Earthlink: Your hard drive may be spying on you

Miami Herald ^ | 10/14/2003 | Peggy Rogers

[weegee]

This is series! Is your name hugh?

[Sir Gawain]

Getting and keeping spyware off your computer

[EggsAckley]

I just did a Google, and the weird popups are GONE! That spyhunter works!

Try to get a virus search and destroy to clean out the virus. A while back, Lycos hooked up with my Google (without my permission) and now it's gone. WooHoo!

[ColdSteelTalon]

How so? I am an Earthlink user. let me know so I can clean it off.

Thanks in advance?

[weegee]

It found one suspicious component:

BrilliantDigital key: HKEY...

Someone's giving your computer hickeys?

[Sir Gawain]

No need to pay for that. See #62.

[weegee]

AdAware and Spybot-Search & Destroy BUMP!

BTW, Spybot just released new profiles on Oct 10th, some of y'all may need to update the data file.

Innoculation seems to be working great. I go to some websites now (news sites) and their banner ads come up blank. I've also gotten some "empty" popup windows. Innoculation blocks out known ad-servers (helps not having to clean the cookies up later).

[Sir Gawain]

I also found an registry entry that was flagged. How can you tell what DLL, class or executable was installed in association with this registry entry?

I'm pretty sure Spybot displays paths and dll's etc. I haven't ran AdAware in so long since Spybot is so much better.

[Sir Gawain]

see #62

[Dialup Llama]

>I'm pretty sure Spybot displays paths and dll's etc. I haven't ran AdAware in so long since Spybot is so much better.

I used to run PestPatrol until I realized that its spyware definitions have not been updated since 2002. Does Spybot have recent and regular updates like Norton AV does?

[Libertina]

BUMP and ping for later read

[Sir Gawain]

Does Spybot have recent and regular updates like Norton AV does?

Yes. It does a lot more than AdAware does, also. But it's ok to keep both if you want. AdAware is still a decent tool.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

If I recall correctly, and I think I do, brilliantdigital IS spyware and can/should be pulled.

I think you're right. I just did a google search on it.

BrilliantDigital

The problem is, so many other things have to be removed with it. It's way beyond my capabilities to remove it manually. I guess I'll just use the AdAware to remove it automatically.

[Calpernia]

Thanks.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Does anyone know if this is an important component in my computer? Is it spyware, or something I need to keep so that the computer runs smoothly?

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.b3d\

[is_is]

bump for later

[bjcintennessee]

I'm totally ignorant of these things. Hopeless TechnoNinny.

You know that book -- "Computers for Dummies"? Well it was waaaaay over my blonde head - (lol)

I just downloaded adAware and don't have a clue how to check to see what it has done or if it is working. Oh well...

[bjcintennessee]

Thanks for the links. I just downloaded adAware -- don't know how to determine what, if anything it has done though. What does Security Test do? Is it an installation, or what?

Appreciate yours and others patience with the computer illiterate like myself.

[Vigilantcitizen]

When I was still using I.E., Ad Aware would find on average 20 or so different types of spyware during weekly scans. I've been using Mozilla for a week or so know, and a recent ad-aware scan turned up ZILCH.

Thanks stainless, for turning me on to Mozilla.

[Fishrrman]

I've got an older Macintosh running the "Classic" Mac OS (9.2.2).

No viruses.
No worms.
No spyware.
I don't even need a virus protection program.

I use a "server checker" (POPMonitor) to pre-filter spam so that 99% of it never touches my computer. Runs great!

Cheers!
- John