What percentage of computers connected to the internet are under the control of remote operators (crackers)? Last night during drunken conversation I was speculating it was over 70%. Of course I really have no idea, but it *could* be that high. Any guesses?
- jim 1-03-2004 7:38 pm

I had a recent bout with spyware, and can easily imagine the average user being screwed by this stuff -- programs that load other programs from the internet ... programs that re-appear after being deleted ... programs that just don't want to die.

I used a couple of free "spyware" removal programs. Just say no. These programs deleted other people's spyware while installing their own. Finally I upgraded my Norton Antivirus executable to the 2004 edition, and it deleted some of the stuff. In addition, I had to use task manager to monitor for strange programs, I used date-specific searches of my hard drive to find suspect executables, dlls, and such, and I mucked about with the registry to disable programs that I could not otherwise delete.

I think I'm free, but who knows? For now my firewall is turned up to Orange.

The spyware that started it all generated recurring pop-ups, put extra tool bars on my browser, etc., so I launched a strong counter-attack. A more subtle attack may well have gone under my radar.


- mark 1-07-2004 2:15 am


Patches from Microsoft got rid of my homepage hijacker, but I seem to be stuck with a persistent search bar in IE. Apparently a lot of this stems from the Microsoft antitrust suit: to back up their lie that IE was inseparable from the operating system, they integrated everything in such a way as the make the whole system much more vulnerable to attacks coming in through the internet. Oink oink.
- tom moody 1-07-2004 3:40 am


I got rid of the search bar thing. I was making so many changes, it's hard to know what killed it.

I found the dll associated with the bogus tool bar by doing a date sensitive search. I could delete all the other files in the same directory, but couldn't delete the dll. I think it took an edit to the registry (an advanced maintenance activity) to deactivate the dll, and only then could I delete the dll.

By the way, a Bulgarian with whom I recently had dinner (at Restaraunt Lulu, yum), claimed that the Mac isn't plagued with these problems only because it's not readily available in Eastern Europe and China.
- mark 1-07-2004 3:52 am





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