On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:59:19 +0930, in <alt.privacy.spyware>, "NiC"
<port_power@iprimus.com.au> wrote:

> I installed a program today called TechfactsXP that checks and cleans the
> registry, among other things, is the same as the HijackThis program?
[snip]

What makes you think it would be?

> I used the Spybot program and (I'm not kidding here) as soon as I'd
> finished using it and closed the program, up popped the ad!
[snip]

Were you connected to the internet at the time? Allow me to answer that
question for you:

All of your posts to this thread so far have originated at the same IP
[203.134.67.67], despite being over a period of ~25.5 hours. This implies
that you are using a DSL or "cable modem" line, as opposed to a dial-up
(which would give you a new, and near-certainly different, IP each time you
connected). Hence, your connection to the 'net is probably live 24/7.

Given that, and especially considering the implication from above that
you're running WinXP, a proper hardware-based firewall is ABSOLUTELY
MANDATORY. Are you running such a device? If not, I rather strongly
suspect that the "pop-ups" you're seeing are using the Windows Messenger
service. If your web browser was not open at the time ANY of the pop-ups
appeared, that is solid confirmation.

For the time being, follow the instructions you'll find here:

<http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/docs/messagepopup/>

to turn that service OFF.

But please understand, this will cure the *symptom*, but NOT the "disease",
which is the fact that your computer is sitting thre, wide-open and exposed
DIRECTLY to the internet. If it has not already been "r00ted" or "ow3ned",
it will be a minor miracle. (Have you perhaps heard the news reports about
MS.blast and SoBig.F?) You NEED a proper firewall. It is NOT optional.
And by "proper", I mean NOT some pseudo-firewall software running on the
same (still exposed) box it's ostensibly trying to "protect" -- that very
concept is an oxymoron.

> If the TechfactsXP is
> the same as HijackThis, could I send in a screen capture or something
> similar from that?
>
[snip]

Why do you keep trying to "get creative", when it is patently obvious that
you don't know what you're doing? You've been given some half-decent advice
by several folks here -- FOLLOW IT.

--

Jay T. Blocksom
--------------------------------
Appropriate Technology, Inc.
usenet01[at]appropriate-tech.net


"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

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