junk mail, porn-bombs, and general bullschnit

[bobsticks]

So I got back on line last night after a few days of merciless battle with my machine. I am pretty well a computer newb so this was particularly dumbfounding. In essence the story is this, I opened some junk-mail and got a doosy of a porn bomb/virus. I am not a prude and like lookin at the ladies as well as the next guy. If this was an extension of Shokhead's avatar I would have been relatively cool with the whole thing, but this was some sick stuff. It kind of reminded me of that Jaoquin Phoenix line in the movie [B]8 mm[B] --"There are some things you just can't 'unsee'". Anyway here are a few observations:

1) never download anything from "newyorkcasino.com"

2) I haven't been able to track what exactly is at this IP because it's unregistered but you don't want anything from IP 202-97-238-202 coming to you.

3)China has some bad people. I've been getting beaucoup unsolicited attemptsto access my computer from Beijing. I don't know what they they're sellin' but I ain't buyin'.

4) When I first discovered this (probably close to a full day after opening it) I immediately went into lockdown and started banning IPs. When I came out of lockdown and ran multiple virus scans and cleaners and reset my security settings, I found that everything worked as usual--[I]with the exception of AR[I]. I removed the ban on virtually everything but the obvious miscreants and things returned but for a while everything was SLOW. It reminded me of several threads in which some have complained about the speed of this place. I am still researching all the entities that have tried to access my ports, so I haven't located the proper IP for AR, but I suspect I was blocking an advertiser. You guys on DSL that have five to ten minute response times might want to go in and see if you've banned anything unecessarily. Hopefully some good can come out of this and maybe someone can get better service from AR.

5) Thanks eric for trying to help.

Anyway, that's that. Any suggestions for improved security above the basics ( and me not being a dumbass) will be appreciated. Also any thoughts on completely cleaning out the gunk could be useful. I'm half tempted to get a new computer and be done with it. I don't really want to be associated with anything from this incident and I kind of feel violated---and not in a good way.

Disturbing

[icarus]

I do sympathise with bobstick me and computer viruses were lik the popular highschool kid with girls. Once your done with one, your on to the next. First off, as a general rule don't oen anything from an unknown source. Some of the new email programs are very good at sorting out junk mail, personally I recomend Mozilla's Thunderbird. And most importantly a great anti-virus program does wonders. my guess is that you are using either Norton, or a Mcafee. Both of which are renound for not doing the greatest job. Some of my computer programming friends suggested that I use Panda Titanium anti-virus, and ever since Ive been virus free.

[kexodusc]

Brother Bob, sorry to hear about your troubles. Just two months ago my machine got hacked. Twice!!! I didn't even know it was being hacked until by fluke I decided to check out the network traffic at home just because all 3 machines were active. The stupid neighbour's kid had been aweful busy since he broke his leg because he managed to log into our wireless network here. Don't know how he broke my password - it was 1/2 of my favorite sports team, a number, half of my favorite band, a number, and my dog's name (changed now, of course - the password, not Loki's name). Anyway, I fixed him. When I noticed him accessing our internet connection, I also noticed he left his comp settings to the microsoft windows xp defaults so I deleted a bunch of his files and saved a rather humorous but not dangerous virus attachment. hehe.

The second hack was much scarier. Again by fluke, I noticed Outlook Express was sending emails to 2 yahoo addresses everytime I booted up. I don't use Outlook (Thunderbird man), so when I saw it in the Task Manager I was curious. I had that for 3 days before I noticed or AVG was updated with a fix. Too late, I wasn't risking anything so I backed up, formatted, and reinstalled. Notified all my banking/credit card accounts too just in case, but there's been no activity there.

Security was just another one of the reasons I switched to Linux. . At least Microsoft was smart enough to "borrow" a few security features from Linux for Vista.

[icarus]

hey Kex, how do you find working with linux? is it worth the crossover from windows, cause I am fed up with windows, but can't stand the one button attack of the mac(amongst other issues with mac's). And ,ost importantly how do find linux is with using programs designed for windows ie. Filemaker pro, microsoft office ect.

[basite]

sorry to hear about the computer problems,
hope everything gets solved really soon...

my way to deal with viruses and spyware and others,
when the pc is lightly f*cked-up, I prefer to delete the viruses, get rid of any other crap, so solving it.
when it's entirely f*cked-up (and I mean really really hard, when even windows is messing with you, with or without viruses) I more tend to format the disk, and to start all over again.
doesn't take too long, and windows works properly again...


going to install linux this sunday, my nephew will come and 'initiate' me in the new os,

it's going to be linux SUSE 10.2, with the xgl/beryl 'visual mod pack' thingy, looks great seen movies of it, and it beats vista to crap...
windows won't leave, it's going to be a dualboot, so I can choose for linux or windows, since I like to play games sometimes :)...

anyways,
Keep them spinning,
Bert.

[kexodusc]

going to install linux this sunday, my nephew will come and 'initiate' me in the new os,

it's going to be linux SUSE 10.2, with the xgl/beryl 'visual mod pack' thingy, looks great seen movies of it, and it beats vista to crap...
windows won't leave, it's going to be a dualboot, so I can choose for linux or windows, since I like to play games sometimes :)...

anyways,
Keep them spinning,
Bert.

Yeah, SUSE is what we use at work - Beryl's kind a cool for eye-candy. I'm not allowed to have it at work, but I have it at home.
If you're like I was, the first 2 weeks of personal Linux use will be tough - (using as a work station is really no different than windows). You have to unlearn windows and learn Linux at the same time. It's easy to pack it in and go crawling back to Microsoft. Lots of bad habits and years of familiarity are gone. Take it a step at a time. I was a Mac and Windows power user for years - Linux is more like Mac I guess (I think Mac actually is based on a *nix variety - BSD?). I love the freedom to customize and the added stability and feature sets though.

For home use I use a few distros, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Fedora. I really like the Ubuntus - funny name aside they're really easy to us, and using the most common Linux distribution makes it easy to find answers to any questions. It's not too different from SUSE though.

After my experiences with Microsoft's crappy software and helpline last month, I'm done with them....:mad5:

[kexodusc]

hey Kex, how do you find working with linux?
It's very much like working with a more stable, faster version of windows.


is it worth the crossover from windows, cause I am fed up with windows, but can't stand the one button attack of the mac(amongst other issues with mac's). And ,ost importantly how do find linux is with using programs designed for windows ie. Filemaker pro, microsoft office ect.

You can customize the one-button thing - I actually prefer it - that's just you being brainwashed by Windows - why 2 clicks when 1 will do? What's the advantage?

I suggest people install a Linux distro beside their Windows install at first - dual boot. You can switch back and forth. Remember, there's a learning curve for Linux. Linux depends more on the command line for some tasks - which sounds primitive at first, but it's actually a faster, more effective way at getting many things done than using GUI. In fact, Vista has a more powerful command line shell tool for these reasons. There's tons of on-line help and guides out there, it just takes a will to learn. After a week or so you should be good - then there's no looking back.

Not all Windows programs run in Linux unless there are versions designed specifically for it. Most programs I've used have an open source equivalent that's as good or better however - Internet Explorer is replaced Firefox, Outlook Express by Thunderbird or several others, Microsoft Office by Open Office, etc.

There's very little functionality you won't be able to keep. Gaming arguably is the only weakness for Linux, but I guess gamers have ways of making them work (I just don't know how).

If you want your Linux install to behave like Windows, you can find one. Kubuntu, Knoppix, or several other KDE based OS's are very Windows like in many aspects.

[bobsticks]

Icarus, thanks for the heads-up.

Kex and all, another disturbing part about this is that I have a wireless unit hooked up. Of course, I have disconnected now but at the time it was functional though not in use. This adds another element of chance to the equation which further displeases me. I have to wonder about the integrity of this unit.

I am kind of disheartened and amazed at some of things people will do.

[jt1stcav]

Nothing like latching on to free wireless bandwidth...sheesh! Glad you fixed your neighbor's kid's li'l red wagon, Kex. Stealing another's wireless network is a no-go.

Bobsticks...I'm a computer illiterate who has to depend on my kid brothers to build and setup my computers (at least they know what they're doin' and it's free...heh). At one point my bro started using Linux Ubuntu and became pretty proficient at it. When it came time for me to upgrade my 'puter, he installed Ubuntu (at my request) instead of Windows xp Pro, and I had one helluva time trying to acclimate to this new style OS. There is so much of it that's familiar to Windows, but other features that are not, and after a month or so I (like so many other weak-minded Microsoft junkies) packed it in and went crawling back to xp Pro! I'm not dissing Linux or open-source programing; it's a great invention and I'm glad it's out there for everyone to use. But for me personally, it was a bit more difficult to learn new ways of doing certain things that seemed much easier to do (i.e.: no-brainer routines) on Windows, plus I couldn't make Adobe Photoshop CS work on Ubuntu and I use that program alot.

Regardless, if you're willing to learn the ways of Linux and you have a good working knowledge of basic computer skills, then using Ubuntu, Firefox, et al is a fantastic way of "sticking it to the man" and never having to worry about another virus attack ever again! Ubuntu's graphics are to die for (reminds me alot of Apple's layout which I like), and it is easy to relearn its features as long as you're willing to take the time and try it out (if my kid bro's can do it, anyone can...heh). Unfortunantly for me, I'm a lazy ba$tard who lacks patience...if I could've gotten Photoshop to work for me, I'd still be using Ubuntu today! I know that's not a good excuse, and there probably is a way to make certain Microsoft programs work...I dunno. There is so much help available on Linux sites it's ridiculous, so there's really no reason not to give it a shot. Try it out and see...and if you can find a way to make Photoshop work on Ubuntu, let me know!

Good luck!

[jt1stcav]

Here's a little Ubuntu fun I did on Photoshop...:lol: :arf: :eek6: :ihih:

[kexodusc]

Now that's Humanity at its most vulnerable :D

Yeah, I run my Windows apps in an emulator when I can't find a decent replacement program. No question, for some specific power using needs, Windows remains a necessity.

3 years ago I dabbled with Suse and Fedora and didn't last more than a week. I just found Linux too screwed up and not worth my time. It's amazing how far it's come in so little time.

[basite]

update:
well, I'm running, Linux Suse 10.2 now, with the xgl/beryl eye candy
it practically beats windows vista in every ways...
it runs smooth, never crashes, supports almost every hardware, and it looks a gazillion times better, it does things that microsoft won't even manage to do in 10 years...

anyways, I'm experimenting now, so,
Keep them spinning,
Bert.

[bobsticks]

This is I'm sure a noob observation, but the Mac Firewall allows for outside access to most ports unless you block them off. Who on earth thought that this would be a good idea for home pc use? At this point, I am just leaving my system on lockdown unless I'm playing around with you guys or otherwise messing about.

In hindsight, it's hard to put into words how sucky Mac Virus is; glad to hear there are viable working alternatives.

I might have to look into Linux or any non-Windows system. Thanks guys for giving me some references. Thankfully, I don't do any online banking anymore and the computer is really just a means of communication. I can only imagine compounding the uneasy stress of this situation with having to deal with the financial/security issues.

I think I'll spend more time listening to tunes and less time reading about them...