RLGaming.com

:shock:
Yeah, that's what I thought when I received the e-mail from Tiscali Abuse team this morning - a complaint by someone that i had an open relay set-up on my PC somewhere.
Anyway, I checked the validity of said e-mail and went about sorting all the crap out. Last night I had a real big de-lousing session on the PC after some obvious problems in the morning. I un-uinstalled, re-installed all my proggies one by one and went through what I could. Some of the proggies were not working correctly due to problems, and I experienced no amount of aggro trying to get through it all. There was virus infection and adware all over my system, even though I use most of the good stuff to keep them out:
MS Firewall
MS AntiSpyware
PC Doctor
AdAware
AVGv7.0
SpywareBlaster
SpyBotS&Dv1.3
Anyway, all done now, and according to the test they provide for you, the PC is clean again. But here is a link for anyone who wants to know more.
http://spamlinks.net/prevent-secure-relay-fix.htm

You are running all the good stuff, like you said. Windows Firewall is good, but make sure no exceptions are enabled (unless of course you are sure you have a reason to allow the exception)

Windows Updates - windowsupdate.microsoft.com Get them all at least anything remotely related to security; there are countless exploits out there, that are capable of running amok on your computer, simply by you visiting the web page (including a nasty one that there is currently no patch for); if you regularly install the patches to these exploits you run less chance of inadvertantly infecting your computer with spyware/viruses

VirusScan; I think AvG doesn't have an On Access scanner, in which case you can manage to infect yourself in between scans; i use ClamAV for Windows and it has the same limitation; just remember to keep the definitions up to date and scan often

Adware/spyware; same deal; use Adaware and or Spybot and keep the definitions up to date and scan often.

cwshredder is a good one for getting rid of those CoolWebSearch infections. HijackThis is also very useful, but can be a bit confusing to people not familiar.

Be leary of anything that suggests it will install FREE icons/games/bells/whistles/magic widgets on your computer. These things are harbingers of spyware; and once you get one, it's like inviting the rest in for tea and cookies. ActiveX plugins of any type, search bars, bargain finding programs, etc. are all highly suspect in this area...

avg does...access on demand unless you disable it.

Noted. I will thrash myself mercilessly for the error. Grog no make error again.

Ya might also try an alternate browser. There are plenty out there nowadays. And if you have Outlook Express set it to send/receive text only with NO preview pane. An ounce of prevention = two in the bush.

TD

it has nothing to do with the stuff he is running. i run i.e. and avg only and i am behind a firewall. i keep my pc updated.

that is it. i never get adware or viruses.

it has to do with browsing sites/clicking on ads that one should not and opening e-mail that one should not. might sound harsh, but it is true. ;)

Steel wrote:might sound harsh, but it is true.

'Zackly! A bird in the hand is worth a pound of cure.

TD

Has to be said, Steel is right there. Doesn't take much, just something that looks like a decent offer, or something that pulls your interest and you just can't resist taking a look. :roll: And like Tach(<----------------should actually say 'Hudson' here! :oops: :shock: ) mentioned, once the door is opened . . . . .it's like a friggin chimps tea party under a neon sign! :shock:
Kerrie does a lot of browsing around for a variety of stuff. AND she uses ARES Light for d/l'ing her MP3 music files. So, between us, we only have ourselves to blame I s'pose. I ought to stop her doing it and get her a file conversion program to convert her own CDs, she HAS asked several times. Now is as good a time as any, eh?

I said the bit about the Tea party, not Tach :-P

You could also see about Virtual PC, Bochs, VMware, or any of the other similar Virtual Machine programs. Some are free and some are definately not. VMware has a 'player' now that is free, which you can use to run any VM's to your hearts content; you just cannot actually create them yourself.

They do provide a plethora of prebuilt Virtual Machines using OpenSource and otherwise freely redistributable OS'es for use with the player. If you knew someone with the full featured program (what luck, you do, me), you could have them build you a clean Windows XP VM, and you'd be able to use all the common Windows Apps. Other nice thing about VMware is that it has extensions that allow you to easily drag and drop files from desktop to desktop.

This is what I do. I install any and all crap I use and do all the things I might consider not doing if it were on my actual computer. If I foul it up, no muss. I have a back up copy of the freshly installed and patched up disk file; just delete the jacked up copy, restore the old one from backup and I have a good to go, clean machine.

She can still use her favorite troublesome apps, you can just sandbox them for the sake of your mind and teach her how to get to it with minimal amount of extra work to keep you PC alive and kicking without the nightmares.

Just a thought. It can be an easy setup; if you're not familiar with the stuff it might be a big project, but then again it probably beats rebuilding your PC over and over again from this BS...

Here's some links:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/community.html

you should at least set up a seperate user for her on your pc, and not have is as administrator. then she can log in and do her thing and generally not affect your gaming. you can then at any time delete her user and directories, etc and restart... just make sure you save her data - music files, etc. Nidia has her own PC, so i do not have to worry about it. she runs kazaa, and i told her that crap will come nowhere near my pc. you get pop up adds and all kinds of crap, but she gets the music she wants. no other ill effetcs as of yet - i have taught her the ropes...plus i make her fix her cousins pc when it is messed up ala adware and viruses. so she understands the pain.

you can go the route that Hudson mentioned, it might be a bit much...unless Hudson will get on Ventrilo with you and talk you through it. if you guys decide to do that, i can provide upload/download for the image.

what type of file conversion does Kerrie want to do? i just found a program for Nidia, free, that converts wma to mp3 files so she can use them for portable devices and burn a bunch more to a cd (for devices that read mp3 files) than normal.

http://koyotstar.free.fr/indexEn.html

they have some other free apps as well. this one worked quite well and was easy for Nidia to figure out on her own (as opposed to WinLAME for instance).

I use Limewire. No real ill effects that I have found, but then I rarely use it. Mostly I listen to littleradio.com good stuff.

Yeah, sorry about that misquote Hudson, have put a reminder in the relevant post for ya!
Just want to say thanx again for that little bit of direction and help provided, guys. In the short term, I am going to provide Kerrie with her own user profile on my system. And I may well take you up that offer Hudson, once I have 'isolated' Kerrie on my own system. Been trying to convince her to have her own PC, even just a laptop for all her nonsense stuff. Make it wireless, and she'd be able to sit in the comfort of the livingroom to do it all, while still managing to watch her TV proggies. :roll: Ideally, I'd like to have my PC isolated from everyone else in the house. Unfortunately we only have two PCs at the mo - Darren has one in his room for school work, and runs onto the net via a LAN line from my PC. Kerrie as you know, uses my PC to do all her stuff, such as paying bills, d/l'ing music, ordering DVDs etc., What she really needs to be doing is all the money related stufdf on my PC and all her messing around stuff on another system, preferably one that connects to the net via seperate/routed connection.
Thanx for that converter software link Steel - give that shot in a bit. I think it's just normal music files she wants to convert from her CDs onto her MP3 player nothing else.

Good deal; let me know; I can definately hop on Ventrilo and help you out, an image for you to download and use. Just let me know.

Cool! Will do. I see you're up and about already today? Mopst folks should be dead and buried in bed I would have thought, after the festivities last night. We took the kids out to the local bowling alley for a night of bowling and games.

that app just converts wma files that have been ripped from cd by media player into mp3 format - they can then be used on any mp3 play device. if you set it up, media player will rip directly into mp3 format already...and no need for a converter. go to options and the rip music tab...

Media Player is part of WinXP right? If that's the case I'll take a look at that too. Anything is better than nothing to be honest right now.

Eh, sorry to disappoint but I was not celebrating. Too much underage drinking over here, with WAY to stiff consequence. Everything is an international incedent and worthy of Capital Punishment in some commanders's eyes. I'm just stearing clear, and it looks like it was a good idea. From the sounds of it, it looks like a HUGE number were dragged in this weekend.

I was out drinking in bars almost every night of the week in my earlier years in the military. My first posting was Osnabrueck, West Germany and was an awesome place out during New Year or such festive times as Rosen-Montag. But never any trouble to be honest - there is always one nugget who can't handle his drink (never mind the truth, LOL!) But in general, too much fun to be had, instead of getting into punch-ups!

Yes - media player is part of XP. if you have xp sp2, you should have media player 10.

Cool, I'll give that a look then.