OT: working offline and desperate spambots

Whistle
21

I wanted to pass a spamblocker-freeware address on to you which was recommended by my provider. It is http://www.spamihilator.com/index2.php?lang=en and I downloaded today to give it a try as 30 or more per day can be annoying at times. I should know more about its reliability by mid of this week :slight_smile:

Brigitte


P.S. After only an hour or so and from what I have seen happening already, I would think it is perfect for my needs.

edited for the P.S.

22

I got hit myself the other day with a couple of hidden installs. Apparently just by visiting the wrong website, or even having one of those annoying little pop up windows appear, they can download and RUN programs on your machine anytime youā€™re connected to the net.

I found information on both here:

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/nCase.html

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/IGetNet.html

Well, after doing a bit of digging, I found out that these SOBā€™s actually plant this thing DEEEEEP in your registry files so unless you know how to hack code, your only option may be a complete re-format.

I think I nailed the n-Case one, but I canā€™t seem to get rid of the damn Clear Search one. My DOS code just isnā€™t deleting the first set of files or associations or whatever.

On a side note, since you donā€™t know if the thing is on your machine till itā€™s too late, it also watched your pages and looks for your email address - as in when you log in to check it. You donā€™t know youā€™ve been nabbed till after you start to see a wicked combination of both pop-up windows from out of nowhere, and start to receive spam in the inbox of your mail account. (I was virtually PERFECTLY spam-free for almost three years to dateā€¦)

Anyway Iā€™ve bumped up my cookie handling and such to the next level, though I donā€™t know if this will really do anything. XP offers some sort of rudimentary firewall protection, but Iā€™m told it really doesnā€™t do much. Apart from buying lots of expensive anti-spam software, I dunno whatelse to tryā€¦

B~ :roll:

23

Hi Brian,

Ad-aware didnā€™t catch those? Iā€™ve had good luck with it, especially if I run it immediately after I notice something nasty ā€“ something trying to download when I didnā€™t ask for a download, out-of-control pop-ups, etc. Iā€™m not sure, but I think Iā€™m catching them before they get their claws too deeply into my system. I also finally sprang for a Norton firewall, but there are also decent freeware firewalls available. You might try one of those.

I also run ad-aware every few days, even if I donā€™t see any reason why I should. 95% of the time, it finds something. Grrrrr.

Tery