VIRUS AND OTHER STINKY STUFF TECHNICALLY SPEAKING INTERESTING SITES
VIRUS AND OTHER STINKY STUFF
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en_us/default.mspx
Click here for a pic of the actual CD Picture site provided by Ken Dale, KCnet Tech.
THE TALLY: Thursday, September 23-- Thursday, October 07 According to Sophos, a leader in Anti Virus Software development, 22new/improved viruses which required Anti Virus upgrades were released into cyberspace via email. This tied the highest number of releases in many months. & KCnet's anti virus program caught and "defanged" 19,527 email viruses in addition to refusing 163,013 spam messages. This was was a bit of a jump for viruses this week. The spam like the rain, came in big buckets.
IF YOU SUSPECT THAT YOU HAVE A VIRUS OR IF YOU HAVE NOT SUCCESSFULLY SCANNED YOUR DRIVES FOR VIRUSES LATELY... THIS NEXT SITE IS FOR YOU. Free Virus scans. Trend Micro, more commonly referred to as Housecall, offers free virus scans and in most cases can fix damage down by a virus or worm that your computer may have contacted. The program works well. The first time one uses the free program it is necessary to download a small program. Trend Micro walks you through the process. Then the virus scans are quite simple for each return. You should disable any anti virus program that you have running. If you do not have a virus program I recommend that you use this program first and then download one of the free programs listed above of install any anti virus program you have purchased. Go to http://housecall.antivirus.com/ then choose the link "Scan without registering". Follow the directions.
Computer Associates, another reputable and reliable anti virus developer introduced a new free program which allows anyone to do a virus scan without downloading any software or registering for an anti virus program. You must use Internet Explorer for access to Computer Associates and to perform the scan. This is a good one and very simple to operate The address is http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Free Virus programs to download Quite a few KCnet members use these programs and like them. Be careful if you download a virus program and you already have one installed on your computer. You need to at least disable the program already installed. http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php Another good free program to take a look at is: http://www.free-av.com/
Top 5 Viruses for September 10 to September 16 from Trend Micro 1 WORM_SASSER.B 2 PE_ZAFI.B 3 WORM_NETSKY.P 4 HTML_NETSKY.P 5 WORM_KORGO.R
True Viruses and Warning Letters of Impending Doom. Believe it or not, the amount of harm done by sending false computer virus alarms and letters of impending doom to your thousand closest friends can be just as damaging as the alleged virus (if it even exists!); if you remember the story of the boy who cried wolf, you understand why. If you think you've got the scoop on the latest new devastating virus or latest doom warning, check it out at the Web sites below before taking it on yourself to alert the world. If the virus is as terrible as you think it is, odds are the virus fighters already know about it and -- good news here! -- your anti virus software provider probably knows about it too and already has an update for it. Sophos supplies this current information about actual hoaxes. Look at them. Read about them. If you are sent one of them, delete it.
Here are a few sites of many that can help you determine if an email is a hoax or real. http://www.quatloos.com/ http://www.snopes.com/ http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/ http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHoaxIndex.html http://vil.nai.com/VIL/hoaxes.asp http://kumite.com/myths/ http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html http://www.scambusters.org/VirusHoaxes.html http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/ http://www.truthorfiction.com/
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING: What is a ZOMBIE? A "zombie" is a machine connected to the Internet that has been infected by a Trojan application. Once infected, it becomes part of a large network of similarly infected machines that can be controlled remotely to do things for the author of the Trojan. Typically, the Trojan either "phones home" periodically -- which can be picked up by running a personal firewall -- or is sent some information from the outside -- which can be blocked by any type of firewall. Zombie networks are used to conduct large scale, distributed denial of service attacks by sending massive amounts of traffic to a particular web site. They are also used to send spam to millions of people very rapidly. In recent months, zombie networks are increasingly being used by organized crime to conduct "phishing" and other fraudulent attacks as well has attempting to hold certain web sites to ransom (often gambling web sites) by threatening denial of service attacks. It is imperative that everyone who connects to the Internet takes responsibility for this problem. It is actually pretty simple to fix: install a good personal firewall. Used properly, this will help to prevent any unauthorized applications from sending traffic to the Internet. They will also close the door on a number of ways of being infected in the first place. So you will get an early warning of infection and be able to do something about it quickly.
What is a ZOMBIE? A computer that has been implanted with a daemon that puts it under the control of a malicious hacker without the knowledge of the computer owner. Zombies are used by malicious hackers to launch DoS attacks. The hacker sends commands to the zombie through an open port. On command, the zombie computer sends an enormous amount of packets of useless information to a targeted Web site in order to clog the site's routers and keep legitimate users from gaining access to the site. The traffic sent to the Web site is confusing and therefore the computer receiving the data spends time and resources trying to understand the influx of data that has been transmitted by the zombies. Compared to programs such as viruses or worms that can eradicate or steal information, zombies are relatively benign as they temporarily cripple Web sites by flooding them with information and do not compromise the site's data.
Thousands Of Zombies Created Daily By Will Knight Writer for NewScientist.com news service Symantec apparently monitors the Net and can see how many PC's are turned into zombies. Since 50% of the USA's households are now on 'always-on' cable internet, the numbers are going up rapidly. It turns out that the rate at which PC's are getting hijacked skyrocketed in the first half of 2004. A whopping 30,000 systems per day were subverted into zombies, and that is 15 times more than the 2000 per day in 2003. Symantec claimed that building "botnets" (networks of zombies) is a very lucrative business. Phishers and spammers pay good money for botnets, which can also be used for all kinds of other attacks like Ddos. Symantec's service development manager Jeremy Ward told New Scientist that "What we're seeing now is malware that is truly professional, you have the ability to set up botnets for a number of money-making schemes." Turf war The Symantec report is based on information gathered from 20,000 network sensors based in 180 countries around the world. They also collected information from anti-virus software installed on desktop machines and corporate networks. The study shows that overall virus activity increased between January and June 2004. In all, 4496 Windows computer viruses were released during this time - a fourfold increase on the same period the previous year. Enlistment of zombie machines reached an all-time high during a turf war between two virus-writing groups in the first few months of 2004. Those behind the worms MyDoom and Bagle fought against the creator of the Netsky virus for ownership of the infected computers. During this feud, a version of Netsky was released which was designed to deactivate the Bagle and MyDoom viruses within infected computers. Draining resources Richard Archdeacon, director of technical services at Symantec, adds that virus writers have developed new programming tricks to thwart current anti-virus scanning technology. Anti-virus scanners examine the contents of files for pieces of data that match those of a known threat. Many viruses, for example, insert themselves at the beginning or end of code for a legitimate programe. But recent strains of virus have made scanning more difficult. A virus called Impanate, for example, buries portions of its code in an unexpected region of a software file. Another virus, known as Gastropod, rewrites its own code entirely between replications to complicate detection. Spotting these viruses requires considerably more computing power, draining system resources. "These advanced infection mechanisms may render many traditional antivirus scanning techniques ineffective," Archdeacon says. But law enforcers have also made progress. On 9 September, an 18-year-old German programmer was charged with creating Netsky and another worm, Sasser.
Such a tech and writer, that Fred Langa. The following is from a recent Langalist Newsletter. Registry-Only Backups? The question: Often on the Plus edition you'll talk about things being done to the registry, preceded by the words, "As always, be sure and back up your registry first." I've looked all over the newsletter website, but I can't find any instructions for backing up a registry on XP Home edition. Would it be possible, in your newsletter, to point us to a place where we can find out how to do that? It might be a lifesaver for people like me who know enough about computers to be dangerous and are reluctant to touch the registry for any reason without backing it up, but just don't know how to do it? Langa responds: I was a bigger fan of Registry backups back in the days when systems were simpler and Win98 was top dog. But in the years since, I've stopped recommending Registry backups per se because there are many software problems (bad installations, bad removals, bad updates...) that a Registry-only repair won't cure. That's why I've been recommending full, complete, preferably "image" based backups for the last several years. They can solve *any* system software or configuration problem, including Registry problems, by rolling the system back to a known-good state. Done right, it's not time-consuming (minutes, not hours!), and gives you near 100% immunity from a whole raft of trouble. In contrast, a Registry-only backup is far more limited in what it can cure, and in fact may be more of a psychological crutch than a truly useful recovery tool. So, I think the best answer I can give you is to try to talk you out of Registry-only backups, and steer you to a much better solution: http://langa.com/backups/backups.htm But if you truly do want a Registry-only backup, here's the answer:
How to backup the Windows XP Registry http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/registry.htm Safekeeping the Windows XP Registry http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/honeycutt_03march17.mspx HOW TO: Back Up, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=322756 How To Backup, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows 2000 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=322755 How To Backup, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Win95/98/Me http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;322754 More info for Win98: http://www.google.com/search?&q=windows+98+registry+backup More info for WinME: http://www.google.com/search?&q=windows+me+millennium+registry+backup General Info: http://www.google.com/search?&q=windows+registry+backup
Examples of Bad Email Messages This site is worth reading. You can do it in sessions. The author is Michael Horawitz. These examples are from my class on Protecting Your Computer. On the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words, the following are some examples of "bad" email messages. It's a dangerous email world on the Internet. Topics: Virus Cat and Mouse, Phishing, Classic Scam, Spam, & Bounced Emails http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/bademails.html
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INTERESTING SITES: These picture sites were sent to me after last weeks Newsletter was put to bed. Lycoming County - Ivan Flood Pics. Thanks to John Laubscher. http://knauth.org/gsk/flood-040918/ Pittsburgh Area - Ivan Flood Pictures. Thanks to Jon Ahrens http://www.kruckewitt.com I got a couple of emails asking for the flood pic sites in last weeks Newsletter. (Somehow the requesters deleted the email invitation link.) Instead of trying to explain that one can find the KCnet Newsletter and Archives from the KCnet homepage, I've decided to relist them this week. Maybe you missed them last week. (Mike) http://www.homesteadpools.com/web_gal/pages/100_0919.html http://community.webshots.com/album/189127228tUtKSP http://www.clintoncountypa.com/flooding.htm
Wild Kingdom Amanda for this one. Thanks Amanda Wild Kingdom is brought to us by Mutual of Omaha. They have made tons of wild life programs, some of which I am sure you have seen. Whether you saw the shows on cable or your local public broadcasting channel, they are a joy to watch and usually contain very interesting content. If you click on the "Television" link it will give you descriptions of shows from the 2004 season or you can check out what was on in 2003. The "Kids" section holds a lot of fun like e-cards, games, wallpapers, and you can learn about the Kid's Summit. Here's what it's about: "Students from across the country—one from each state, plus the District of Columbia and Mutual of Omaha—shared their ideas about endangered animal conservation at the third Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom Kids' Summit on May 5-7 in San Diego." And that's just what they did. You can see photos, essays, the delegate's journal, and even a letter from the Governor. Teachers, you'll also find some lesson plans and "Wild Ideas" for your classrooms. "History" was my favorite section. You can watch video clips from the original Wild Kingdom shows. Which means you can see Jim Fowler jump out of a plane and try and pin an Elk down, or watch Marlin wrestle an Anaconda. Really, all the clips are great but those were my favorites. Read biographies on Jim Fowler, Peter Gros, and Marlin Perkins. You can also read up on the history of the show, how it started, why it started and much, much more. http://www.wildkingdom.com/main.html
The Samsung Experience: All about the new "Unstore" (New York-WABC, September 30, 2004) This one from Sree the WABC TV Technical Guru. Most of us will not be able to visit this "unstore" however the read and the website might create a satisfying technical experience. (Mike) One retailer's attempt to make technology easy for consumers to understand has resulted in a new 10,000 square foot experience store in the Time Warner Center. What is an experience store? It's a place where the public can come to try out and marvel at Samsung's latest technological advancements. Even before your enter the Samsung Experience, it's clear this is going to be a store visit unlike any other. You start your journey by navigating through screens on monitors, by waving your hand in the air above them. Take a city tour, learn about yoga or find out about cool New York Attractions. Peter Weedfald, Senior Vice President, Samsung North America: "They're going to be able to do things like manage imagination and creativity and walk away with experiences they've never seen before." Visitors may be wowed by screens that allow you to watch programs like never before. Peter Weedfald: "How about looking at a screen and it actually goes three dimensional and you can actually see the back of someone's head as opposed to just the front." But it's the practical uses of technology that may have the most impact. You can control lighting as you're gearing up for a movie. You can draw the shades and you can turn up the volume. Eduardo Braniff, Creative Director Content, Imagination USA: "What we aimed to create here was a grand experience, a place where people could not only interact with Samsung as a brand but the lifestyle Samsung affords." To make sure visitors enjoy the experience and stop by the information stations to find out how products work, Samsung created a place with no pushy salespeople. In addition to opening this "unstore," Samsung is giving away a million dollars to school age kids over the next 45 days. All that's required to enter is a 100 word essay on why digital technology will better help educate our students. For more information, visit: http://www.hopeforeducation.com/ http://www.samsungusa.com
More from Sree Ready to plan a weekend getaway this fall? If "foliage tourism" is something you enjoy, then there are some very good sites for you to check out. EscapeMaker: A terrific site that you should bookmark. Lots of great ideas for planning trips around our area and beyond. The fall planning guide is especially good (includes links to webcams to check out the foliage and even places you can pick your own fruit). If you register on the site, you can create a personalized itinerary (another good thing: when you register it asks you for very little personal information compared to most sites) http://www.escapemaker.com/ YankeeMagazine: There's a big foliage section here, with an interactive map (so you can be a foliage spotter) and an animated foliage map that shows you where the leaves turn when. http://www.yankeemagazine.com/ FoliageNetwork: A useful site with a focus on foliage tourism and the answer to the question your kids might ask: "Why do leaves change color?" http://www.foliagenetwork.com/
Speaking of foliage and Autumn Events don't forget the renowned State Flaming Foliage Festival successfully staged in Renovo by local committees over the past 55 years. This year's event is scheduled for October 8-10. Here are some written remarks by G. Wayne Laepple for the "Daily Item," I knew this paper in the past as the "Sunbury Daily Item." The report was in the October 10, 2003 edition, in other words it is a report on last years great event. (Mike)
Parade, queen pageant are highlights of Flaming Foliage Festival
"Flaming Foliage Express" Excursion to Renovo, Pa., October 11, 2003. Harrisburg to Renovo and back. I am told that there is no train excursion scheduled for this year, however plans are in the process for an excursion next year. Stay tuned and get ready to reserve a seat. Photos of last year's excursion can be seen at: (Do a short 5 line scroll down the page to "Past Events") http://nrhs-hbg.pennsyrr.com/Events/ Not Foliage related but train buffs will enjoy this site: http://www.trainweb.org/horseshoecurve-nrhs/intercha.htm
While I'm at I'll give ya' some local Renovo and area web sites that feature or at least mention the Foliage Festival. Most of these offer travel information, fun and entertainment all year long. Renovo Borough Site: http://www.seda-cog.org/cli-renovo/site/default.asp Sproul State Forest: http://areas.wildernet.com/pages/area.cfm?areaID=PASFSR&CU_ID=1 Hyner State Park: http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/hynerview.aspx
http://www.crossfork.com/