Spyware taking it a bit too far?

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 11:53 am

Awhile back before I moved away from Texas, my friend's computer was so full of spyware and adware that had been put on his computer when his friend went to dating and lyric sites. I took the PC to my house, formatted, put Windows XP on there, as well as some free ISPs because SBC was acting up for him. They're the same free ISPs that you can use for Dreamcast, and have always worked for me on PC as well.

I moved away, and wondered why he wasn't online anymore. I left him a MySpace message asking what was up, and he said he got a bill of $371 for calls to Africa on his computer. At first I felt horrible. I thought maybe I put in the wrong number. But how would I make an error that big, when the site that gives you the dialup numbers asks for your area code and the first 3 digits of your phone number? Did I mistakingly put in an area code from Africa?

Then I Googled and found this: http://www.10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... v=LUESTPx1

Apparently there's a spyware program out there that downloads a new dialer to your PC, changes your comp's config, and makes it so you dial to Africa whenever you dial in to your ISP. I'm hoping this was the problem, that way I wouldn't have such a guilt trip.

Is there any way to fix this on his PC? Spybot or Ad-Aware might fix it, but I don't know if it's worth risking it. We won't know if it's gone until we get the next phone bill. There's not a whole lot I can do for him since I now live in Kansas, so all I can do for him is give him pointers.

Egotistical EvilN · Post by **Egotistical EvilN** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:00 pm

I'm sometimes thankful for spyware. Maybe with it, people's computer-stupidity will improve.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:39 pm

you shouldn't need to be an computer 'expert' to be able to use one,

its one of the core principals behind the birth of the personal computer (xerox, mac, et all) and the world as we know today.

sure you might be all smug in the knowledge your PCs sewn up tighter that a gnats chuff but the point is it shouldn't have to be and you could have been out having more of a life in the time it took you to learn how to do that.

blame the a-holes that write that criminal crap, not the normal everyday schmucks who get infested with it.

MulletMan13 · Post by **MulletMan13** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:35 pm

Damn, that's malicious.

I remember when I was 14 or so... well 6 years ago I downloaded a dialer program that called up some line in Africa.... but that was of course a porn dialer. My dad knew what was up after recieving a 2 minute call bill for $37, and immediately put a parental lock on my account... which I bypassed anyways and built my own computer.

Anyways, maybe he downloaded a porno dialer without really thinking about the implications

navi · Post by **navi** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:38 pm

mikozero wrote:you shouldn't need to be an computer 'expert' to be able to use one,

its one of the core principals behind the birth of the personal computer (xerox, mac, et all) and the world as we know today.

sure you might be all smug in the knowledge your PCs sewn up tighter that a gnats chuff but the point is it shouldn't have to be and you could have been out having more of a life in the time it took you to learn how to do that.

blame the a-holes that write that criminal crap, not the normal everyday schmucks who get infested with it.

True but people really do need to know what they are doing. They don't have to be Tech geniuses to say "Wait a minute this number looks fishy"

ETR · Post by **ETR** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:41 pm

Yeah, I've had to remove crap like that when I was on Geek Squad, and it's a bitch.

Try changing the settings, and see if they pop back. If they do, go into safe mode, and run Spybot, Adaware, and Xcleaner.

On a sidenote, I used to live in the town where that happened. I hated it.

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:43 pm

ETR wrote:On a sidenote, I used to live in the town where that happened. I hated it.

Well apparently it's spread a bit outside of Ohio. My friend lives in San Antonio, TX.

Orange_Ribbon · Post by **Orange_Ribbon** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:47 pm

That is one of the things I hate about dial up. Hell one time I put in a number I thought was local (takes me 5 mins to driv there in my car with sitting though traffic lights.) and I ended up with about 500 to 600 dollars worth of long distence.

ETR · Post by **ETR** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:49 pm

Kenichi wrote:
ETR wrote:On a sidenote, I used to live in the town where that happened. I hated it.
Well apparently it's spread a bit outside of Ohio. My friend lives in San Antonio, TX.

I was referring to the article.

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:55 pm

ETR wrote:
Kenichi wrote:
ETR wrote:On a sidenote, I used to live in the town where that happened. I hated it.
Well apparently it's spread a bit outside of Ohio. My friend lives in San Antonio, TX.
I was referring to the article.

I know, I'm just pointing out that the article is making it seem like it's only a problem with Ohio residents, even though that's not the case (not anymore, anyway).

LyingWake · Post by **LyingWake** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:58 pm

Did you say it dials the African number instead of the ISP number? What is it, a ISP number?

You can have him try out DialGuard. It catches all attempts of dialing out and allows you to accept or deny the connection. If it is doing it randomly, this might help you control it until it is fixed.

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:18 pm

LyingWake wrote:Did you say it dials the African number instead of the ISP number? What is it, a ISP number?

You can have him try out DialGuard. It catches all attempts of dialing out and allows you to accept or deny the connection. If it is doing it randomly, this might help you control it until it is fixed.

Well I've never used it since he got the spyware, so I can't really tell what it's doing, but I know I didn't put in a number to Africa in the ISP. I'm assuming it still dials out to the ISP but somehow also leaks to an african number as well.

Lartrak · Post by **Lartrak** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 2:37 am

That's the worst spyware I've heard of. My desktop (which I rarely use anymore, I use my laptop much more often) has something called WinFixer. It's awful. I more or less gave up on getting rid of it. It occasionally pops up in Internet Explorer, trying to get me to download things. I have to cancel out of a bunch of popup crap asking me to download.

I use Firefox as my browser. It literally will just randomly open IE to go to their stupid ad crap.

I got Xoftspy, which is supposed to get rid of it, but it didn't. It deleted some files from it, but somehow it got reinstalled apparently. Formatting seems to be the only readily accessible way to get rid of it.

Smurph · Post by **Smurph** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:29 pm

There's some crap that patches itself into your kernel, I'm not sure if MS fixed that vuln yet.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:12 pm

Lartrak wrote:That's the worst spyware I've heard of. My desktop (which I rarely use anymore, I use my laptop much more often) has something called WinFixer. It's awful. I more or less gave up on getting rid of it. It occasionally pops up in Internet Explorer, trying to get me to download things. I have to cancel out of a bunch of popup crap asking me to download.

Have you tried restarting in safe mode and then removing it's start-up entry in 'msconfig'?

Caboose · Post by **Caboose** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:37 pm

It's spyware. I remember watching the news a few months back, and some guy's phone bill had him dialing long distance all over the place, and he had a large bill asel (I think his was around $700). I remember thinking to myself "Am I ever happy I have broadband". Anyways, there isn't anyhting your friend can do. He'll have to pay the bill to the phone company.

Also, in the report, it had happened to another person aswell. There's this segment on the news that comes on every so often called "Global Defenders" (makes me laugh because it sounds like a kids show). Anyways, people call them and tell them their problems because they aren't sure how to tackle it themselves (like one person took their car to a repair shop because she had been in an accident and they charged her way, way then what they should have. It turns out that guy was a criminal and scammed people) and the Global Defenders try to help them. In the csae of the spyware, they couldn't do anything (I forget the reason, why, like I said, this was a few months back).

Sorry for the kinda crappy post layout, I just woke up

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:40 pm

Tell him to get real internet and not dial-up!!

I'm sure if the spyware is known, spybot or ad-aware will pick it up.

that_guy · Post by **that_guy** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 2:57 pm

My computer has been messing up too. I ran spybot and adaware, but spybot keeps crashing. I don't have a phone line at my new house yet, so I took my computer to my gf's house. I hope I didn't charge up her phone to $700 dollars because while I was on the net over there, some spyware got downloaded into my computer which I removed as soon as it installed itself. Stupid Winpatrol and Zonealarm didn't get it. More than likely when I get home I am going to get off work I am going to get into the registry and delete anything and everything that is is saying it isn't needed or having problems. What sucks is I can't update spybot, adaware, spysweeper, or AVG because I am scared of this and because it manages to shut itself down. I am getting closer and closer to win nuking my computer.

gRiMgRaVy014 · Post by **gRiMgRaVy014** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:53 pm

I have a problem with spybot too. When I try to DL updates it says: !!!badchecksum!!!
for some reason.

gRiMgRaVy014 · Post by **gRiMgRaVy014** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:56 pm

I plan on being safer by switching to linux once I get the cds.