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Tangled in Spyware:
The Houston Chronicle ^ | October 31, 2004 | Anick Jesdanun [Associated Press]

Posted on 10/31/2004 10:16:57 AM PST by quidnunc

David Eckstein turned on his computer one day and launched his Web browser, just as he had every day. This time, however, CNN.com did not automatically open. Instead, the page was a search engine he'd never heard of.

Eckstein tried changing the browser settings back to CNN but the search engine would return whenever he rebooted. Finally, he just gave up.

The San Francisco marketing consultant is yet another victim of spyware, an amorphous class of software that mostly gets onto people's computers without their knowledge. So resource-hungry, it often renders the machines unusable.

"It makes you want to throw your computer out the window," Eckstein said.

In the past year, the problem has become epidemic as people spend more time online and spyware developers get more aggressive.

"It makes spam look like a walk in the park," said Bob Bowman, chief executive of Major League Baseball's Internet unit, which in June started banning new advertisers from using such techniques.

As part of a government-backed study, technicians visited Jenna Dye recently in Young Harris, Ga., and found 1,300 spyware-related items on her machine.

"It would shut itself down in the middle of doing stuff. We had lots of pop-ups. The (CD-ROM) drawers would pop open," the mother of two complained. "It's frustrating. We spent $1,800 on our computer and we didn't want to use it."

Until the machine was cleaned up, Dye and her husband would make 2 1/2 hour trips to the nearest mall to avoid shopping online. "We use it every day now again," she said.

Spyware was found on the computers of 80 percent of participants in the study, conducted by America Online Inc. and the National Cyber Security Alliance.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Extended News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: exploit; getamac; internetexploiter; lowqualitycrap; microsoft; patch; securityflaw; spyware; trojan; virus; windows; worm
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To: hsmomx3

AVG is about 6.5Mb +/-......plus you need to get most current definitions after install


121 posted on 11/09/2004 3:59:30 PM PST by AlBondigas
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To: hsmomx3

Even on my slow dial-up it wasn't bad. I set it to run automatic scheduled system checks and auto-updates.


122 posted on 11/10/2004 6:27:29 PM PST by Sisku Hanne (Deprogramming the left, one truth at a time.)
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To: hsmomx3

I'm so confused with all these downloads for free spyware on my hard drive now. I don't know what is running, and what is not.

All I know, is that Ad-Aware has been awesome for me. An interesting item, however, is that recently, I finally convinced dh to get broadband and ditch the liberal blue triangle. I have heard many people raving about Firefox, so I have been giving it a try.

We also installed Trend Micro Internet Security because it has a firewall, and since that time, when I run Ad-Aware I am only seeing maybe one "bug" every few days.

I loved deleting all this little critters, though. :)


123 posted on 11/11/2004 7:55:52 AM PST by getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL (More sweat in peace. Less blood in war.)
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To: backhoe

Thank you for your Help for viruses and malware
/


124 posted on 11/11/2004 8:05:33 AM PST by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
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To: AFPhys
Thank you.
125 posted on 11/11/2004 9:19:13 AM PST by backhoe ("We met at Dawn- and destiny Prevailed...")
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To: backhoe

thanks.


126 posted on 11/14/2004 10:06:56 AM PST by ken21 (an american against the democrat plantation.)
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To: backhoe

I know this is an old thread, but, I have an ooooold computer, and am using windows95, have tried to download spybot1.3 several times, but with no sucess.

Any ideas?


127 posted on 11/14/2004 10:15:59 AM PST by clyde260 (Public Enemy #1: Network News!)
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To: clyde260
I know this is an old thread, but, I have an ooooold computer, and am using windows95, have tried to download spybot1.3 several times, but with no sucess.

I know I've had & used versions of spybot on Win95 machines- what type of DL problems are you encountering? Or is it an install hangup?

128 posted on 11/14/2004 10:54:47 AM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: backhoe

In my first attempts it said I had a file missing. When I tries yesterday it said I had corrupted files.


129 posted on 11/15/2004 5:12:50 AM PST by clyde260 (Public Enemy #1: Network News!)
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To: clyde260
You may have a bug(s) that interferes with downloading & installing fixes- if several tries fail, download via another PC, put the software you want on a floppy ( if it fits ) and try installing from a drive.

It's also possible your registry has become so bogged down with invalid entries that you are getting problems from that- Win95 is kind of notorious for corrupt registry problems. See if you can find and download an older, free version of regcleaner by jv16 to get rid of the worst problems.

Sometimes disinfecting takes more effort and time than it's worth- if you have your data files backed up, and have all the installation files for the software you need, it may be faster to fdisk, re-format, and reinstall everything.

130 posted on 11/15/2004 5:27:30 AM PST by backhoe ("We met at Dawn- and destiny Prevailed...")
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To: backhoe

Good ideas, and I actually understood all of that!

Thanks for your time, I'll let you know how I make out.

FReegards


131 posted on 11/15/2004 5:36:27 AM PST by clyde260 (Public Enemy #1: Network News!)
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To: quidnunc
Hijacking a PC ought to be a crime and I cannot believe some lawyer hasn't sued the advertisers that use these techniques! Yoo Hoo, boys! Over here!

Quid:

On reboot does IE list the home page as "About:blank?

Maybe the About:blank hijacker is now ".com" but its one of the worst. Even if you have AdAware, Spybot, etc. already download the latest program itself (ideally to a clean PC) and install them, update and then run them.

Hijack This is complicated and time-consuming and can be dangerous but it does work - Backhoe's post at #33 should help.

Good luck!

132 posted on 11/15/2004 6:07:49 AM PST by Tunehead54 (Repeal the 22nd Amendment!)
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To: clyde260
Let me know what happens- after I gave my wife a disk with ad-aware and she installed it on her office PC, it found over 500 files of various malware.

Mostly tracking cookies, but some registry changes as well. Naturally, it was running like an arthritic dog, with all that garbage aboard.

Spybot and ad-aware get what each other misses, and for what it's worth, AVAST was the only anti-virus I've tried that found changes in command.com and a couple of DLL files, and fixed them. Or claimed to!

133 posted on 11/15/2004 6:14:04 AM PST by backhoe ("We met at Dawn- and destiny Prevailed...")
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To: quidnunc; ForGod'sSake
"David Eckstein turned on his computer one day and launched his Web browser, just as he had every day. This time, however, CNN.com did not automatically open. Instead, the page was a search engine he'd never heard of."

Sweet Jesus how wrong can ya get.
"Spyware" was not responsible for Mr. Eckstein's switch.

Oh no-no-no.

...Eckstein encountered "Spareware".

134 posted on 11/15/2004 6:18:34 AM PST by Landru (Indulgences: 2 for a buck.)
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Read later...

Thanks for all the input.


135 posted on 11/15/2004 6:49:01 AM PST by holidayidol
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To: backhoe

So far I've tried downloading 4 different spyware programs to no avail. I'm always missing an important file, or my files are corrupted.

So on to the next step: Get the program off a floppy as you suggested. I'll get a neighborhood 12 year old computer genious to help. The kid that works for me is pretty good.

Re-format of hard drive will be last resort.


136 posted on 11/15/2004 7:04:14 AM PST by clyde260 (Public Enemy #1: Network News!)
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To: clyde260
Sounds like a good plan- if your 12 year old whiz's PC has the ability, putting everything on one CD might be more convienient... AVAST or AVG, Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Spyware Sweeper is good, as is GIANT.

Reformat is a last resort, and be advised that some nasty bugs write the boot sector, so you have to low-level format ( fdisk, which writes zeroes ) to overwrite them. Simply formatting won't get some of them.

137 posted on 11/15/2004 7:20:15 AM PST by backhoe ("We met at Dawn- and destiny Prevailed...")
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To: Landru
...Eckstein encountered "Spareware".

Uh oh. Spareware? Ya got me there bub. Whazzat?

FGS

138 posted on 11/15/2004 12:31:23 PM PST by ForGod'sSake (ABCNNBCBS: An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly.)
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To: quidnunc

get thee to mozilla.org, and download firefox.


139 posted on 11/15/2004 12:33:17 PM PST by smonk
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To: ForGod'sSake
>...Eckstein encountered "Spareware".
"Uh oh. Spareware? Ya got me there bub. Whazzat?"

What's that?!!

Spareware, Spareware my good fellow!
Spares the "victim" from seeing crap like CNN on the Internet.!!

...automatically. ;^)

140 posted on 11/15/2004 1:24:58 PM PST by Landru (Indulgences: 2 for a buck.)
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