Re: Need direction to kill a virus
Josef Albert Meile, James Stroud, Sean Blakey, Thank you very very much for your valuable suggestions and kind encouragement. Frederic ( No, I don't have any particular affection for Microsoft stuff. Very much on the contrary. I have a plan to start using Unix. This plan is over twenty years old. Back then Unix didn't fit into PCs. So I did MS-DOS. The practical side of it was that I was more in touch with the rest of the (PC) world. As long as I could use DOS I resisted Windows, but in the end had to yield or face serious disconnection from the rest of the world. The upshot is that my applications are Windows-based and so, unfortunately, is my relative expertise. I do have a Red Hat Linux package patiently waiting to be installed. I haven't felt comfortable with the idea of experimenting on a work-horse machine and another one (in working order) I don't have. So, Linux has been sitting on the shelf and indubitably isn't the latest version anymore. But no matter, as in every crisis there are seeds of opportunities to be picked and sowed ... ) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Need direction to kill a virus
On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:46:44 -0800, James Stroud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Four steps, meant to help, really. > > 1. shut down your computer > 2. erase your hard drive > 3. install linux with a firewall > 4. reboot > > You can always run your beloved window$ under vmware. > > Alternately, get a Mac. > > You will never have another problem like this again. The real virus is your > operating system. > > Sorry for the brutally honest and yet ultimately helpful answer. If it angers > you as it does some, well, then you may actually deserve what you get. > > James > > (Living M$ free for 7 years and never been happier.) > > Based on the mailing lists I've found your name on and the messages there, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that shouting "Don't use windows!" in your general direction would be just beating a dead horse. Unfortunately, I don't know of an easy way to remove unidentified viruses from an already-infected computer. I really doubt there is a five-minute guru answer, and unless you find such a solution, you will probably have to resort to the reformat/reinstall route. You mention that you have already reinstalled, but do not make clear whether or not you reformatted your hard drive first - if the problem is in a file not overwritten by the windows install, it could easily survive a reinstall without a reformat. Short of switching to a different operating system, there are a few steps I can recommend to help defend against malicious attachments and such: 1) Never, ever, ever use Outlook. Outlook Express is almost-but-not-quite as bad. Microsoft made several design decisions to "enhance" the user experience which have resulted in pretty much every email virus and worm, ever. As an email client for people used to Outlook Express, I heartily reccomend Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/). 2) Use a good spamfilter to automate the process of sorting out junk from your mail. After a little training, the Bayesian filter built-in to Thunderbird works well enough for my purposes. 3) If you must use windows, firewalling and virus scanning are essential. You seem to already have that part, plus a certain paranoia about attachments that puts you well ahead of the curve. 4) Similar to #1, you should NEVER surf the web in Internet Explorer. Again, this is primarily because Microsoft chose to include features (ActiveX controls in web pages) that have led to an unmanagable number of security problems. Firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com) is a wonderful alternative browser for Windows users, and will be available to you on other platforms if you ever choose to switch to an OS less beleagured by viruses, trojans, and spyware. 5) You seem appropriately paranoid about attachments, although I do have to wonder what kind of message was sent to you that made yo uwant to open "details.txt" in the first place. I think you will appreciate an email client that shows you the file type and asks for confirmation before launching an attachment, just like you might appreciate a web browser that shows the file type and asks for confirmation before launching a downloaded file. 6) With the filename you gave, it shouldn't be that hard to find some notes on this virus with google. 7) When the system is running away with background processes like you describe, use the task manager to find out which process is using the resources. Use this information in your research for a fix. -- Sean Blakey Saint of Mild Amusement, Evil Genius, Big Geek Python/Java/C++/C(Unix/Windows/Palm/Web) developer quine = ['print "quine =",quine,"; exec(quine[0])"'] ; exec(quine[0]) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Need direction to kill a virus
Four steps, meant to help, really. 1. shut down your computer 2. erase your hard drive 3. install linux with a firewall 4. reboot You can always run your beloved window$ under vmware. Alternately, get a Mac. You will never have another problem like this again. The real virus is your operating system. Sorry for the brutally honest and yet ultimately helpful answer. If it angers you as it does some, well, then you may actually deserve what you get. James (Living M$ free for 7 years and never been happier.) On Tuesday 01 March 2005 12:16 am, Anthra Norell wrote: > Hi all, > > Here's an operator who instantantly destroys all messages he cannot > identify within two seconds, saves and inspects all attachments before > opening them and who thought himself immune from viruses for it. Years of > trouble-free operation reinforced the perception. I recently subscribed to > this group and had an immediate problem managing the sheer volume of > messages coming in. The inevitable spam, baits, decoys etc. met their match > at the door. But soon the junk increased in number and soon reached a > magnitude where I couldn't help suspecting that I had a problem. The short > end of it is that my machine seems to generate and spread viruses. It > hasn't destroyed anything as far as I can tell. It makes the hard drive > spin continuously over extended time periods, in connection with the > Explorer it seems. And sometimes it slows down the user interfaces. What do > I do next, one thinks and comes up with a sequence of strategies. But after > all of them having failed, I am left with the sad impression that these > days the production of damage motivates as much intelligence or more as the > production of benefits. Microsoft, Norton and all the other good guys get > knocked out by malicious hackers. Indeed, the Norton virus scanner doesn't > start, not even from the CD. A complete reinstallation of the operating > system (Windows ME) was ineffective, even when started from the CD. I then > installed a firewall but cannot start that one either and so the last > resort seems to be reformatting everything with the nightmarish prospect of > reconfiguring the machine. The data is backed up, all right. The > applications I can uninstall, but that doesn't save them. All the while I > think that if I knew the innards ot Windows I'd fix the problem in five > minutes. So, perhaps one of you guys knows. Suggestions greatly > appreciated. > > Frederic > > (Additional info: The virus is a binary file in an attachment. A visual > inspection of the header reveals a file name: 'details.txt > .pif' (Spaces shove the extension 'pif' out into the peripheral > vision and the eye's focus is supposed to mistake 'txt' for the extension). > The other legible words are: Windows Program, KERNEL32.dll, LoadLibrary and > GetProcAddress. Follows 30 K of binary stuff.) -- James Stroud, Ph.D. UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics Box 951570 Los Angeles, CA 90095 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Need direction to kill a virus
Hi all, Here's an operator who instantantly destroys all messages he cannot identify within two seconds, saves and inspects all attachments before opening them and who thought himself immune from viruses for it. Years of trouble-free operation reinforced the perception. I recently subscribed to this group and had an immediate problem managing the sheer volume of messages coming in. The inevitable spam, baits, decoys etc. met their match at the door. But soon the junk increased in number and soon reached a magnitude where I couldn't help suspecting that I had a problem. The short end of it is that my machine seems to generate and spread viruses. It hasn't destroyed anything as far as I can tell. It makes the hard drive spin continuously over extended time periods, in connection with the Explorer it seems. And sometimes it slows down the user interfaces. What do I do next, one thinks and comes up with a sequence of strategies. But after all of them having failed, I am left with the sad impression that these days the production of damage motivates as much intelligence or more as the production of benefits. Microsoft, Norton and all the other good guys get knocked out by malicious hackers. Indeed, the Norton virus scanner doesn't start, not even from the CD. A complete reinstallation of the operating system (Windows ME) was ineffective, even when started from the CD. I then installed a firewall but cannot start that one either and so the last resort seems to be reformatting everything with the nightmarish prospect of reconfiguring the machine. The data is backed up, all right. The applications I can uninstall, but that doesn't save them. All the while I think that if I knew the innards ot Windows I'd fix the problem in five minutes. So, perhaps one of you guys knows. Suggestions greatly appreciated. Frederic (Additional info: The virus is a binary file in an attachment. A visual inspection of the header reveals a file name: 'details.txt .pif' (Spaces shove the extension 'pif' out into the peripheral vision and the eye's focus is supposed to mistake 'txt' for the extension). The other legible words are: Windows Program, KERNEL32.dll, LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress. Follows 30 K of binary stuff.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
