[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-02 Thread
I go one step further to protect accounts, passwords, and sensitive
personal info. I set up the computer that connects to the Internet
with its hard drive in a drawer so I can easily *remove* the hard
drive when I need a secure system.

Say I've been reading email (with the hard drive connected) and need
to make an online purchase or banking or whatever. I shut down the
computer, disconnect the hard drive and reboot from a Ubuntu Linux
LiveCD. At this point the computer is known clean and there's no way
anything can be saved on the boot disk (it's a CD after all).

After finishing my business all I need to do is log out of the bank's
web site then press the computer's power button to shut it off -- I
don't have to do a proper shutdown because there's no way I can
corrupt the CD by not allowing the system to do a clean shutdown.
That saves a few seconds.

It *is* annoying to have to shut down and reboot, but the knowledge
that the system really is clean makes it worth it.

Even if you boot from a CD it *is* important to not have a hard drive
in the computer because if there's a hard drive, the operating sysem
will save stuff on it and use it on later boots -- precisely what I
want to avoid.

Oh yes, what about the stuff I want to save? Most of the time it's
not needed, but for that which is there's always floppy disks or USB
flash RAM. You can be sure I check them for lurking viri, trojans, or
whatever before using them on another computer, then do a full erase
when I have transferred the info.


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[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-02 Thread Arthur Entlich
I just checked the two registry entries on my system to make sure I
didn't have either of the Srizbi trojan statements, and I don't.

However, in reading from this link, the simple answer seems to be for
people (and I assume, particularly men) to just stop buying on-line
herbal masculine enhancement products which don't work anyway, since
over 40% of the spam being generated was for these products.

I wouldn't mind spam nearly as much if it provided some education, or
useful hints.  Did you remember to turn down the thermostat before
going to sleep tonight?  Naw, I guess even that would get annoying
after a while...

Art


John Sykes wrote:
 Have a look at this site:

 http://www.marshal.com/trace/traceitem.asp?article=567

 Then click through to read more about the Srizbi trojan. Scary.  I
 downloaded Regscanner after reading this, and then check the registry
 for the
 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RcpApi\(snip), as
 suggested: fortunately OK.



 John




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[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-01 Thread John Sykes
Have a look at this site:

http://www.marshal.com/trace/traceitem.asp?article=567

Then click through to read more about the Srizbi trojan. Scary.  I
downloaded Regscanner after reading this, and then check the registry
for the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RcpApi\(snip), as
suggested: fortunately OK.



John



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*

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[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-01 Thread James L. Sims
Art,

I have not received anything like this from the filmscanners list, or
from you.  I have, however received at least one message, recently, from
a local individual that was several years old - similar, I think, to
what you described.  I called the individual to help troubleshoot the
problem and the first thing I found was that his antivirus had not been
working for quite some time.  He was getting a message from McAfee
stating that he needed to verify his account and decided it was just
another attempt by CA to sell him something.  I hear this a lot (verify
your account) from McAfee  subscribers, lately.  Most of these
individuals are in their eighties and did not warm up to the computer
age until the mid to late nineties, or later.  About the only time they
call me is when they encounter a Blue Screen or something else that
stops their computer from functioning.  I have started recommending that
they cancel their McAfee account and download one of the free antivirus
application, such as AVG.

I don't know what is causing these strange e-mailings, unless it's a
worm.  I do not believe this is occurrence is unique.

Jim



Arthur Entlich wrote:
 I just received a rather unusual email, and am asking anyone who might
 have been similarly involved to please email me.

 On March 31st I sent a posting to this list under the thread
 [filmscanners] Re: spam magnet, which was posted to the group at 2:41 AM.

  I recently received an email from someone who I was in correspondence
 with over 4 years ago (one time) who sent me a copy of that posting
 which he indicated he had just received as a personal email from the
 email address I sent the posting from.  I have emailed him to ask him if
 he was ever a member of the filmscanner list, and for the message source
 header information, which I am waiting to see, but in the meantime, if
 anyone else on this list has received an unsolicited email from me
 coming from my email account, rather than this list (that would be from
 artistik(at)shaw(dot)com), please email me, if possible, with the full
 header., so I can try to determine what is going on.

 Some very strange things are happening of late, and I need to try to
 resolve this.

 Thank you.


 Art






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[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-01 Thread Arthur Entlich
Hi Jim,

I use AVG on all my systems now, and it seems to be working well.  I
also do Spybot and Adaware scans every week or two, and use a double
firewall (hardware and software) and I have disabled my email client
address books from the beginning, all in an attempt to keep thing clean
as I can, but I do understand there is no such thing as 100% security
these days, as there are now trojans and viruses out there that are
stealth.  There is one apparently that has been out there for a year or
more that has not successfully been detected because it has some method
of mutation that they has not been able to stop or keep on top of, and
it is stealth and sends off information like account numbers and credit
card info to Russia and elsewhere. I received this information on a
computer program on CBC radio, which is usually a pretty accurate
source. They interviewed a number of security experts about it, who were
quite concerned at the infection rate they have encountered and no, this
is not an April Fools day prank. (Is April Fools Day Pranking something
done outside of the US and Canada, BTW?)

Art

James L. Sims wrote:
 Art,

 I have not received anything like this from the filmscanners list, or
 from you.  I have, however received at least one message, recently, from
 a local individual that was several years old - similar, I think, to
 what you described.  I called the individual to help troubleshoot the
 problem and the first thing I found was that his antivirus had not been
 working for quite some time.  He was getting a message from McAfee
 stating that he needed to verify his account and decided it was just
 another attempt by CA to sell him something.  I hear this a lot (verify
 your account) from McAfee  subscribers, lately.  Most of these
 individuals are in their eighties and did not warm up to the computer
 age until the mid to late nineties, or later.  About the only time they
 call me is when they encounter a Blue Screen or something else that
 stops their computer from functioning.  I have started recommending that
 they cancel their McAfee account and download one of the free antivirus
 application, such as AVG.

 I don't know what is causing these strange e-mailings, unless it's a
 worm.  I do not believe this is occurrence is unique.

 Jim






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[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-01 Thread James L. Sims
Art,

I can't answer your last question but the pranks around here seem to
have lost their appeal over the past few years  (Huntsville, AL).

I've heard of the virus that you mentioned and it is worrisome.  I do
not store personal information on my computers and I'm working toward
storing my files on a firewalled server and that backed up on external
drives that are not always connected.  Archiving digital images ain't as
cheap as it once was!

Jim

Arthur Entlich wrote:
 Hi Jim,

 I use AVG on all my systems now, and it seems to be working well.  I
 also do Spybot and Adaware scans every week or two, and use a double
 firewall (hardware and software) and I have disabled my email client
 address books from the beginning, all in an attempt to keep thing clean
 as I can, but I do understand there is no such thing as 100% security
 these days, as there are now trojans and viruses out there that are
 stealth.  There is one apparently that has been out there for a year or
 more that has not successfully been detected because it has some method
 of mutation that they has not been able to stop or keep on top of, and
 it is stealth and sends off information like account numbers and credit
 card info to Russia and elsewhere. I received this information on a
 computer program on CBC radio, which is usually a pretty accurate
 source. They interviewed a number of security experts about it, who were
 quite concerned at the infection rate they have encountered and no, this
 is not an April Fools day prank. (Is April Fools Day Pranking something
 done outside of the US and Canada, BTW?)

 Art






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[filmscanners] Re: Trying to track down a problem

2008-04-01 Thread
Arthur Entlich wrote:
 I use AVG on all my systems now, and it seems to be working well.  I
 also do Spybot and Adaware scans every week or two, and use a double
 firewall (hardware and software) and I have disabled my email client
 address books from the beginning, all in an attempt to keep thing clean
 as I can, but I do understand there is no such thing as 100% security
 these days, as there are now trojans and viruses out there that are
 stealth.

I have a suspicious nature which has proved to be as good as 100% security. 
From my
first IBM PC with its 16KB system board to this day I have never had a virus, 
spyware,
or malware of any kind on any machine I have ever owned. In fact, the only time 
I ever
used a computer that became infected was while I was working at Microsoft in 
the 90s as
a technical writer. An early build of Windows NT became infected with a virus 
twice via
one of the corporate servers. Curiously, some of the servers weren't 
particularly well
protected.

On Windows XP Prof. I use Counterspy anti-spyware and Kaspersky Internet 
Security.
Kaspersky goes well beyond just signature checking with strong heuristics and 
proactive
defense. I reject attachments in email and am cautious about what little I 
might choose
to click on. That's as close to 100% as anyone is ever going to get.

--
Cary Enoch Reinstein...  aka enochsvision, Enoch's Vision Inc.
Photography, poetry http://www.enochsvision.com/ Blog 
http://enochsvision.wordpress.com/
Behind all these manifestations is the one radiance, which shines through all 
things.
The function of art is to reveal this radiance through the created object.  
~Joseph Campbell


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