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Admin
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Posted - 02/26/2003 : 7:43:36 PM
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Parasitic Software In Your Computer Can Compromise Your Security
You've heard about Napster, the free file sharing utility, and how they were shut down by the big companies for copyright infringement. Along came numerous spin offs, including Morpheus, Kazaa, LimeWire, BearShare, and several others. All these file sharing programs are free, and support themselves by selling advertising, usually in the form of a series of banners you will see all the time on the screen while using the program.
So far, no trouble. The companies large and small buying this advertising space enjoy an army of webmaster entrepreneurs finding places on the Internet to put these banners, which pay commissions to the webmasters. The banners themselves have numbers embedded in the link that identify the webmaster who would receive any commissions from sales or clicks. This arrangement has blossomed into a huge billion dollar industry, with everything you see sold on the Internet by way of those banners being tracked by the embedded numbers. Here is where the trouble begins.
Some lazy businessman somewhere hired a hacker with no sense to build a little piece of code that could be slipped into people's computers without their knowledge. This code, once installed, would hijack any customers clicking on a particular banner no matter where on the Internet it appeared. All this evil plan needed was a way to get into everyone's computer. It was decided a slick way to accomplish this would be to offer large amounts of marketing money to the file sharing companies. Their file sharing programs are used by millions and millions of people worldwide.
And so an evil partnership was forged between the file sharing companies and the evil hackers. Soon, millions of people started seeing strange things happening on their browsers. Irritating new advertising techniques were aggressively forced on the public, from within their own computers. The file sharing companies agreed to bundle the hacker's code along with the file sharing program without telling anyone. The check cleared.
The big companies brought lawsuits, since now Norton had bright yellow links to the Norton website that were showing up on their competitor's site at McAfee. The lazy businessman had sold the rights to the keyword "antivirus" to Norton, so that anytime an infected user viewed any web page with the word "antivirus", even at other corporate sites, that word would be turned into a link to Norton's web site.
A few lawsuits later, the lazy businessmen (they were multipying) only had to restrict which companies were affected, to get past any judgements. They were making huge amounts of money, since now every web site in the world could be hijacked and the resulting sales commissions stolen. Not even those little embedded numbers could be trusted anymore, since one of the hackers figured out how to fake cookies, and steal sales revenue in new and exciting ways. Other hackers showed the lazy businessmen how to collect email addresses and other personal information entirely without the user's knowledge.
Sadly, this is the state of affairs on the Internet today, February 26, 2003. Web sites like ours, operating without any membership fees, hope to recoup some of the expenses of operation through some carefully chosen banner advertising. Only the pennies never start rolling in, and the webmaster wonders why his efforts are unrewarded.
Even the computer sitting next to me has turned out to be infected with the "HotBar" parasite, which came silently bundled with an add on for skins in Internet Explorer. These parasites are now bundled with nearly every free program available on the internet. The are technically "legal" since they gave you the choice to "enhance your shopping experience" or "speed up your connection", didn't they? The way things are right now, if you were to go to your sister's new web site to make her first online sale, it's doubtful she'd ever see a penny of it. Thank the lazy businessman and his boys.
Then one day, your nudist webmaster discovered a handy way to eradicate these parasites from the nudist community...
At the top of Andrew Clover's parasite detection page is a warning indicator that will tell you if you are infected by any of hundreds of known parasites. Just click here, and you will find out if your computer is infected with any of hundreds of annoying parasites. Information and removal instructions are provided for each parasite.
Some procedures are best performed by a person comfortable with editing the registry, which can seriously damage your computer if you don't know what you're doing.
Remember, always use protection when playing with unfamiliar web sites! Admin
Please add comments by clicking Reply to Topic. Many thanks to the creator of this utility, Andrew Clover.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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Cheri
Forum Member
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Posted - 02/26/2003 : 9:46:29 PM
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I deleted all cookies, temp files, comet cursor program and files. The "warning" is still there even after I verified there are no files that are mentioned in the program
Any suggestions?
Doing what I can to positively promote nudism - -
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Country: USA
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 02/27/2003 : 12:29:48 AM
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There is a good review of anti-parasite programs, both free and commercial, near the bottom of this page on Andrew Clover's web site.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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panhandler
Forum Member
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Posted - 02/27/2003 : 12:32:19 PM
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I went thru and deleted the files it said to and the warning was gone next time i logged in. I even know where i got. KaZaA
Don
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Country: USA
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 02/27/2003 : 4:32:31 PM
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Excellent, panhandler! Welcome to a clean browsing experience.
I've come to realize these parasites won't be going away for some time. Think about it. Viruses don't make anyone money unless it is to remove them. Parasites, on the other hand, are making the merchants like Amazon money. They are paying the commissions out, they are doing business, and they don't think about the possibility that not only are the commissions going to the crooks, but also every click from every customer, even their television paid advertising. They are paying double commissions for many sales, due to their stupidity. And your browsing experience is filled with advertising clutter.
Glad you got 'em off your computer.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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Marked4Life
Forum Member
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Posted - 02/28/2003 : 9:04:55 PM
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I am really surprised this is not discussed on other sites. Imagine all of the people who are being taken. The world is full of devious minds isn't it? Thanks for the info.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 105 |
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 03/05/2003 : 12:03:56 AM
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Quit Bugging My Computer!
An article by Entrepreneur.com about the current problem with parasiteware.
And another one in BBCNews dot.life. This one interviewed Andrew Clover, who created the excellent anti-parasite script we use on Nudist-Resorts.Org.
"The diversion of commissions seems unfair: Affiliate A spends time and resources to provide content that gets visitors to its site and to nudge them toward retail partners’ links, only to have Affiliate B swoop in, divert the sale at the last minute, and scoop up the commission without sharing any of it back." [Read more]
Here is a more technical explanation of how parasiteware re-writes cookies and steals revenue from webmasters using affiliate advertising, like the banner at the bottom of this page.
Here is PC Magazine's Spyware: It's Lurking In Your Machine, an excellent article with reviews of available spyware removal programs.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 03/05/2003 : 10:54:00 AM
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Here is a good list of tools to combat parasiteware:
[Note]: If you are interesting in purchasing from any of our hand picked advertisers at the bottom of these pages, please clean your computer of any parasiteware before clicking on the banner. Otherwise, your sale will be credited to the crooks, and will not benefit this website in any way.
Once you have cleaned your parasites, also delete your cookies. Then starting from Nudist-Resorts.Org, click on the banner again. Your sale will be properly credited, and your purchase will help to reduce the costs of running this website.
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Lavasoft Ad-aware
Price: Basic: Free, Plus: $26.95, Professional: $39.95. Discounts for multi license business users.
Great tool, finds and removes a large variety of malware.
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Aluria Spyware Eliminator
Reported to find more Spyware/Parasiteware than Ad-aware.
Price: Scanner: Free, Eliminator: $29.99, 90 day risk free trial. Scanner will only identify and report spyware. Eliminator will remove it.
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Wilders Security Spyware Blaster
Supposed to be able to prevent spyware from ever being installed once ran.
Price: Free (Donationware).
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PepiMK Software Spybot Search & Destroy
Unknown functionality, I have not tried this.
Price: Free (Donationware).
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Andrew Clovers http://doxdesk.com/parasite/ Contains an IE detection script which will detect many (but not as many as the programs above) directly from your browser. (This is the one integrated into the Nudist-Resorts.Org website.)
Price: Free.
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Spyware Info Scanner
Browser based scanner.
Price: Free.
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Information sites:
http://www.parasiteware.com/ (AbestWeb)
http://doxdesk.com/parasite/ (Andy Clover)
Merchants: Do you realize that some of your affiliates are being paid commission on sales which you have paid for via PPC, offline advertising, and your targeted mailings?
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 03/05/2003 : 11:17:15 AM
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List of ParasiteWare Infected Software
http://abw.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=548608979&f=982601789&m=834601789
I would have reprinted the list here, but when you see it, you'll understand why I choose to just link to it.
This list is just the beginning. These operations are multiplying every day. Clean your system, and learn to keep it clean.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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Suzy Q
New Member
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Posted - 07/07/2003 : 4:29:38 PM
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Be aware that the doxdesk.com site has on occasion promoted itself by spamming.
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Country: USA
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 07/24/2003 : 4:39:43 PM
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Just to be fair, could you provide a little more specific information about that? As far as I know, Andrew Clover is a rather ethical programmer. He certainly has my respect.
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1888 |
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StuffedTiger
Forum Member
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Posted - 12/09/2003 : 11:50:14 PM
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Zone Alarm has a package deal with PestPatrol. Both top rated. Don't know how they stack up to the ones suggested here or if you could get credit for a click, so I won't post their url's.
PestPatrol has keystroke logging detection, pest detection, memory checking, auto deletes spyware cookies and lets you control programs like sidestep that you might want to find a low price air ticket.
I felt it was worth purchasing the ZA package to get the updates as soon as they became available, and that has worked out for me.
I tried the complete Norton package for three months, and continue to use Norton AV, but I did not like the rest of their package. The filtering was easy to tailor, for example, but the daily updates took too much attention and time.
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