Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July

AP ^ | 4/20/2012 | LOLITA C. BALDOR

[iowamark]

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.

Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down.

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org , that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.

Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.

Last November, the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers.

"We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because ... if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service," said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. "The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get 'page not found' and think the Internet is broken."

[yldstrk]

I miss Reagan

[yldstrk]

You are not dumb as far as what to put on your computer. But you are not suspicious enough of the government. What do you think? I am guessing there are just about 570,000 computers whose addresses the government wants to collect. Maybe yours is one of them, eh?

[yldstrk]

Microsoft anything is awful

[snowsislander]

My networks also run off of OpenDNS and I block .br .cn .in .info .ir .kr .kz .ro .ru .sa TLDs.

That's a good list of TLDs to block. Also, many people consider ".cm" (Cameroon) another good one to block (it's particularly an apt one for typesquatting ".com" domains.)

The summary at McAfee Pinpoints the Web's Riskiest Domains also includes ".ws" as another TLD liable to be problematic.

[arasina]

Joke is on you my friend. Google "Deep Packet Inspection".

Joke is on you my friend. Google is not a friend of individual privacy.

[stylin19a]

the feds ain't doing the cleaning.(tho my IP address is now probably in their data base)
they are pointing you to places that can help.

[rockrr]

Just so.

I would love to see an alternate euphemism for web search grow in popularity. I call them gargoyle.com

[RayChuang88]

True in the past, but everyone agrees that Windows 7 is the best version of Windows since Windows 2000 Professional and have said that Security Essentials 2.0 does work quite well as a means to defend against malware attacks.

Yes, Norton Internet Security is excellent, but it's not cheap: about US$54 per year for a three-use license.

[CAconservitive]

Malsua, Than you for some sanity.

[abigail2]

ping

[aimhigh]

My networks also run off of OpenDNS and I block .br .cn .in .info .ir .kr .kz .ro .ru .sa TLDs.
That's a good list of TLDs to block. Also, many people consider ".cm" (Cameroon) another good one to block (it's particularly an apt one for typesquatting ".com" domains.)

Where in Firefox can I make block these?

[Grampa Dave]

Is Malwarebytes effective against the damn pervasive, http://text-enhance.com/.

My current anti Malware has stopped it from being a constant pia re key words and connecting to advertising links.

Now it just pops up and doesn’t take over.

I would like to kill it/isolate it and never see it again.

Thanks

[Mad Dawgg]

"I guess/sounds like, there’s no way to block DPIs, is there?"

Nope, no way to defeat DPI because it is built into the system, unless of course you want to get into war driving.

[Carriage Hill]

Have you done a “cookie” search on C:/ and cleaned both its cookies/URLs from the file? I can do that quickly from within the Opera Browser v11.62 instead of using Win-Explorer. Sounds like it’s in a file somewhere on your OS.

[Carriage Hill]

“...war driving.”

Sounds interesting; what is it?

[Carriage Hill]

Sorry, I missed your question about Malwarebytes against the www.text-enhance.com/ pest.

Try the free version; if it doesn’t work, it’s easy to uninstall wo/ problems.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

Otherwise, try a simple “cookie” search w/ Windoze Explorer on your C:/, and go thru the h-u-g-e list it displays, and find it, delete it and go to the end where the URLs are displayed, and zap those which refer to it, too.

[LucyT]

Also an article from another source:

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-hundreds-thousands-internet-july.html

[Mad Dawgg]

Laptop + Hacker Wares (to identify and hack into wireless networks) and a Vehicle to drive around searching for wireless networks. (Some use a beefed up antenna to enhance the signal)

Wardrivng News Story on Youtube

[freeangel]

“Not sure I want the gubmint “cleaning” my computer.”

That was my first thought, too.

[M Kehoe]

Let's see, choices...

Norton or Fedgov?
Norton or Fedgov?
Nor...I figured it out, but it was difficult.

5.56mm