Be careful browsing today by Bytemite

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Be careful browsing today

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Sunday, April 4, 2010 16:55
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Sunday, April 4, 2010 8:08 AM

Script kiddies are out in force having their holiday lols.

I just got hit with a malware on fanfiction.net (so watch out), fortunately it's similar to crap I've encountered before. This one is called ave.pf (or exe), you can actually disable it from your task manager, then run an an anti-spybot and anti-malware program to get rid of it. For good measure, I also ran a search on files I'd downloaded today and deleted all the files that I got at about the time of infection.

It's probably about time I get the pop-up and script blocker add-ons for Firefox, I am getting a little tired of this. I'm also thinking of discontinuing visits and posting fanfiction.net, that tends to be where I pick them up.

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 9:50 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Get ready for the fullisade of whining from folks who think they got some kinda right to run *their* scripts on *your* hardware trying to shove their advertisements down your throat and how you're "stealing" from them by not just meekly allowing them to use something belonging to you to annoy, offend or exploit you.

http://techwag.com/index.php/2010/03/08/ars-technica-goes-all-whiny-ab
out-ad-blocking/
http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/2007/09/adblock_adapt_or_die_1.
html
http://escapejobhell.com/adblock-doesnt-matter-get-over-it

Of course, none of the links above address the other problem with the slimy pay-per-click model which is the root cause of such offensive advertising, spam and a whole host of ills that plague anyone trying to use the internet on a nonstop basis - and that is the cozy-comfy little relationship between advertisers and malware, particularly as of late, phony "antivirus" software intent on harvesting not only your machine as a bot in it's net, but if at all possible your credit card info (what you think happens to the fools who actually DO pay them, neh ?) and any damned thing else it's programmed to...

And yet site owners who have let these creepers run their malicious scripts and infect their users are so damned quick to decry responsibility and place all the blame on the users - alas that they're not all badass champions of the people like our own dear Haken - and then have the bloody freakin NERVE to whine and whinge when the users protect themselves!

And make no mistake, many of the advertiser networks are real bastards and gleeful participants in this kinda thing, doubleclick, valueclick, the usual list of suspects, over and over.

http://msmvps.com/blogs/hostsnews/archive/2007/04/20/are-advertisers-p
romoting-malware.aspx
http://stopmalvertising.com/
http://www.infosecurity-us.com/view/4168/malicious-advertising-malware
-hit-popular-websites/

So, who's stealing from who, here ?

It's MY machine, *I* decide what gets to run on my hardware, my screen, because my computer ain't the ruttin townhall, and it's not a committee decision!

That said, Haken deserves a special shoutout for being head and shoulders above most website operators, not just for his light hand and neverending support, but also for having a moral standard rare enough to treasure when it comes to this issue.

-Frem

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 10:47 AM

BYTEMITE

Hmm, there's a thought. I just figured that holidays are an opportunity for a wave of malware attacks, seeing as the last time I got one was Christmas Eve, and it took two full weeks to finally clear out.

And maybe there still is that connection, but at the same time, these certain sites that promote these advertisements, they don't seem to care much about the content, otherwise why would they continue using suspect advertisers after the first time? Good points.

Yeah, this malware was one of those phony anti-virus software. If it weren't so annoying, the pop-up messages would be funny. "Security breach!" "Your computer has been severely damaged, click here for a free scan and update!" Even more darkly funny is the "scanner" that auto-pops up on it's own that's really not removing the components it lists out, but installing them.

Mostly what pisses me off is the override on your firewall and anti-virus software that it replaces itself using, you can't get rid of it until you've stopped the program running then removed all the components... Using non-malicious tools gotten elsewhere, because obvious the phony malware would just open you up to more of this shit.

It's especially sad because I bet people do fall for it.

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Sunday, April 4, 2010 4:55 PM

BRIGLAD

I've been hit at Fanfiction.net... Twice. Never heard back from the admin's so I stopped posting there for a while (over a year) Broke down and uploaded my Maxverse stuff there a while back but nothing else recently.

Bri

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