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BS: amazing email virus
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Subject: BS: amazlng email virus From: Donuel Date: 06 May 07 - 10:23 AM IT may have been email generated or a tainted website - I'm not sure but its sophistication was phenomenal. First what it did was this: It went and found some dvd software I had purchased on line over a year ago. It turned every link in my email file into a link to download the program again. I DID NOT DO SO nor should you re-download a familiar program from your email folder. It may have come from a perfect look alike phishing email from ebay saying a complaint was registered and action... yada yada yada It may have come from a windows media player download. WHAT IT DID (despite not loading what looked like a program I already bought) was to disable a couple drives which made loading software impossible and made every email link a download of that dvd ssoftware. the fix a system scan with Norton and 4 new updates, (reboot) a system scan for adware (reboot), a RETURN TO DEFAULT SETTINGS for Internet Explorer (reboot) which fixed the email links to go where they were intended. but things were still happening until finally a HARD SYSTEM CRASH ---pull the cord. Thinks seem ok now My next computer will be a Mac I know people have lost computers worth thousands of dollars due to Windows spyware and virus. Where are the perp walks for the criminals who do this? I never heard of one who has gone to jail - hackers who look for gov. ufo files yes, but not spyware computer killers. I have some cruel and unusual punishment suggestions for the buyers and sellers of computer killing spyware. IF you caught them in your house, a jury would excuse whatever self defense you decided to use. Catch them in your computer ...? There are plenty of big time players in this game Proctor and Gamble, NSA, Verizon and jo jo the penis enlargment entrepeneur...ad infinitum. How about a new version of American Idol -- American Villain From a group of 10 annoying criminals be they spyware or war profiteers, we narrow it down to one that gets executed live on TV. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazlng email virus From: katlaughing Date: 06 May 07 - 11:14 AM Not using Internet Explorer is a lot safer! |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazlng email virus From: JennyO Date: 06 May 07 - 11:48 AM One word - Linux. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazlng email virus From: Bee Date: 06 May 07 - 12:15 PM Ten years online, same old generic PC, Windows, Explorer, etc. Never had one single problem relating to viruses. Had a trojan once. Worst problems? MacAfee AV, crashed my computer, wouldn't let it boot up, and was so entwined in the registry, etc., it took a techie three hours to clean it out. Twice. Because the next (hired for something else) tech thought it couldn't have been MacAfee's fault and installed it again from his clean-for-customers disc. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazlng email virus From: Donuel Date: 06 May 07 - 01:43 PM Yeah the cure/protection can be worse than the disease. Just like a hospital or Just like people who keep a gun in the downstairs closet... |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazlng email virus From: gnu Date: 06 May 07 - 02:04 PM "My next computer will be a Mac".... yup. I am getting to that point. (Not to do with viruses at all.) Not just because of the constant freezes and error reports and the fact that Windows keeps doing stuff so that my PC will not stand by on standby, etc, etc... but the idea of having so many different versions of Vista is just a way to squeeze more $$$ out of us. Of course, I could be wrong. But, my Mac buddies seem to be a lot happier with their PC's. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazlng email virus From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 06 May 07 - 04:10 PM Like Bee, my major problem was with McAfee. Never a problem with Internet Explorer; my broadband server provides good protection and Spyware Doctor takes care of some minor nuisances. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 06 May 07 - 07:49 PM long live Mac sandra, satisfied Mac user |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 06 May 07 - 08:14 PM Actually some hackers have had bad days in court - I suppose JiK will know how to find that info... :-) :-P |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Dickey Date: 07 May 07 - 01:07 AM No virus can cause physical damage to hardware. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 May 07 - 01:27 AM Foolestroupe - I thought you were in charge of keeping the records on convictions. I don't keep track of many, but can note that last October Microsoft, in cooperation with authorities in 3 or 4 countries, filed for and obtained 139 indictments, 97 of which were for felony counts. The convictions on that bunch have been dribbling in, but I don't have any tally of what percentage are getting nailed. ASCAP et. al. have of course filed several thousand suits over pirated music/video; but only a few were non-juvenile and most of the juvies settled for a "royalty payment" in lieu of a spanking. There has been some indication that the Chinese may be beginning to take some action against their massive counterfeit software/CD/DVD industry; but it will take a while to see if it holds up. A couple of notorious spammers have been fined multi-million dollar amounts, but the news reports don't say whether they've paid off. My notes imply that I've seen about a half dozen malware pushers with jail time over the last year, but I don't have details suitable for citation on most of them, and my records are scattered. At least three or four "hackers" (in multiple countries) who broke into US Defense Research Lab computers about a year ago are doing jail time. And for those considering "alternative lifestyles," although they try to keep it quiet, Apple has issued at least 19 patches that I've seen, all of which appear to be carbon copies of the buffer overrrun etc vulnerabilities that Microsoft was patching a year or so ago. The Linux users are still too small a population to be very interesting to scammers, although there's some activity reported. I don't usually pay enough attention there to make notes. I have seen reports of a new release of UBUNTU(?) that have NOT been favorable. It's had good reviews in prior versions, but if you're thinking of upgrading or of getting it new, I'd suggest some searching to find out what the new version screwed up - if anything - before you install. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 07 May 07 - 01:32 AM "No virus can cause physical damage to hardware." Funny how I well remmber that there used to be one that would try to force step a drive beyond its 'max cylinder' ... :-) Of course that might only have been for floppies, getting too old to remmber exact details... :-) "He's gettin' too old, He's gettin' too old, Too old to cut the mustard any more!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 May 07 - 02:15 AM There have been a couple of methods by which malware could physically damage hardware, but even when people used to do it just for fun they were very rarely seen. Changes in CD/DVD recording specs have changed the "stroke" of the scan mechanism, so that an older drive (without proper driver updates) can be damaged by a seek or write command for an area outside the range for which it wss built. This would probably be an unintentional damage, but intent wouldn't matter much if your drive quites working. With new high-density hard drives, you cannot generally low-level format and recover the original capacity of the drive, so a virus that requires a low-level format to get rid of it could, in effect, cripple your hard drive. I haven't heard of any such in the past 20 years or so, although some current root kit malware is difficult enough to clean that you might be tempted to try it. With some older monitors, it was possible to command a "burn" that would write a permanent (black) pattern on the screen. I haven't heard of anything similar with newer phospers and circuits, since screen savers became unnecessary to protect them. Most malware distributors aren't interested in damaging your machine. They want to control it, either to steal your info or to use it to distribute their malware elsewhere. Once your machine has been taken over for use as a bot, it's even becoming less likely that it will be used for spamming. The number one use of "slave" machines now, according to some, appears to be "kiddy porn" distribution - and if you don't keep your machine clean, you probably won't know it's being used until they come to arrest you. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Donuel Date: 07 May 07 - 09:07 AM Hackers! get arrested all the time But I do not know any corporate adware, spy ware, malware, phonetappers and data thieves to be touched. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Rapparee Date: 07 May 07 - 09:14 AM Donuel, a gun (say, a .30-06 with 210 grain soft-point bullets) can be a WONDERFUL cure for a computer, whether it has problems or not. Just clean up the trash afterwards. 8-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Dickey Date: 07 May 07 - 01:19 PM 20 year old hardware, if it is still working, might fall prey to 20 year old malware, if it still is being spread. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 07 May 07 - 04:29 PM Donuel, you told us: IF you caught them in your house, a jury would excuse whatever self defense you decided to use. Not so. You are legally entitled to use physical force only to prevent hysical harm to you and yours. If, say, a malefactor came in to steal and run, and you shot and killed him, you'd be up for murder. Same with his cousin who came in just to do malicious damage to your computer. Even if you merely broke his arm, say, to keep him from getting away out your door, you're in trouble for assault and battery. Unless (s)he is actually in the midst of or imminently about to harm you and yours by physical violence, you are not entitled to inflict physical harm on such a malefactor, and even then, only to the extent reasonably necessary to protect yourself. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: JohnInKansas Date: 08 May 07 - 02:24 AM As already indicated, I don't keep lists of convictions for malware criminals, but any number of search terms or methods will show that there are efforts being made, with some success, at prosecuting the worst offenders. Google: Hackers Arrested gets a sampling similar to what you'll get with most similar search terms. One that appears early in this result perhaps resembles Donuel's criminal profile (the one he's interested in - not necessarily the one he displays). Alleged MySpace hackers arrested gives a brief report on the arrest of two "kids" who tried to extort money from MySpace. They operated a website that promised to allow MySpace users to see who visited their pages. Their page was one of at least three similar ones that I've seen reports on. They promised that their program would let you identify anyone who visited your page, would tell you how many times they had visited your page, would tell you what site they last visited before visiting yours, and would give you their email address. When MySpace blocked their site, they threatened to re-open with an "unbreakable program" and demanded a "ransom" from MySpace. The "MySpace employees" who met with them for the payoff were actually FBI, and they went to jail. I'm guessing that this case resembles Donuel's case to the extent that it involves malware downloaded from a source you might click innocently, or could get without knowing you'd "clicked," and does unexpected and unwanted things to your computer. They were blocked for their malware/spyware actions; but were arrested for the attempted extortion. ALL OF THE SITES for which I've seen reports, who offered this "spy service," have been reported as guilty of downloading other malware, including keystroke loggers and "bot" programs. It is possible in at least one case that the site owners were not intentionally including other malware, and that their site may have been hacked by others who surreptitiously bundled "a few extras" with the spyware they intended to provide. Most convictions will be for "ancient crimes" since it's extremely time consuming, and often requires international cooperation to identify the criminals, but the effort keeps going. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Chris Maltby Date: 08 May 07 - 09:38 AM For you McAffee virus scan victims, let me recommend the AVG virus scan product that's free for personal use (yay!) and works well too. Add a decent spyware scanner (Spybot S&D is ok), and maybe something that will warn you about unauthorised attempts to access the internet (eg ZoneAlarm). Of course, you Windoze users _always_ create a non-privileged user account and use it for surfing the web etc. When you want to install something you log in with your privileged account (or use the "run-as" context menu to access the required privilege). WinXP makes this almost painless. Using a browser other than Internet Exploder (eg Firefox) is wise as most attacks are targetted at IE still (and Firefox is somewhat more secure anyway). Remember that Microsoft Windows' virus susceptibility is a business worth over a billion dollars a year (ask Symantec) - so perhaps they have little incentive to find a permanent fix. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Stu Date: 08 May 07 - 09:44 AM "My next computer will be a Mac" That's it - keep heading for the light, go into the light, crossover - all are welcome . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: guitar Date: 08 May 07 - 10:45 AM I just hate buying things off the internet for these very reason |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Donuel Date: 08 May 07 - 10:56 AM Uncle Dave, There is a provision in the law that we will call the reasonable man. A reasonable man will take action that is appropriate to the situation. Should that situation be an intruder that poses no threat a reasonable man would take non threatening action such as detaining the intruder and/or calling the police. If the intruder is a threat to life and limb, a reasonable man could apply measures equal to that threat. It is also recognized that some people are held to a higher standard of the reasonable man concept due to; age, training, education, physical/metal handicaps etc. The law is also heavily weighted on the side of property rights. So if someone were attempting to steal a reasonable man's life savings from under his mattress, a reasonable man can use such measures to protect his economic life blood that could include extreme violence. However if this occured anyplace else except for example, the victim's bedroom then the defensive violent actions of said victim would be assault. (of course you can't physically defend yourself from Enron electric overcharges, Comcast over charges, Realator overcharges, refinery overcharges at the pump even though it amounts to theft.) __________________________________________________________________ My thinking is this, if a crook has a pole with a hook on it and is stealing from me through my bedroom window - or if he is using my cable wire to hook things out of my computer for identity theft and credit card fraud - they are both on my property. They are both attmpting to violate my property rights. They are both attmepting unarmed robbery. So I expect those guilty of such intrusions to face charges of attempted robbery that might carry a 5-7 year sentence. ---------------------------------------------------- Amzon uses software to determine your preferences and you agree to this when you register. If it is done without permission for criminal purposes it is an invasion. Many huge coporations will buy your stolen data and with a wink and a nod conspire with ad ware aspy ware and MALWAR hackers to hurt your property. SONY is an obvious example of this. Their malware designed initially to protect their music and dvd releases has destroyed Federal computers and private computers alike in the hundreds of thousands. They were fined 7 figures (many million$) But who went to jail? You got it. no one. Where is the software for consumers to trace precisly where and who is commiting unarmed robbery on them? Where are the heroic hackers that can help us catch the criminals? Perhaps if I raise a stink (with spaw's help) we can recruit people who will develop sharware to catch these criminals who conspire with huge corporations. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Donuel Date: 08 May 07 - 11:17 AM I think SONY had to pay over 20 million dollars in fines for their malware. It is best not to buy a SONY dvd. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: katlaughing Date: 06 Sep 07 - 02:31 PM Just got a new scam/spam supposedly from the IRS! To wit: from "service@irs.gov" reply-to no.reply@irs.gov date Sep 6, 2007 9:56 AM subject IRS Notification - Fiscal Activity After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $193.77 . Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it. A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline. To access the form for your tax refund, please click here Regards, Internal Revenue Service --------------------------------------------------------- The "click here" goes to something called "ainsleystones.co.uk/gallery...etc. etc. Of course it's a scam and the real IRS is aware of it according to their front page. Amazing...at the bottom of the message was © Copyright 2007, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved I hope they can catch the bastards who send out such stuff. There are too many vulnerable people out there who could fall for it! |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: gnu Date: 06 Sep 07 - 03:33 PM Um... maybe someone has already said this... here's something to ponder... maybe??? I have a relatively new PC, a year old. I downloaded everything from the old PC to the new one. I kept the old one hooked up to the internet. Works fine. When I want to download something from the old PC to the new one I transfer by whatever means is easiest at the time. I scan all files first. If I want to upload, same deal. I mean, we're talking a few hundred bucks here. Seems like a good investment to me if your main PC is in any way "precious". I make my living with mine so there is NO way I can risk it getting fouled up at all. CD's and DVD's are cheap. |
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Subject: RE: BS: amazing email virus From: Barry Finn Date: 06 Sep 07 - 03:43 PM "6-9 days to process." NEVER HAPPEN Barry |
