Ah...good old Adam Miller. I know thee well from the NWN community. It is I, Decclan Macmanus, fellow NWN module maker....hehehe. Ok that was corny. It is a shame that game programmers have to go through so much hell to be able to do what they love. The big companies know that being creative is like CRACK to these young programmers and they are abusing this knowledge. As much as I hate to say it there should really be a union for programmers (there could be already and I just don't know it) to help solve these issues.
BTW...Adam you need more sleep. I think you average about 4 hours a night when you are working on NWN modules? Is that right?
Later!
It's much worse than people think. (Rant)
on
The Spyware Inferno
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
First let me explain what I do for a living. I am a computer technician for a Networking company that handles law firms, doctor offices and such. Each of these places will have anywhere from 5 to 100 computers in their office. I would say I am forced to clean machines of spyware, malware, adware and viruses about 90% of my work orders. I have become proficient in doing so with all the practice I've had. These office employees of my clients just download everything they see. They answer yes to every question that get asked on a website. They do not read it and wouldn't understand it if they did. I am talking about EULA agreements of course. The legalese subtly hides the subject of the agreement that even the lawyers at these law firms cannot decipher it. I've done some testing on how easy it is to get infected with spyware and viruses without the consumer's awareness. I connected a freshly installed Windows XP machine to a broadband connection with no firewall in place and no spyware or virus detection programs in place. I surfed well known websites that millions of people search everyday for about five minutes. I then installed Spybot 1.3, Adaware 6.0 and Hijackthis onto the machine. In those five minutes of unprotected internet browsing the computer had over five different spyware programs installed including: VX2 Better Internet, a CoolWebSearch varient, New.net varient and some a couple of tracking cookies. This was five minutes of browsing mind you and I got three of the worse programs in their genre. I have recently found out that New.net actually has bundle parterships with several big companys including Earthlink, Net Zero and Juno. New.net has actually threatened or sued spyware removal companys like Spybot and Adaware. Spybot backed down from them and removed any New.net detection from their program. Lavasoft who makes Adaware is fightning back in court against New.net. New.net claims these companys are giving a bad name to their software by saying they are malware programs that collect data or supply ads to the end-user. New.net says it does not do that but I know first hand they are lying. I had a machine that was infected with New.net that caused AD popups, totally screwed the clients network connections. And these companys are legal businesses!! All I know is the government needs to step in and regulate these companys. The invasion of privacy they do on our computers is no different from a voyeur peeping in your house window or somebody tapping your phone or reading your mail without your knowledge. And yes Microsoft operating systems are the easy targets because a good portion of the world and mostly home users use Microsoft OS's. Mac and Linux people think they are safe but that will change. The more people use those machines the more spyware and viruses will surface. There already is some spyware programs for the Macintosh and a couple of viruses. The best thing for the home user to do is takes steps in protecting your computer. Use a good firewall, Keep your Windows updated, Use a different browser (I use Firefox) than Internet Explorer. Have a good antivirus program installed and updated everyday. New viruses are discovered nearly everyday. Use programs like Spybot, Ad-aware and Spyblaster( (protects against bad Active X downloads.) Take the time to actually learn to use these programs fully. Spybot has some extra tools that are great. HijackThis is great but you need to know what you are looking at. If you see a EULA agreement pop-up on your screen take the time to read it and also look up the company or software you are trying to install on Google.com and do some research on what people say about their programs. Pestpatrol.com is also a great site for learning about these malicous programs. The spyware developers are getting smarter as well. There are some spyware programs that run in the background but do not show a process in Taskmanager. Some variants regenerate themselves even after removal (usually by some leftover registry entries called "tricklers" or install programs that are hiding in your Te
Reformat...Never heard of it. If I can't fix it then it's not fixable. Enuff said. I agree with two thumbs up!!. Reformatting is for wankers and for corrupted Windows files that can only be fixed by reinstalling. Spyware and Viruses are all fixable. It's always best to have a second computer ready to be your virus scanner tool for those viruses that infect everything including virus removal programs.
I deal with these problems everyday and I can clean a computer that bad in about 2 hours. This is one subject all IT computer guys need to get on the band wagon. It is getting worse. The necessary tools to fix all these problems are these. (I'm sure there are some other tools as well.)
1) Spybot 1.3
2) Adware 6.0
3) HijackThis
4) CWShredder, Kill2Me, CWS Mini Removal tool.
5) VX2Finder
6) LSPFix or Winsock XP
7) Good virus scanner (AVG, Panda, Trend)
8) Learn how to identify registry entries for
manual deletion.
9) Always clean out Temporary Internet Files and
some Temp files and turn off Restore on XP/ME
computers.
10) Repeat steps when necessary.
Two of my favorite voice actors were David Warner from Baldur's Gate II. He played the main bad guy named Jon Irencus or something similiar. He is a well known actor with a ton of movie credits including "Titanic". My second favorite is from Baldurs Gate I. The voice of one the ambushing bandits that kept saying, "So I kicked him in the head 'til he was dead!". That made me and my friends laugh every time. Hahahaha!!
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Ah...good old Adam Miller. I know thee well from the NWN community. It is I, Decclan Macmanus, fellow NWN module maker....hehehe. Ok that was corny. It is a shame that game programmers have to go through so much hell to be able to do what they love. The big companies know that being creative is like CRACK to these young programmers and they are abusing this knowledge. As much as I hate to say it there should really be a union for programmers (there could be already and I just don't know it) to help solve these issues. BTW...Adam you need more sleep. I think you average about 4 hours a night when you are working on NWN modules? Is that right? Later!
First let me explain what I do for a living. I am a computer technician for a Networking company that handles law firms, doctor offices and such. Each of these places will have anywhere from 5 to 100 computers in their office. I would say I am forced to clean machines of spyware, malware, adware and viruses about 90% of my work orders. I have become proficient in doing so with all the practice I've had. These office employees of my clients just download everything they see. They answer yes to every question that get asked on a website. They do not read it and wouldn't understand it if they did. I am talking about EULA agreements of course. The legalese subtly hides the subject of the agreement that even the lawyers at these law firms cannot decipher it. I've done some testing on how easy it is to get infected with spyware and viruses without the consumer's awareness. I connected a freshly installed Windows XP machine to a broadband connection with no firewall in place and no spyware or virus detection programs in place. I surfed well known websites that millions of people search everyday for about five minutes. I then installed Spybot 1.3, Adaware 6.0 and Hijackthis onto the machine. In those five minutes of unprotected internet browsing the computer had over five different spyware programs installed including: VX2 Better Internet, a CoolWebSearch varient, New.net varient and some a couple of tracking cookies. This was five minutes of browsing mind you and I got three of the worse programs in their genre. I have recently found out that New.net actually has bundle parterships with several big companys including Earthlink, Net Zero and Juno. New.net has actually threatened or sued spyware removal companys like Spybot and Adaware. Spybot backed down from them and removed any New.net detection from their program. Lavasoft who makes Adaware is fightning back in court against New.net. New.net claims these companys are giving a bad name to their software by saying they are malware programs that collect data or supply ads to the end-user. New.net says it does not do that but I know first hand they are lying. I had a machine that was infected with New.net that caused AD popups, totally screwed the clients network connections. And these companys are legal businesses!! All I know is the government needs to step in and regulate these companys. The invasion of privacy they do on our computers is no different from a voyeur peeping in your house window or somebody tapping your phone or reading your mail without your knowledge. And yes Microsoft operating systems are the easy targets because a good portion of the world and mostly home users use Microsoft OS's. Mac and Linux people think they are safe but that will change. The more people use those machines the more spyware and viruses will surface. There already is some spyware programs for the Macintosh and a couple of viruses. The best thing for the home user to do is takes steps in protecting your computer. Use a good firewall, Keep your Windows updated, Use a different browser (I use Firefox) than Internet Explorer. Have a good antivirus program installed and updated everyday. New viruses are discovered nearly everyday. Use programs like Spybot, Ad-aware and Spyblaster( (protects against bad Active X downloads.) Take the time to actually learn to use these programs fully. Spybot has some extra tools that are great. HijackThis is great but you need to know what you are looking at. If you see a EULA agreement pop-up on your screen take the time to read it and also look up the company or software you are trying to install on Google.com and do some research on what people say about their programs. Pestpatrol.com is also a great site for learning about these malicous programs. The spyware developers are getting smarter as well. There are some spyware programs that run in the background but do not show a process in Taskmanager. Some variants regenerate themselves even after removal (usually by some leftover registry entries called "tricklers" or install programs that are hiding in your Te
Reformat...Never heard of it. If I can't fix it then it's not fixable. Enuff said. I agree with two thumbs up!!. Reformatting is for wankers and for corrupted Windows files that can only be fixed by reinstalling. Spyware and Viruses are all fixable. It's always best to have a second computer ready to be your virus scanner tool for those viruses that infect everything including virus removal programs.
Actually I am a very social person. Not all Techs are stupid or socially challenged. But I do agree there is a lack of communication somewhere.
I deal with these problems everyday and I can clean a computer that bad in about 2 hours. This is one subject all IT computer guys need to get on the band wagon. It is getting worse. The necessary tools to fix all these problems are these. (I'm sure there are some other tools as well.) 1) Spybot 1.3 2) Adware 6.0 3) HijackThis 4) CWShredder, Kill2Me, CWS Mini Removal tool. 5) VX2Finder 6) LSPFix or Winsock XP 7) Good virus scanner (AVG, Panda, Trend) 8) Learn how to identify registry entries for manual deletion. 9) Always clean out Temporary Internet Files and some Temp files and turn off Restore on XP/ME computers. 10) Repeat steps when necessary.
Two of my favorite voice actors were David Warner from Baldur's Gate II. He played the main bad guy named Jon Irencus or something similiar. He is a well known actor with a ton of movie credits including "Titanic". My second favorite is from Baldurs Gate I. The voice of one the ambushing bandits that kept saying, "So I kicked him in the head 'til he was dead!". That made me and my friends laugh every time. Hahahaha!!