Security

Carol G. from Arkansas writes: " Dear Dennis, Lately I've had instant Messenger popups [*not* MSN Messenger], mostly to advertise a site called ByeByeAds.com, telling me that: 'if they can breach my pc's security, anyone can'. I've searched, and ... don't have instant messenger ON my pc, or messenger, and am wondering just how these things are getting through? Yesterday a porn site advertisement came through the same way. Is the ByeByeAds.com 'service' valid? Do I need it? They are annoying grey popups in the middle of my screen, which come through when I'm working on line. Hope you can help ... (view more)

Jordan H. writes: " I would be ever so grateful to know the secret to removing those annoying arrows on shortcuts which are sent to the Desktop ... is there a simple way to undo the arrows? I would be very interested to know how. " My response: ... Microsoft's TweakUI can remove the shortcut arrows. Once you have downloaded and installed it on your machine, launch TweakUI (details below) and click on the Explorer tab. Uncheck the box next to "Prefix 'Shortcut to' on new shortcuts" and click OK. Microsoft's TweakUI (which is also bundled with PowerToys), may be downloaded from ... (view more)

Today I received well over 200 virus-infected emails, courtesy of the W32.sobig.b@mm.html and Friendship Screensaver worm / virus. So, why do I get bombarded with email viruses more than the average Joe? The answer to my dilemma is compound. Since ... literally thousands of users have emailed me in the past ... and because mail programs such as Outlook / Outlook Express automatically save contacts [email addresses] once mail has been replied to, ... and and because most email viruses propagate through email Contact Lists: my email addresses have been become exceptionally targeted by email worms. ... (view more)

Greetings to all! I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I'm officially on vacation! Last Saturday, I left for Toronto and am currently visiting my friend, Frank. On May 3rd, I will be flying out of Pearson Airport in Toronto ... and will later arrive in Cancun, Mexico. I won't be back until May 12th. The bad news is that I have limited access to the Internet and cannot retrieve personal files and old emails from the office. Before I left for the trip, I planned to route all incoming emails to the office computer, and then later download them via FTP server (to another ... (view more)

A few days ago, Rocky R. asked me a question about the AutoComplete feature in Internet Explorer: " When I fill out a form on a new website, a dialog box appears asking if I would like auto complete to stop asking me to store info. Well, I ... accidentally hit 'Yes' -- and now I can't get auto complete to remember any information! Please help! " My answer: The AutoComplete feature can be enabled / disabled by modifying a preference in Internet Explorer. Here's how to change the setting with IE6: Load Internet Explorer Click Tools -> Internet Options Click the Content Tab Click the ... (view more)

Yesterday's article, which details how to "Remove lop (lop.com, C2 Media) from Internet Explorer", prompted quite a few responses from readers. Remove lop (lop.com, C2 Media) from Internet Explorer Robert S. writes: " I Just received the latest ... Infopackets and was reading about the lop.com and C2 media. You mentioned SpyBot Search and Destroy (SBSD) ... [from my own experience,] the latest version (1.2) has a problem with [Lop] ... SBSD has issued a fix, but it still does not work on my Windows 2000 Operation System. " I also received the below email from Michael A. Woods ... (view more)

Last week, David R. told me about a program called Lop that was installed on his machine: " I've installed Lop on my computer and now every time I go online, an annoying browsing toolbar that pops up. Now I can't get rid of it! Can you help? " My ... Response: After some digging, I found some excellent resources on Google. A web site called doxdesk.com provided a very complete picture of what Lop is and how to combat it. http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html Here are some snippets from the doxdesk.com web site: Description Lop is a family of programs that set your start page and IE's ... (view more)

Yesterday, I wrote about a new spam problem associated with Windows Messenger. Recall: Messenger pop-ups are a new form of spam that exploit a feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system intended for use by network administrators. These ... pop-ups can appear even if you aren't surfing the web (ie: a web browser), and are not related to MSN Messenger. The remedy: Yesterday I detailed instructions I used when searched Google for a solution. Unfortunately, the instructions for Windows XP were not complete and I received a few emails from folks who were not able to complete the "fix ... (view more)

Not long ago, I received an email from 'Rezzy46', who has been plagued by a new form of spam: Windows Messenger popup advertisements (note: these are not MSN Messenger chat pop-up messages). He writes: " Is there a simple way to stop those messenger ... service advertisements? Is it possible to disable the popups without disabling any core Windows components? Speak of the devil -- two just popped up while I was typing this message! " After searching Google, I found that Messenger popups are a new form of spam that exploit a feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system intended for ... (view more)

Wouldn't it be great if you could visually trace back the path of a hacker? A little while back I received an email from Infopackets Reader, J. Noway with a freebee software title that does just that. VisualZone and VisualIce analyze log files from ... Zone Alarm and Black Ice (two popular anti-hacker firewall programs) and give users the option of finding out more about any PC intruder. J. Noway writes: " The software interprets firewall log files by date and gives the user an idea of whom and what time someone is pinging them or attempting access. It is designed specifically to work with ... (view more)