor will I EVER, that malware trained people are better than anyone else. I, for one, am a complete n00b when it comes to hardware...and so is my Pieter! People who are geniuses with hardware, networking..etc, are every bit as important as malware removers. That's what makes forums like this successful.

aeroman, for just one minute, stop trying to prove you are better than the rest of us, mmkay? Some of the biggest Malware experts are also PAID and well trained IT people, from every field imaginable. As I said previously, being a Trusted Advisor requires FAR more knowledge than just using HJT. Any n00b can click all the boxes in HJT and click "Fix Checked". It takes someone with a true knowledge and understanding to know what to do AFTER running HijackThis. Training at all of the schools deals with so much more than just reading a HJT log. If you would take the time to put your money where your mouth is, you would find that out for yourself. What do we get paid for doing this? Something far more precious than any dollar amount you will make in your cumulative lifetime. The rewards I have received during my 3+ years in this fight are things I treasure more than any money earned in my "real" job. I hope I did not offend anyone, as that is not my intention. However, I fail to see how anyone can presume to pass judgement on something that they obviously are not willing to attempt on their own.

Incorrect. Let's use Pieter as the example, as I am so fond of doing. Pieter may not be active here, as with other forums he is a staff member of. Even though he doesn't post much, he IS around. Being one of the leading Experts in this industry, it is invaluable to be able to simply shoot him a pm here if I were to get stuck on something. Knowing he is a member and can help out in a pinch, or contribute to testing or tools carries FAR more weight than his post count does. Being an Expert of this caliber carries a LOT of weight to those of us who Administrate at boards like this. At Geekstogo, we have several staff members who have very few posts. However, they can and DO poke their noses into our Special Cases threads, grab new files for testing, etc. They are just as important..if not MORE so in some ways...as our Malware removers who have over 10,000 posts.

I have to respectfully disagree with you. Merely identifying which lines are bad in a HijackThis log does not mean that a person can or will successfully clean that pc. You need to know what type of infection each line belongs to. MOST of the malware nowadays requires much more than just fixing the lines and deleting the offending files. Heck, many of the files CANT be simply deleted anymore Again, this goes back to knowing what you're dealing with, and how to fix the problem. By requiring training from an approved forum, we are confident that our Staff members know what they are doing, and know where to get help if they are stuck. Doing what we do every day is NOT as easy as it may seem to many people. I've been at this over three years now (thanks, Pieter love ), and I still learn something new nearly every day. The malware world changes constantly, as do the things we must come up with to combat the demons. I actually almost take offense to that statement. Accredited? Maybe not by some state governing body, no. But the vast amount of expertise of all those who pioneered this fight and trained many of us here today FAR outweighs any dang piece of paper some "accrediting body" could ever give us.