Do You Think?

I've been reading some of the security newsletters that come into my inbox on a regular basis. A recurring theme in these missives seems to be 'phishing' (see below) is going to be the biggest security problem for end users in the coming year. The sad thing, it is probably true.

How many times have the news media reported on this problem? Hundreds of times more than likely. How many times have users been told, 'Your financial institutions do not send emails telling you to go to a site and input your confidential information'.

Are end users like sheep, following wherever the paths lead? Do they just ignore common sense and blindly do whatever an email tells them? There must be thousands of these 'sheep like' users out there on the 'web' or the perpetrators would not keep up the endless barrage of 'phishing' emails I get in my inbox. The same holds true for spammers. They just keep sending and sending an endless stream of garbage email to just about everyone that has an email account. Some of the more gullible of users click and buy from this junk, thus encouraging the garbage handlers to send out more of their trash.

How can we educate end users to delete unopened all of this junk? How can we convince these folks to NEVER buy anything from a spam email? I wish I knew! If how to handle 'phishing' and spam is published in the local newspapers, reported on the news and written about on countless websites haven't made a dent in what these poor 'victims' will do, then what can be done?

Should ISPs make users take a security course before they let them connect to the Internet? Make them pass a test? That would seem to be impractical, but somewhere, somehow, there has to be an answer!

(Phishing, pronounced fishing, is a nefarious plot to steal a victim's information. The emails claim to be from a financial instution, like your bank or credit card company, eBay, PayPal or a simuliar company. The message varies, some claim to need you to update your information or your account may be closed. For an example,look at this page on Martha's Web.)

I Am Going to Say 'Goodbye' to Symantec

Symantec's products have been on my computer a very long time. I currently use Norton utilities, (I may have to keep that) Norton's Internet Security which is the firewall and Norton Antivirus. I have been happy with these products. True they are big resource hogs, but I have plenty of rsources and have configured the products to not load until needed. Of course, the anti-virus and firewall are needed at startup.

So why am I going to say 'Goodbye'? I don't like being lied to. I purchased a product called Drive Image back in August, from a very well known retailer of Electronics. The product was advertised for $69.95 with two rebates, one was for an upgrade, $30, (I already had an earlier version) and the other was for purchasing the product, $40. Unfortunately, the company that made Drive Image was bought by Symantec.

I duly filled out the rebate slips and carefully made sure I had everything that was required. I also made copies of each of the rebates. The copies are stored in my Rebates folder in My Documents. Imagine my surprise when I received a rebate check for $20! That was it! So, I attempted to find a contact email address for Symantec Rebates, however, if they have one, it is very well hidden. They do have a page on their site for rebates, but no contact information that I could find. Apparently they don't feel it is necessary for customers to contact them to find out why the advertised rebates and the actual amount of the rebate are not the same. So, when it comes time for me to renew my anti-virus subscription, another product, as yet undecided, will take it's place. The same thing will happen for my firewall.

The sad thing is, I would have bought the product without the rebates. But if someone (or some company) lies to me, it's all over!

Why I Changed Martha's Web

Been a while since I made a post to my blog, and below you will find out why! The post below is also found on my web site.

Every now and then, change is inevitable and usually good. I was pretty happy with the way Martha's Web looked for the most part. Since I was using Internet Explorer and most other folks were using IE as well, I didn't think it mattered. I was wrong!

Once I started using Firefox I could see there were big problems with Martha's Web. The template I was using just didn't render well in either Firefox or Netscape. In order to make the pages look right when they were opened, I had to make some drastic changes that made the pages render with a great deal of empty space at the bottom. Not good! Besides just being poor design, it caused the pages to take longer to load. I am not an expert with html, that's why I use FrontPage. Searching and testing just couldn't resolve the problem, so that template had to go!

I looked and looked for a web template I could live with and make my pages validate. I wanted my pages to look right in every browser.

I tried a template that caught my eye, pleasing colors (to me) and had the coolest popout menus! Well, guess what. The pages and menus looked nice in Internet Explorer, but they looked awful in Netscape and worse in Firefox! Forget that template! I paid for it, too!

So I kept trying. I stripped all of the javascript from the template and removed all of the theme stuff. Now it validated, but there were still problems with the visual aspect. The page banners looked too much like an amateur and I didn't like them. The pleasing colors started to look too dull. So I tossed the template and started over. This was starting to be a real drag!

Several months ago on a whim I purchased a neat program called Zara Webstyle 4. I had played with it some for another project, but really hadn't done that much with it. So now it seemed to be time to play with it again, this time for real! I did come up with a template that is now the backbone of Martha's Web. It bears little resemblance to what I started with in Zara Webstyle, but I like it.

I have learned a lot about html, but I am still no expert. I have learned a lot about includes, I love them! I have learned a lot about CSS, cascading style sheets, but still have a long way to go with CSS.

So while I was redoing Martha's Web in a new template, I decided it was time to reorganize as well. Outlook Express has a separate section now. Some pages just had to go and some were incorporated into other pages. Some of my screenshots needed to be redone with Snagit. (I love Snagit!) Some of the links no longer went to pages, so they had to go as well. There were some spelling errors to be corrected too! (There may still be some spelling booboos, spelling is not my strong point.)

You may think all I had to do was copy and paste from the old pages into the new pages. Wrong! Every page had to be redone, I copied most of it into Notepad and then into the new page from Notepad. This removed a lot of old bad formatting. Then of course the pictures had to be re-inserted, alt tags named and hyperlinks checked and redone. I have 111 pages on this site, so it took awhile!

I hope you like the new look for Martha's Web. (Because I am not going to change again any time soon!) If you find an error somewhere or a link that doesn't work, please let me know!

Defrag your hard drive!

Good advice! I try to keep my computer maintained on a regular basis and I suspect that's one of the reasons I don't have too many problems. But..................

There's always a 'but' isn't there!

A very irritating situation with Defrag for me was what appeared to be two huge files that would not defrag. A report said the file that had two fragments was 'hiberfil.sys'. Apparently this file cannot be defraged. (I found out about the report from 'The Langalist".)

Research let me know that this a file used by Window's 'hibernation'. (You know, Windows goes to sleep when you aren't using it. Supposed to save power.) This option is one I NEVER use, so I turned it off. Voila! The fragmented files are gone and my system shows no fragmented files or folders!

To remove the file, go to Start/Control Panel/Power Options, select "Hibernate", and uncheck box "Enable Hibernate". Reboot your computer, and Windows will delete hiberfil.sys for you.

'Useless' Virus scanners

I just read in an online forum that a certain popular virus scanner is 'useless and so are (the writer named two of the most popular scanners)' because the writer got a virus.

What a silly statement! For one thing, no virus scanner is perfect. There is always a lag time between when a new virus appears 'in the wild' and the anti-virus companies can write and deploy a 'fix' for the virus.

More importantly, how did this user get the virus? More than likely the user opened an email with the virus contained within. How many times do people have to be told, 'Don't open attachments unless you are expecting one'? And was the scanner in question updated? A virus scanner is only as good as the most recent update! I could tell from the tone of the writer's message, he/she is totally clueless!

The moral is, don't blame someone/something for something that is probably your own fault! Just check here for more information! Martha's Virus Info

Windows XP SP2, I did it, I installed it!

I must say, the installation of Windows XP SP2 went very smooth. I have been reading about problems that other people have had and was very hesitant to install SP2, but hey, I have the CD, I have my system backed up using PowerQuest Drive Image,I printed all the instructions on how to remove SP2 and if that didn't work, maybe it 's time to do a re-install! (Shudder!)
But everthing went just fine. I did disable everything on my computer that normally runs in the background like Norton Anti-virus and Norton Firewall, Spyware blaster and PestPatrol. It took less than 45 minutes from start to finish and so far everything is working ok. I hope I don't find programs that won't work! If I do, rest assured, they will be posted here and on my web site, Martha's Web. I have a lot of programs, so it may take awhile to scope this all out!

Shopping for Food

I hate to go shopping for food. I think everytime I go, the price is higher on at least one item, maybe more.
I am too tempted to buy convenience food as I don't like to cook. So I probably spend more money than I should on those already prepared items. And since I am a junk food junkie, I know I spend too much money that way as well.

I make lists and cut coupons. Then I forget to take the lists and don't usually buy anything that I could use a coupon to purchase.

I am probably in a minority in that I watch TV commercials about food. Usually, after I have seen the commercials, I won't buy the product because I feel they have insulted my intelligence or I just think the commercials are 'too silly'. (I once saw a coffee commercial that said they had more coffee in their one pound can than in the competitor's one pound can. Now maybe they could brew more because it took less to make, but that wasn't what they said. They dumped a pound can of coffee on the table and had coffee left over when they put it into a competitor's empty can. Now if they thought I hadn't heard of vacumn pack, they were wrong.
There is a commercial for a brand of cereal that insults my intelligense and is so silly. The commercial seems to think I am only going to eat one meal a day.

The supermarket commercials can really irritate me as well. They just brag about how much I can save, especially if I use their "preferred card'. Seems to me that's like saying 'You won't save anything' if you don't use their card and that means two sets of prices. Should be the same price for everyone. I know they just want customers to get a card so they can track everything the customer buys. It's none of their business what I buy. They can figure out what customers are buying by keeping track of their inventory so why do they need to know what I am buying? I just shop where they don't have 'nosy cards'.

Have to go now and go food shopping.

Viewing the Olympic Games

I have always been a fan on the Olympics. My favorites are the Winter Olympics (I just love to watch the ice skating), but the summer is fun too. I enjoy the gymnastics, track and swimming the most. If I were of the male gender I would enjoy watching any of the sports with the ladies, their outfits are skimpier than ever this year. (At least they are for Beach Volleyball!) I didn't think that was possible, but just watch a few and you'll see what I mean. I think I must have been born 40 years too soon, either that or the generation performing in the current Olympic games have no idea what the word 'modesty' means!
I still enjoy the games, though. I was very disappointed in the men's basketball game today, but I do realize the USA can't (and shouldn't) win everything!

Why Don't People Listen?

It seems as though my friends all know I have a web site, Martha's Web, that deals a lot with computer problems including spyware, but until they start having a problem they never look to find a solution. After spending a lot of time with Deb to clean spyware from her computer (among other things, like getting a working virus scanner and firewall), another friend emails me saying her computer freezes everytime she tries to do anything.
After finding 424 spyware files (I had her download Ad-aware and Spybot) things seem to be back to normal.
I hate spyware as much as virus! Why do these scumbags who write this junk do it? Just because they can? Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

How Deb and I Spent Last Night and Today

August 5, 2004

Deb has put a password on her Content Advisor (in Windows XP Home) and now wants to remove it, but has no idea what she put in as a password. The hint is totally meaningless. So she asks me (on the phone) how she can reset the password. Believe me, that was the easy thing to fix on her computer.

She is also getting her search seemingly hijacked by a hijacker called Shopnav that keeps popping up. The big problem: she is unable to go to any secure sites. She isn’t sure when the problem started, but it is preventing Deb from logging into her homepage which happens to be a secure site.

Last night I had Deb download, install and run Spy-bot Search and Destroy, Ad-aware and SpywareBlaster. After each program was installed and updated, she ran Spybot and found 111 instances of spyware. Ad-aware then found 37 more spyware files.

Deb still could not get to her secure sites. Opened Internet Options and went to the Security tab. No secure sites listed in restricted sites. Checked Trusted sites, at first nothing appears here. Then when Deb starts to add her home page to the Trusted site zone, as soon as she types the first h (as in http) a list of sites appear in the zone. Every site she goes to is being added to the Trusted zone! There are also five very strange entries, something like this:

http://www.newwebsearch-https://login.hersecuresite.comAAXCE(these are not the exact characters) and a long string of other characters. The sites appear to be identical, but the last few characters are different. When she highlights one of the entries to remove it, the Remove button is greyed out, inactive.

Now we are both very perplexed and frustrated. We decided I will go to her house tomorrow and see what we can do. I spend the rest of the evening searching for answers and posting to a Yahoo Group for help. I have found what seems to be some solutions and print them off to try tomorrow.

August 6, 2004

After a nice lunch out (Deb paid!) we go to her house and see what we can do to fix this strange problem. Someone on a YahooGroups list, Mike, to be exact, suggested it could be something in the hosts file. (That makes sense, why didn't I think of that?) So I do a search on her computer and look at the hosts files, nothing there. Deb has a Trackball instead of a mouse and it took me forever to use it. (I won't be getting one!)
So maybe CWShredder will fix this hijacker! I download the program and run it, it doesn't find anything. Well, it hasn't been updated for a while.

The strange thing, Symantec has a fix for Shopnav and the virus updates should have caught this a long time ago. I open her Norton and nearly choke. The virus definitions expired December 31, 2003! Live update decides to run so we let it run as she also has Norton Internet Security. I think I must have been asleep about now, but more about that later. Deb has been off work for a while so she needs to watch her money and I suggest we download and install AVG free version. So we do get to Grisoft's site and get AVG, downloaded and installed. For some reason it couldn't get updated but we ran it anyway and AVG found 6 virus files. (This is starting to get really serious!) So, after we run the virus scan and remove the bad files, turn off System Restore, reboot and turn it back on, we still cannot get to her secure sites. When the system comes backup, AVG updates and find more virus files! I did remember to turn off Norton.

We looked in the Add/Remove programs and find some stuff she didn't know what it was (some kind of spyware) so we removed it. It fought hard, kept saying 'are you sure you want to remove this?' 'Yes'. 'Do you really want to remove this?' 'Yes'. It stayed on the remove screen so long we thought the system had frozen, but it finally removed.

We check Windows update, it is broken, can’t connect!

Last night while searching for Shopnav in Google, I found a link for PestPatrol that promised it could remove this pest, Shopnav. Since Spybot or Ad-aware didn't do the trick she decided she couldn't have this junk on her computer and would buy PestPatrol. I told her I couldn't guarantee this would work. Well, remember, she can't get to secure sites, so she can't make the purchase!

Deb and her husband each have their own profiles so Deb goes into his profile and connects to PestPatrol's site, and gets to the secure purchase screen with no problem. (Is her profile corrupted by spyware?) She downloaded PestPatrol and installed it. When PestPatrol is updated and run, it found 77 instances of spyware, including several trojans and a keylogger!

I finally wake up and realize, why hasn't her Norton firewall been alerting her about all this spyware calling home? Checked the firewall and it is DISABLED! (Virus did it? Spyware?) It will not let us enable it! Not in Deb's profile or her husband's profile. This is really getting frustrating! Checked and Windows firewall is turned on, so at least the computer is protected from incoming hacks. If we can't enable the Norton Internet Security, we decide to uninstall it.

So, off to Zone Alarm's site. She downloads and installs ZoneAlarm and we get it configured. We install Firefox. The really strange entries are still in the Trusted site zone, (I really have to find out how to fix this) but she can now connect to her home page, the secure site. Oh, yes, Windows update now works as well. That was the one good thing; all of the critical updates had been installed.

Before I go home, I show her how to edit the Registry to remove the Content Advisor Password. (That was easy!)

Deb learned a big lesson today; she thought her husband was taking care of all this, from now on, she's in charge!

May 19, 2005
After some further testing, I discovered that the behavior of typing an 'h' in the trusted zone that seems to add every site you have been to, is by design. If the Control Panel is opened and Internet Options is selected, Temporary Internet files deleted and History is cleared, go to Security/Trusted Zone and type in an 'h', no new sites will show up, only what has been placed there already by the user.

Martha's Blog

Well, everyone seems to have a Blog these days, so guess I'll just jump in and have one too! I do have a rant & rave page on my website, Martha's Web, but everyone tells me that it isn't the same thing. I just hope no one expects me to post to this baby every day!

Right now it seems like the big thing going on is the Democratic Convention. It all seems like a big waste of money to me, everyone knows that John Kerry and John Edwards will be nominated to run on the Democratic ticket. Guess they enjoy spouting off about what they are going to do when they get elected. Did someone forget to tell them they have to win first? They may well win, but 'It ain't over till it's over'!

The same thing will happen when the Republican Convention gets going.

I wish we had a law that would allow the candidates one month and only one month to campaign before the election. They could have two ads on TV per day, no more. Instead of bad mouthing their opponents, they would have to speak about their own accomplishments, good, bad or indifferent. They would have to tell the public what they propose to do while in office and how they intend to accomplish their proposals. There would be a moderator to make sure the rules were followed. Only money from an election fund could be used and every part would have the same amount of money. Dream on, Martha, it will never happen! Would be nice though!