I'm Ready To Smash My Computer

bignickel said:




Look, I can do rolly eyes too! :rolleyes: What else? :) And ;)

Anyways: CWSchredder can find searchx just fine. It's getting rid of the loader that seems to elude it...
It sounds like you may have a new variant, one that Merjin hasn't had the pleasure of assessing yet. Perhaps an email to merijn@spywareinfo.com would be helpful.
 
First thing I did tonight (well, second, after I played some BF1942) was uninstall the M$ Java VM, and install the Java machine from Sun.

Haven't seen CWS show up yet (although an old abandoned 'oldhomesp' was still sitting around in my registry)

EDITED: nailed again. Looks like I have try running SB, AA, CWShredder multiple times and see what happens tomorrow.
 
Have you considered purchasing a PUMPKIN Computer? Every Hallowe'en, there's a opportunity to smash a PUMPKIN Computer. A typical PUMPKIN Computer will be larger than the average Apple. Now, we're not talking about the average apple. We're talking about the average black box that comes out of the Apple Computer HQ.

Do you own your own optical mouse? What is its jack size? Go check it out.
 
Found it:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html#realyellowpage

This variant is a nightmare. If you come across an infected machine that keeps changing back to the aforementioned sites over and over again for no visible reason, you've probably seen this one. It's like whoever is reponsible for this hired some blackhat coder and told him to make the most complex, invisible and devious hijacker he could think of. And he did.
The file is randomly named, and normally hooks into the IE process, loading itself as a module into it. And then it hides the host process from the process list. Yes, you read that right, the process hosting the dll disappears from the task list and most process viewers/managers we tried.

I can attest that this new variant is the worst yet. Sneaky in the extreme. Much grinding of teeth and hair-pulling. Makes me wonder if people can sue coolwebsearch.com for this kind of baloney.

This is what's currently hitting my computer. I wasn't able to get rid of it last night (evidently, you have to do it BEFORE you remove searchx), but I'll try again tonight.

Luke, how's your system doing? Able to fix it yet?
 
I think I've killed it.

I used the procedure that he listed, and I think I killed it. I'll know for sure much later if it doesn't show up after midnight.

The damn tricky .dll that was loading the other .dll (and not showing up in adaware when it did it) had a datestamp of 2/26, so it's no wonder I couldn't find it. Must be some kind of delay action to prevent you from finding it based on recent files.
 
Clever. Date stamps are easy to manipulate at the assembler level, no doubt that was part of the stealth strategy as you say.
 
Yep, its gone for good.

I've also completely removed M$ VM for Java (which is how it got on in the first place), and put Sun Java on instead. Had previously gotten all the critical patches from M$.

I updated IE to version 6, and wallah: my history display is now blank when I click to organize it by date. Or by order visited. Or by site.

You suck Uncle Bill.

But at least the thing's gone.
 
Riddick said:
firefox is a glorified IE.

Opera rulez
You speaketh out your bum. Firefox uses the same Gecko engine that powers Netscape and others, and to many ISPs Firefox looks like a Netscape browser (JREF, for one). Firefox has implemented many of the IE commands and features, hence some user-facing similarity. Personally, I think it is way simpler to manage and use than IE, and provides 95% of the functionality of IE. And the price is right too.

But if you like Opera, fine, no argument here. It's a good product.
 
Firefox truely rules.

When you try it, and after half an hour when you "get" tabbed browsing, you won't got back. It's so neat and tidy!
 
never heard of opera or firefox till this thread mentioned them. I've since installed Firefox and I would never go back to IE. A much better surfing experience.

I don't suppose there's anyway to make firefox my default browser when I'm going through AOL? (I get AOL for free and like to use some of their features)
 
HarryKeogh said:
never heard of opera or firefox till this thread mentioned them. I've since installed Firefox and I would never go back to IE. A much better surfing experience.

I don't suppose there's anyway to make firefox my default browser when I'm going through AOL? (I get AOL for free and like to use some of their features)

With ie you get a decent width window when you're typing a response in here. That's the only reason I prefer explorer. Otherwise I would change.
 
Interesting Ian said:


Otherwise I would change.

You'll never change when you believe you *know* the Truth, you cannot be wrong, and nothing anyone else can say can convince you otherwise.

Which you've admitted is true of you.

So... liar.
 
scribble said:


You'll never change when you believe you *know* the Truth, you cannot be wrong, and nothing anyone else can say can convince you otherwise.

Which you've admitted is true of you.

So... liar.

I guess so. I'll never get shot of Internet Explorer. I just love being pissed about by it too much. Like all the things that keep going wrong, and not being able to open windows in a maximised state by default etc etc.
 
garys_2k said:

It's not a PC thing, it's an IE thing.

I've been using firefox, and its been much better then IE, at least as far as the hijacks and popups go. Anyone know how it is with spyware that is there to spy on your web activity?

I am a dirty young man and am a little concerned about who may we watching what I do.

Me thinks I should probably just assume that these days someone is watching what I'm doing.
 
Renfield said:


I've been using firefox, and its been much better then IE, at least as far as the hijacks and popups go. Anyone know how it is with spyware that is there to spy on your web activity?

I am a dirty young man and am a little concerned about who may we watching what I do.

Me thinks I should probably just assume that these days someone is watching what I'm doing.

SpyBot S&D has detected a few monitoring cookies, but appears to have shut them down. I haven't tried AdAware yet -- have to download it since I did a full reformat-and-reload on the hard drive.

Regards;
Beanbag
 

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