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I have anti-virus and firewall protection on this computer and the one that was killed. Neither the anti-virus or firewall prevented the nasty that was attached to a spyware program from destroying the motherboard. I still have the anti-virus and firewall, but now have spyware protection too.
Whatever it was, by passed my firewall and anti-virus protection and slowly ate it up a little at a time until re-installing windows (did it three times) did not even do any good. The computer geeks I took it too could not even get it to work.

this was about 6-7 years ago when drives didnt spin at 10k!!


You just can't get the same low level access now PC's have been all noddified!

Last edited by tiny_clanger at 30-Nov-2005 17:07

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

yea 10ks almost the norm now. i'm thinking that it would be more over 40k to shatter a hard disk (guessing becasue i dont know and cant find the numbers). because for cds its 23k then they start to crack and 32k for dvds.

mythbusters did this experiment with a cd, and yes it will shatter in your cd rom if it spins to much. and i wish i took a pick, but i myself had this happen. was playing rollercoaster tycoon, drive spun way up to high (it was old and broke somehow), next thing i heard was the disk shattering into thousands of pieces, largest was no bigger than a peanut m&m

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

my drives spin at 10k already :88)

totally agree there waffle, never heard of that

I dunno - does anyone else remember Spinwash, the virus that span your HDs up to 10,000+ rpm until they died, possibly shattering throughout the case?

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Around the time my old computer got killed, someone was going into it and turning off the Firewall. Someone had been using my computer system to send spam. I was able to catch them once - some company that sold some sort of strange health food/vitamin product: human growth hormones - whatever that is. There were three pages of returned addresses from where they sent it to other people I did not even know!
The computer geeks said the thing came in attached to a sypware bug, and attached it to my hard drive. Since it was attached to an add, it was able to by pass the anti-virus and disable the firewall.
I had something calling itself "How to make cornbread" on this new computer. It came in when I was searching for a wheat free recipe for cornbread. My anti-virus would keep bringing it up, but it would not get rid of it. I had a terrible time getting rid of this thing, but finally did by going into program files and deleating it myself.
If someone wants into your computer they will find it and it makes no difference who you are.

yea and any hacker that is that good wont be going after a day to day average person. because no prize in hunting flys, unlike hunting after larger game like some corporation.

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

You could download a file that would ruin your system bios...remember they dont have to effectively reconfigure the bios , just damage it. A lot of people have bios that can be flashed remotely. Just dont click on anything with an exe file or unknown zip files from the internet unless youre sure the source is reliable. Malicious scripts can cause all sorts of damage, but generally you have to be the one to open them in the first place.

Some spyware has been known to access the internet independantly of your instruction, obviously that could give a notification to a hacker that you are online and what your ip is... Spyware is typically used for data collection and retrieval, so unless you want everyone knowing how you spend your time on the internet, or want robot software using your system resources , get rid of it.

I think pehaps they mean trojans that could assist hackers to make a direct connection. That could screw your bios (hehe i could demonstrate). A firewall would defininately help protect you from that. XP sp2 has remote administration tools now, so yes a bios can be affected remotely.Hackers dont need to hit your bios anyway, they can just erase the system drivers and even to some extent the firmware that makes devices communicate, Its easier and it does near on the same job, and thats all in the OS.A truly good hacker can take your security out whether you have a firewall or not,fortunately most hackers are extremely bad...and if your damn fool enough to go on the net without a firewall and you broadcast your ip to everyone, sooner or later youre gonna get nailed. The days of surfing the net without a firewall are over, just having an antivirus doesnt cut it.


Microsoft antispyware beta. Its free and beats the hell out of most other spyware programs,and is practically updated daily .A lot of spyware programs which are marketed free ironically enough actually contain spyware. Like spybot for example...


Dom ( IBM )




Last edited by longhairedgit at 29-Nov-2005 08:14

totally agree there waffle, never heard of that.

as far as changing the bios? i'm sure thats impossible to do remotely, that would have to be done physically on the computer.


sounds like you need to find new geeks to fix the computer.

cause IMO, computers or computer parts are never dead until its on fire.

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

What?! How can spyware RUIN a motherboard?! As far as I know, it's phyisically impossible for malicious code to destroy circutry, unless it tapped into yer motherboard's BIOS configurations or something and cranked up yer voltages on everything, which could be possible, I think

That's crazy stuffs

Something fishys going on with my computer. When using IE, the browser becomes inactive and my address bar randomly scrolls through the addresses and sends me to another site. My sister alse said her AIM was doing something similer(opening IM boxes to everyone on her buddy list).

Anyone know what this is? Im going to run a scan on spyware now.

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

firewalls are a good use to stop people and other programs from coming into your pc. if some one on your pc downloads something or installs something that they dont know about ( happens way to much), that is the call for anti-virus or some kind of spyware detection software

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

nor will firewall programs

No, but they will certainly minmise the damage from malware, and will alert you to unauthorised web access, etc.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Ugh one problem solved, and then another pops up. The virus that was hijacking my IE has been found and deleted. However theres another one lurking thats IM'ing itself to people on my buddy list. ]:|

ETA: Our computer has been virus free for a long time. And spyware is pretty scarce. Unfortunalty my sister is unaware of the perils of the internet and downloaded an AIM file full of nasties was sending itself to everyone on her friends list. Now she has it and so do I. Bah!

ETA2: The AIM problem looks like it is fixed and all of our security implements have destroyed the problem files. Everything seems okay now *knocks wood*. Now I have to sit down with my sister and show her how to protect herself from doing this again.

Last edited by katieb at 26-Nov-2005 22:21

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Anti-virus protection will not protect you from spyware, nor will firewall programs. You need a program for spyware. I have something called "Spy Sweeper" by Webroot. It is not that expensive - about $30.00. I got it last year after a bug killed our pervious computer. I have not had anymore problems with spyware.
It sounds like you have a serious spyware problem. Sometimes your Internet provider will have a free spyware program you can download, but from my experience these just don't work that well.
Good luck with your computer and hope you have the problem resolved soon.

and the best anti virus program is definitely, absolutely NOT Norton!

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

definitely do a spyware scan, and put in there an anti-virus scan and an adware scan. use lavasoft's adaware to scan for the adware, spybot s&d for the spyware, and the best anti-virus program you can find to scan for viruses. and then switch to firefox when that's done

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Hmmm What little i know about spyware doesnt seem to be fixing this. I'll have to have my dad check it out, hes a software developer and has gotten rid of past viruses. We have Lavasoft and Norton Anti-virus(Corporate Edition), so this is a little perplexing.

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

consider trying firefox as well.

Does the cursor problem happen all the time, or just in IE? If it's all the time, it's probably a driver issue.

With that much spyware, I would consider a windows reinstall if you know how. If you have that many spyware problems, it is also very likely that your computer has a virus or two (I find that spyware and viruses are generally found together)

Consider as well using a firewall if you dont already. Windows firewall provides the most limited protection only.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

317 objects found(!) mostly data miners but there were a few files catagorized as "malware". IE ismt redirecting me anymore, but the cursor is moving up to the top of the text box as I type this.

]:|

ETA: I take that back, it opened up my address bar and sent me to a different site.

Last edited by katieb at 26-Nov-2005 15:13

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.