Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

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
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 141-152 next last
To: Libertina
(Why does Drudge allow this? Everytime I visit his site the same garbage is put on my drive.)

I'm thinking it's probably not Drudge himself but his advertisers,the guys got to make a living.If you really want to be proactive Spybot S&D running in advance mode and WinPatroll can be configured to pick this stuff up on the fly and let you delete it as you go.Note these programs can be pretty annoying themselves as they pop up a window when ever a spybot or cookie is loaded on your machine.
61 posted on 10/31/2004 12:06:53 PM PST by edchambers (Where are we going and why am I in this hand-basket?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: edchambers; Musket

Thank you both for your info. How come Drudge can't specify no pop-us or spyware from his advertisers? I don't get them from everybody - many come from his site until I don't want to visit it anymore. At any rate, I have Ad-aware but it doesn't seem to zap it on contact. That's what I want. I'll try installing another program.


62 posted on 10/31/2004 12:18:50 PM PST by Libertina (Please Lord, grant America a leader who loves you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: All

There's a program called CleanCache that's very useful. If you have a lot of IE junk in folders, both AdAware and AVG will take years to go through there. Run this program, clean up temporary internet files, and it will fly through there.

For some reason, you can't go into Windows explorer and delete these files.


63 posted on 10/31/2004 12:23:33 PM PST by 1L
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: Libertina

Try Spybot Search and destroy, or Win Patrol both are free both have the kind active defense you're looking for.One bit of caution though if you don't have a decent amount of memory or if you have a pretty old system the advanced features of these programs could lock up your machine.I think Win Patrol may have the smallest system requirements of the two.


64 posted on 10/31/2004 12:25:39 PM PST by edchambers (Where are we going and why am I in this hand-basket?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: Libertina
Drudge can't specify no pop-us or spyware from his advertisers?

That's something you'll have to ask Drudge. Probably got something to do with $$$.

I have Ad-aware but it doesn't seem to zap it on contact. That's what I want. I'll try installing another program.

(((pssst -- http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)))

65 posted on 10/31/2004 12:32:37 PM PST by Musket
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: Scenic Sounds

ping


66 posted on 10/31/2004 12:37:14 PM PST by Amelia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Beaker; Riley; Revel
"People aren't at risk with e-mail because the active shield that AVG uses will notify you as soon as a virus gets on your machine."

This is NOT true with AVG with most e-mail clients. The user must scan manually on most clients. However, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express are far more at risk from viruses in attachments than other e-mail clients. For example, I use Opera browser and its e-mail client, and I "get sent" many viruses not picked up by AVG in real time, and I save them to my desktop and then scan them by right-clicking...and sure enough they are viruses, but could never execute because Opera's e-mail client is not at risk of executing attachments just by viewing the message.

If you use a version of Outlook, AVG will assist you in real time, and if you use another client then your risk from Viruses is far less and you can scan manually with AVG. Either way, AVG is a great anti-virus that is WAY less invasive to your system than the "big two" and is free! I have used many virus scanners and I have found that if AVG is kept up to date, that it detects everything the big boys detect, and is a lot faster in manual scans.

As to AVG's "repair capabilities:" by being reasonably careful, despite a network of 6 computers at home (wife, 4 kids, and me) plus controlling a desktop and two laptops at work on a major network (using Norton Corporate there--not my choice), plus college kids bringing in computers and hooking them up here, and running servers on both home and work computers, I have never in my 35 years of computing (started 1969) been infected by even one virus. However, using AVG (and its supplemental programs they have on their web site) I have disinfected many viruses from the computers of family and friends, and it always worked great.

Nothing is perfect, but I think that users should feel nicely protected using the Freeware version of AVG and should not worry that they should buy one of the "big boys."

67 posted on 10/31/2004 12:49:32 PM PST by Weirdad (A Free Republic, not a "democracy" (mob rule))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc

for later reading


68 posted on 10/31/2004 1:02:36 PM PST by Free Vulcan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc

How does my XP Home PC keep turning the MSNMessenger box ON in the startup menu at msconfig? I keep turning it off, and it keeps reappearing, along with a message that I changed my configuration? Anyone?


69 posted on 10/31/2004 1:05:05 PM PST by copycat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DaGman
AOL itself is one big piece of spyware.

Amen to that brother !!!

70 posted on 10/31/2004 1:08:46 PM PST by ColdSteelTalon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: copycat
Just go here and download and run this small program --

http://www.grc.com/stm/ShootTheMessenger.htm

71 posted on 10/31/2004 1:10:54 PM PST by Musket
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: copycat
Oops! I might be wrong about this-

The first thing to understand is that the Windows Messenger Service is completely different from, and not in any way related to, "MSN Messenger", "Windows Messenger", or any other well-known instant messaging system. Therefore, disabling the Windows Messenger service will have no effect upon your use of any other instant messaging applications. They will continue to work without trouble.

Sorry if I caused you any grief.

72 posted on 10/31/2004 1:18:57 PM PST by Musket
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: All

My goodness people. buy a Mac. Problems solved.


73 posted on 10/31/2004 1:26:33 PM PST by whattajoke (.)(.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 1rudeboy; jellybean; backhoe; copycat; All
1rude- The google toolbar reports every search item you enter into it back to Google unless you explicitly de-activate the reporting feature. Perhaps you are aware of that and happy with it. Google retains all its search words anyway, but I guess with the toolbar it can group searches back to a specific PC.

jellybean- ad-aware won't do this without it asking, and you giving it permission to do so, and then only if it needs to remove something it has found but can only do so during reboot (very rare in my experience).

backhoe- good list of anti-spyware/security stuff there. My own use of Zone Alarm as a firewall has been complemented with taking note of reviews, and watching development of, the different software firewalls available. Zone Alarm appears to consistently come out on top in these comparisons and tests.

copycat- aside from appearing in msconfig as "on", does MSNMessenger actually start when you start Windows? Assuming it does, this can be turned off under the Tools -> Options -> General tab in Messenger itself.

Anyone needing a very good Registry cleaner will find an excellent one in

RegSeeker, available here

74 posted on 10/31/2004 1:51:26 PM PST by gungadin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Musket; edchambers

Thanks you! It's another great thing about FR, there are LOTS of knowlegable FReepers on hundreds of subjects :)


75 posted on 10/31/2004 2:09:25 PM PST by Libertina (Please Lord, grant America a leader who loves you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: All

Hmm, I guess this thread is as good as any to post a problem Ive been having lately. My computer has been running extremely slow lately, and checking the task manager showed that a program called playdrv.exe is eating up ~60-90% of my system resources. I have no idea what this is, googling playdrv.exe reveals nothing, ditto for searching my harddrive to find out where the file is located. I tried running AVG, spybot, and adaware to no effect. Anyone have an idea what playdrv.exe is?


76 posted on 10/31/2004 2:44:37 PM PST by somniferum
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: gungadin

Thanks for pointing out RegSeeker-- great catch. I do support work- that'll be one for the flashkey drive.


77 posted on 10/31/2004 2:54:09 PM PST by Riley (Need an experienced computer tech in the DC Metro area? I'm looking. Freepmail for details.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: somniferum

If you google playdrv (with no .exe) you'll get 4 returns. The first and the 4th look like they're related to your problem. Good luck, it looks like you're gonna have fun. Sorry.


78 posted on 10/31/2004 2:57:19 PM PST by Musket
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 76 | View Replies]

To: Jeff Chandler

I tried to update AdAware last night, and the file wouldn't download.


79 posted on 10/31/2004 3:10:33 PM PST by dsc (LIBERALS: If we weren't so darned civilized, there'd be a bounty on them.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: gungadin

Forgot about that, thanks.


80 posted on 10/31/2004 3:11:17 PM PST by 1rudeboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 141-152 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson