Weirdness

6 Responses to “Weirdness”

1. Michael Froomkin Says:
   April 17th, 2005 at 7:21 am

   It looks fine from here. Please email me and tell me what you do and what you are seeing.

   I have noticed a traffic drop recently (I thought it was because I was boring).

2. blues Says:
   April 17th, 2005 at 2:32 pm

   I had no trouble getting to discourse dot net.

   I would bet about 10 to 1 your browser (Internet Despoiler) has been
   highjacked. Once it gets highjacked, it can be a bitch to get back in
   control of the stupid Microsoft crap. But I happen to have TONS of answers (paranoid bastard that I am).

   Let me know, and I can send you a shitload of stuff that will kick the
   butt of just about any highjack shitware.

   You really need to stop using MS Internet Despoiler. Major universities no
   longer even offer to fix the computers of students who use it. If your
   computer is real fast, or you can put ups with a somewhat clumsy program,
   you can just switch to the Firefox browser (which I have on hand). I
   personally like the small, light, yet turbocharged K-Meleon Browser
   (which I have an install program for). PLEASE IGNORE RUMORS ABOUT “SECURITY HOLES” CONCERNING THESE BROWSERS!!! The hackers have thus far shown no real interest in attacking SourceForge or other open-source programs — they always seem to focus on Microsoft (why does that not surprise me?).

   I also use Adaware and Spybot SD to search for stuff that’s planted itself
   in my machine. For the really nasty buggers, you could try a 30 day trial of
   Registry Mechanic.

   There is a lot of stuff that can prevent shitware from installing itself
   on your machine in the first place. I use (and update every 2 weeks) Spyware
   Blaster. When I am tempted to go to any dubious sites (or click on the
   links of some of the “good-guy” e-mails, such as some you send me), I put up
   Spyware Guard (a resource hog for sure). I UPDATE MOST OF THIS
   STUFF ONCE A WEEK, just as if it were anti-virus program signatures.

   I have lots of other needful stuff, like Password Safe, MRU Blaster, and
   Mailwasher (lets you look ate e-mail info and strip weird ones right off
   the server before they even download.

   YOU MUST HAVE A FIREWALL. PERIOD. (I can send you the fine, free
   Kerio Firewall Version 4.)

   Let me know if you want any of this stuff (which I can send as attachments
   that could take 1 or 2 hours to download.

3. blues Says:
   April 17th, 2005 at 2:37 pm

   I did’t mean to imply you send me funny emails. This was largely a copy of an e-mail I sent a friend who got highjacked this morning.

   CYBERGEDDON !!!

4. Michael Froomkin Says:
   April 17th, 2005 at 6:14 pm

   My site redirects 403 errors to digicrime.com for which I have the honor to be the “big mouthpiece”.

   It also redirects a small number of IP numbers used to hammer my site, including two from comcast. I’ve taken the comcast ones off the list.

   And, it redirects a particular proxy used by spammers (the odds that Kevin was using this obscure tool are small).

   I’m guessing Kevin has dynamic IP from comcast, and happened to get either 67.166.37.63 or 67.171.208.255 which I had been blocking. But like I said, I’ve removed the blocks.

5. Kevin Hayden Says:
   April 17th, 2005 at 8:13 pm

   That did correct it Michael.

   And Blues, thanks. I do use IE and Firefox, have Zone Alarm firewall in place and have all IE patches installed except those that came out in the last week. So I think I’m okay.

6. blues Says:
   April 17th, 2005 at 11:17 pm

   Glad to hear the thing got straightened out. Just to round the anti-Cybergeddon measures out, I’ll mention two final resorts.

   If all else were to fail, one could get the latest “HighjackThis” program at:

   ( http: //www. spywareinfo.com/
   ~merijn/downloads.html )

   One thing it does is perform a “CAT scan” of the computer, producing a huge list that can be interpreted by some nice witch doctors who are to be found all over the web. They can furnish “hand removal” instructions.

   I like a tiny little program called “Rback”, which exploits the fact that Windows 98 (& 95) is based on DOS 7. It snapshots about 7 of the critical files (like the registry). If all hell breaks loose, you can “nuke” the registry back to a previous version via a dos batch file, which the Windows components cannout even “understand.”