Posted on 12/30/2004 9:13:24 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
By RACHEL DODES
HE end of the year is a time when people sit down, rethink their priorities and sometimes change their ways. Some quit smoking. Others join a gym. I chose to erase my hard drive and reinstall my operating system.
Sure, it was a drastic move, but my two-year-old I.B.M. ThinkPad - equipped with a 1,000-megahertz Pentium III processor, a high-speed Internet connection and 256 megabytes of memory - was running about as fast as the Apple IIE I used in the mid-80's.
After six months engaged in mortal combat with spyware - parasitic software that tracks your browsing habits, sends out pop-up ads and can even send your private information to an organized crime ring in Guam - I had two options: shell out $1,200 for a new ThinkPad, or wipe my hard drive and start from scratch - a huge production with potentially cataclysmic results.
Since I enjoy new challenges (and more important, since I lack the funds to buy a new laptop), I decided to shoot for the moon and delete, delete, delete.
It did not have to be this way. I can trace the decline of my computer's performance to an ill-advised download over the summer. In a pop-music-induced frenzy, I am embarrassed to admit, I went to www.kazaa.com, downloaded and installed the free file-sharing service, then proceeded to download (a k a steal) Britney Spears's and Madonna's collaborative effort, "Me Against the Music."
I was about to get my karmic retribution.
In downloading Kazaa, I had inadvertently opened the floodgates to all manner of spyware. By the end of the summer, even after I had deleted Kazaa and installed Norton AntiVirus 2004 - which took care of the virus-related part of the problem - I was unable to open Internet Explorer without being deluged with pop-ups enticing me to buy everything from herbal weight-loss pills to obscure business publications.
My home page would mysteriously try to redirect itself to a site called badgurl.grandstreetinteractive.com. Little gray dialog boxes would pop up in the center of my screen to inform me, shockingly, that my computer might be infected with spyware. Then it would crash.
Spyware is "definitely the most annoying problem," said Tim Lordan, staff director of the nonprofit Internet Education Foundation, which joined with Dell Computer this year to mount a spyware awareness campaign (www.getnetwise.com). Spyware is also ubiquitous: in October, a study by America Online and the nonprofit National Cyber Security Alliance found that 80 percent of computers were infected with it.
As my frustration mounted, I sought the advice of fellow spyware sufferers. My friend Jesse, a lawyer at a large New York firm, told me he was forced to wipe his hard drive when his Dell Latitude laptop transmogrified into a purveyor of pornography advertisements. He sheepishly confessed that against his better judgment, he had downloaded a virus- and spyware-addled copy of the Paris Hilton sex video.
"I contracted a sexually transmitted computer virus from Paris Hilton," said Jesse, who requested that his last name not be printed. (He feared his law firm - and his wife - would not be too happy about the download.) "It was chronic."
Downloading dubious files is a surefire way to get spyware, but it can also be transmitted through seemingly innocuous e-mail, by clicking on a banner ad, or from wholesome Web surfing. The programs install themselves in several places on your computer, making it difficult to find and delete them.
What's worse, even if you do delete them, many are programmed to reinstall themselves automatically when the computer is rebooted.
What really distinguishes spyware from other computer security threats (viruses, worms and Trojans) is that it often seems to defy the products meant to exorcise it. McAfee introduced an anti-spyware program - aptly called McAfee AntiSpyware - in February, but it has met with mixed reviews.
Symantec, the maker of Norton security software, will release its first anti-spyware product early in the new year. (Norton AntiVirus can detect some forms of spyware, but cannot get rid of it.) Microsoft also announced that it would release new anti-spyware software by the end of January.
For now, though, computing experts recommend what they call a "multilayered approach" - translation: ad hoc, complicated and largely ineffective.
I tried everything the experts suggested. I switched my default browser from Internet Explorer - the target of most spyware programmers - to Mozilla Firefox (available free at www.mozilla.org) and downloaded and ran free expert-sanctioned software with all sorts of renegade names (CWShredder, Spyware Search & Destroy, AdAware and HijackThis).
I submitted my "HijackThis log" - a three-page list of potentially dubious files - to a reputable online help forum and, following the experts' advice, manually performed a perilous bit of surgery on my computer's vital organs, deleting several keys from its Windows registry.
The pop-ups continued unabated. A Norton AntiVirus scan informed me that despite my efforts, 77 spyware programs were still lurking on my hard drive. (Before this daylong production, I had more than 100 pieces of spyware on my computer, so indeed, it was an improvement.)
Erasing my hard drive, long considered a last-ditch measure, was becoming more and more appealing with each passing virus scan. My friend the bankruptcy lawyer finally convinced me: "The catharsis cannot be understated."
He recommended I talk to his friend Larry Wagner, an independent technology consultant who has become a self-styled sherpa in hard-drive erasure. At last count, he had helped six other people (including his in-laws, his parents, a colleague from work and my friend) deal with spyware problems. Mr. Wagner is particularly enthusiastic about deleting - and upon hearing my sordid tale, requested that I wipe my hard drive under his auspices.
"It's like a baptism for your computer," Mr. Wagner said. "You cannot truly live a good life until you've taken that first step."
I arrived at Mr. Wagner's Upper West Side apartment on a December evening with my laptop, a list of my computer's components, my original Windows XP Pro installation discs, a 20-gigabyte iPod and a bottle of Cabernet.
It is important to note that some computers, including my own, contain a hidden, manufacturer-installed hard drive "partition," which houses operating system software that can be deployed in an emergency. But since not all computers have this feature, I chose to use the XP installation disks instead. (Some people will want to upgrade their operating system in the process - from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, for example - which requires installation disks anyway.)
The first thing Mr. Wagner and I did, since my computer lacked a CD or DVD burner, was to save everything to an external hard drive. (You can buy a plug-and-play keychain drive for $20 to $250, depending on how much storage you want, but an MP3 player also doubles as a nice portable hard drive.) I decided to use my iPod, which was only half full.
I simply plugged it into my laptop (it shows up as an "E" drive under My Computer), and copied onto it all of the files contained in My Documents, My Pictures and My Music. I then transferred the contents of my iPod to Mr. Wagner's desktop, on which we created a folder called Backup. The process took about 90 minutes.
Then, using Mr. Wagner's DVD burner, I saved the entire Backup folder onto a five-gigabyte DVD. (If you are not so lucky as to know someone with a DVD burner, you can do the same thing using a regular CD burner and several CD's, which typically hold about 700 megabytes each, or many, many Zip disks, which hold 250 megabytes each.) I could have simply kept my files on the iPod or another external hard drive and transferred them back to my pristine hard drive after the procedure was over, but it would have been riskier, and I would have ended up with no backup discs.
Now I had a backup of everything. Make that two: Mr. Wagner believes in what he refers to as "Noah's archiving," saving two copies of everything, just in case.
Then I took a deep breath, toasted the New Year, and inserted the XP Pro CD-ROM installation disks into my own computer. My computer asked me if I wanted to reformat my hard drive (yes), and warned me that if I continued all files would be deleted (good). It took about an hour for XP to reformat my hard drive and install itself, and I just sat back and watched while the screens became progressively more colorful.
When my computer rebooted, it had total amnesia. It was like the Kate Winslet character in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," who has brain surgery to erase the memories of a painful relationship. My computer asked me to enter my time zone, country and type of Internet connection I would be using (LAN, dialup, etc.). It thanked me for buying an I.B.M. and asked if I wanted to register my product. (I said I would do it later.)
Now that I had a clean slate, I went online and downloaded all of the XP patches and updates from Microsoft's Web site (windowsupdate.microsoft.com). I made sure I connected to the Internet using an external router with a built-in firewall - after all this, I did not want spyware to sully my pristine hard drive.
I plugged my computer into Mr. Wagner's network, and downloaded all of the necessary Microsoft updates, including Service Pack 2, and restarted my computer. This step took about 40 minutes. Now it was 12:30 a.m., so I thanked Mr. Wagner for his help and went home.
The following morning, I was ready to reinstall all of my software. In keeping with the hypervigilant theme, I started with Norton AntiVirus. After installing it, restarting, and scanning my computer, I was elated to discover I had a clean bill of health. Not a rogue program in sight!
Emboldened by this development, I reinstalled all of my programs - Microsoft Office, iTunes, FinalDraft - and all of my external components, like my printer, camera, CD burner and iPod. Fortunately, I had all of my software discs and their necessary registration codes in a file cabinet next to my desk. The drivers for the external components were not even needed because XP can recognize just about anything and procure the necessary driver online.
The software installations took about eight hours over the course of two days, and involved downloading certain things, like Adobe Reader and Mozilla Firefox, from the Web. Between each installation, I restarted my computer, which made this process annoying and time-consuming. (For those who have tons of software, the prospect of reinstalling everything might be worse than the idea of peacefully coexisting with spyware.)
Finally, it was time to upload all of my saved files. I plugged in my iPod, and just for good measure, deleted "Me Against the Music" from my music library before putting my songs back on iTunes. After all, it's almost 2005, and I did not want any ill-gotten gains to taint my perfect computer.
Two weeks later, still no spyware. Yes, it was a huge production, but after struggling with spyware for the last six months, I have to say it was well worth it.
I was typing this stuff out over and over heh, so I just stuck it in there and kept adding. Hopefully it's of some use. I use it myself just to get the links quickly. Cheers.
My biggest fear is some kind of spyware (Trojan?) being inserted that will log my on line financial transactions, leading to hackers stealing from my accounts. What is the best protection for this? I use IE half the time, but always use FireFox for such transactions
You are very helpful because you have to wrestle with spyeare infections every day. You are the expert. It's hard for the average computer user to figure out exactly what he should do to clean up and protect his computer. You have
made it easy.
Are Trojans, malware, adware, spyware covered (fixed) by one anti-spyware program in particular? Seems to me the terms are somewhat interchangeable.
I believe its that good. I was using AVG, but still having some things pop up every now and then. But I find Avast much better.
The answer is all of the above. Heh.
Here's the short answer. If you are on broadband for gosh sakes go spend the $40 and buy a router if you haven't already. I've seen them as low as $10 after rebates. Netgear or Linksys. Dlink leaves port 135 open, so dollar for dollar, I just tell people not to get Dlink. You end up having to forward port 135 to nowhere, but that's a different dicussion. This step alone will make you immune to worms and external hackers.
Next, install Zone alarm, the personal version is free and it takes a few days to get it trained, but that's not a big deal. It's worth it. I run it.
Next make sure your Anti-virus is up to speed. All the commercial ones are good. Some better than others, but all work well enough.
Finally, you need a resident spy monitor if you use IE. I suggest Webroot's spysweeper. The one coming from Microsoft next month might be good as well. For now, go grab the free trial of spysweeper and let it run resident. You get 30 days and the MS product should be out by then if you don't want to pay for it.
Do all those things and you are pretty durned safe. Just pay attention if zone alarm barks. If you don't recognize what program is asking for external access, do some research before you allow it.
All of those things above won't help you if you're not sure that you're on the proper website. Never follow links in emails if you can help it. Always type it in simply because it could be a redirector that looks like the right thing, but isn't. There's an extension for firefox called spoofstick. It reports at the top of the page what domain you're at. If I'm going somewhere that makes me nervious, I turn it on.
You can also get small versions of Linux that boot from the CD and do transactions that way if you need better security. Macs are also pretty safe, but problems can and do occur. Nothing is secure 100% unless you unplug it from the internet.
No. I understand however that GIANT's anti-spyware product, recently acquired by MS is about as good as it gets. I've not tried it, I can't offer commentary. Trojans are generally covered by your anti-virus software. Adware/spyware are not. Malware is a whole seperate issue, that's a very broad category. MALicous softWARE can be just about anything. The others categories fit into Malware. Most of all these problems can be avoided by NOT installing free software found on the internet, not going to see jingle cards or whatever sent from your co-worker who thinks he's a comedian and NEVER click "yes" if a website gives you a pop-up and says "trust us, we just need to install this little piece of software".
Personally, I strip out most of the bad/ad content using Admuncher. I get no popups or ads of any sort. It also protects your browser from all sort of obscene behaviour, like redirects and resizing your windows or moving your browser around, etc. Give it a shot. It's linked on my FR page toward the bottom. Free 30 day trial.
You can also get small versions of Linux that boot from the CD and do transactions that way if you need better security.
I've used CD Knoppix to do an XP windows repair. I can really do the transaction on a bootable CD and it will leave no trace on the computer? Mandrake has one also now. Great idea!! I think Next would be to put a legitimate Linux partition my hard drive
1.) A good Anti-Virus product, such as AVG or AntiVir.
2.) A Firewall* (even if you're on dial-up), will help you monitor & control data transmitted by your computer, both inbound and outgoing.
3.) Avoid using Microsoft Internet Explorer, Outlook/Outlook Express. If you must use MSIE, consider installing a full-time (memory resident) anti-adware/spyware program. I believe the free version of Spybot Search & Destroy offers the option of full-time protection.
4.) Periodically scan your system with Ad-Aware SE and/or Spybot Search and Destroy.
5.) Even if you have full-time, memory-resident anti-virus protection, periodically scan your system with Antidote Superlite.
*If you are unfamiliar with Firewalls, this article will help you get started:
PCWorld: How to Install a Firewall
You might want to look these over:
Spyware Blaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
ZoneAlarm firewall:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/trial_zaFamily/trial_zaFamily.jsp?lid=2home_freedownloads
Some computer help forums:
http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/index.php?s=
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?b=1
Hijack This (and some other aids to fight spyware) can be found here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
Thank you.
Spyware, viruses and the like are essentially nonexistent on the Mac operating system (known as "OS X"). (And before the psychotic Billbots start screeching their protestations: Yes, there are a few theoretical holes here and there in OS X, but the reality is that nothing out there in the real world that takes advantage of these holes in any harmful fashion.)
The last time I got a virus on one of my Macs was in 1990. I have never gotten any spyware. The average Windows PC, by comparison, gets infected within four minutes of first being connected to the Internet.
You really should. I tell it to Every end user that comes to me for Advice when getting Cable/DSL. Your IP address becomes invisible because the router simply drops the packet. Your address goes on the hackers "no response list". If your computer does respond on any port, even secured ones, you can bet your ass, they're going to pound your address if a new vuln comes out.
For deals, also check out Ecost.com and dealcatcher.com.
And yes, you can use Knoppix. It'll need access to the drive for some swapping so you might need a non NTFS partition, not sure if has an NTFS driver. There's lots of distros, I'm going to say SUSE is my choice. Mandrake can be a pain, forget OpenBSD unless you're really into Linux. Your mileage may vary. For a desktop Personally, I like Gnome, but KDE is more windows like. I'm too lazy to surf on my Linux box though. Heh. I just make sure I don't do anything stupid.
bump
(I use IE6 and Firefox both because some things run better on one than the other, and I use WinXP because I want to be able to run any program I want.)
Then you deserved everything you got!
I am running V2 and has good fonts, performs decent, is a Linux variant and for browsing , seems better than Windows XP Pro.
http://www.xandros.com/products/home/desktopoc/dsk_oc_intro.html
Plus the older (open circulation)versions are very cheap on ebay
I will download it tonight and try it out....thanks
Install I.E Spy-ad. Its a simple registry patch that adds a motherlode list of known advertisers, marketers, and scumware pushers to your Internet Explorer Restricted Zones list. Think of it as wearing a software condom while browsing the Web since no matter what your browser preferences are in general, it will automatically switch to secure mode when it wanders onto sites known to be "high risk" environments. Restricted Zone simply means hackers can't run ANY code on your computer. An an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it is FREE.
Reliable anti-spyware company. Now a Microsoft subsidiary and Redmond is reportedly releasing a free anti-spyware software beta for users to download in the New Year.
The full version will have more features. What's going to be on tap for awhile is the beta version so no one knows yet how much MS will charge for a full-featured premium anti-spyware product.
See my post about I.E Spy-ad. Also download and install a free copy of Spyware Blaster. That way when you surf the web, no blocklisted program that you don't want can ever be installed on your computer. Ideally, it helps to have a multi-layered protection system in place to block viruses, worms, trojans, dialers and keyloggers. Its a dangerous world out there.
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