modem hijacking

thetourist

any opinions/reports on a good program to deal with modem hijacking - ie
cleanup/prevention


bob

uberwolf

this would probably be better in the computers forum or OS>windows forum more likely to get a response there.

GreeBo

bobmurphy wrote:

any opinions/reports on a good program to deal with modem hijacking - ie
cleanup/prevention


bob

you could get a firewall that allows you to configure/allow outgoing connections.

afaik you cant stop them from taking over your modem, but you can stop them ringing anywhere...

thetourist

sorry ........ this being a forum on computer security i just thought ?????

Jim

Read the Charter of each forum before posting on it if you are unsure, thats what they are there for.

thetourist

afaik you cant stop them from taking over your modem, but you can stop them ringing anywhere...

yes but the ones i'm experiencing are actually adjusting the telephone numbers in the eircom/iol dialup connections !!!!
they are not the regular dialers which i'm used to

thetourist

Read the Charter of each forum before posting on it if you are unsure, thats what they are there for.

i did - sorry did i miss something ??

( i know that it said about not looking for solutions to specific problems but i didnt think that asking for peoples opinions/experiences with an area of software would constitute that ?? )

GreeBo

hmm then you have two next steps.
1) get Firefox
2) stop going to those sorts of websites.

GreeBo

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Read the Charter of each forum before posting on it if you are unsure, thats what they are there for.

whats wrong with his post?

Jim

bobmurphy wrote:

sorry ........ this being a forum on computer security i just thought ?????

He was saying he "thought" it was computer secruity. I was merely suggesting he reads the charter if he is unsure about what the forum is actually for.

GreeBo

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

He was saying he "thought" it was computer secruity. I was merely suggesting he reads the charter if he is unsure about what the forum is actually for.

So what we are saying is that it *is* a forum for computer security, but that modem hijacking is not a security issue.

tbh Im having a hard time finding many posts on here that are any more relevant that his.

thetourist

He was saying he "thought" it was computer secruity.

but it says computer security right on the page - clearly i'm not unsure about it


does anyone else find this a bit ridiculous or is it just me ???

thetourist

modem hijacking is not a security issue

is this the case ??

GreeBo

bobmurphy wrote:

is this the case ??

You need to make your posts more techie and convoluted.
You dont seriously expect people to answer your n00b question do you?
Sheesh.
Everyone is far to busy on this board, just look at the throughput.
.....@......

thetourist

GreeBo wrote:

hmm then you have two next steps.
1) get Firefox
2) stop going to those sorts of websites.

thanks but a) i have (and am a big fan of) firefox b) i am looking for protection that i can recomend to other people and i cant control what they view on the net

i was really just wondering if there was a program that would safeguard against this stuff -- sorry to everyone if it was on the wrong forum or whatever - thanks

thetourist

You need to make your posts more techie and convoluted.

yea that seems to be the problem here --- thanks anyway !!!


btw what's a n00b question ??

uberwolf

my interpretation is that the charter got changed to prevent this being a windows helpdesk. Security was to discuss theoretical situations, new threats and tactics for prevention. The throughput problem sarcastically referd to was actually the probelm in the first place. Real security issues as per the definition I've just muddled through were being lost with all the "I've got a virus, I use IE and have no firewall" queries.

Bob - I didn't launch down your throat(and I know you haven't accused me either), in fact I was trying to pre empt the likely closure of this thread by the forum mod.

GreeBo

uberwolf wrote:

Bob - I didn't launch down your throat(and I know you haven't accused me either), in fact I was trying to pre empt the likely closure of this thread by the forum mod.

Yep, you didnt. Yours was a helpful suggestion to which I have no ill feelings at all.
Lordy that came out in a very convoluted manner.

A n00b is a cool way of writing newbie (a new person) I felt cool using it, now you have made me feel foolish...

thetourist

Bob - I didn't launch down your throat(and I know you haven't accused me either), in fact I was trying to pre empt the likely closure of this thread by the forum mod.

no harm done - thanks

Jim

Jesus, all I said was that read the charter if your unsure.

"i thought this was a place for computer security??????"

The question marks indicated to me that you had become unsure, so I pointed you in the direction of the Charter. Don't read to much into it or anything.

/me shakes head

thetourist

Jesus, all I said was that read the charter if your unsure.

sorry i cant take resoponsibilityt for other peoples comments !!

dogs

uberwolf wrote:

his would probably be better in the computers forum or OS>windows forum more likely to get a response there.

I think this really applies here; from the original post the OP is after software to prevent a particular problem with his system. It was one line looking for specific soloutions.


But given the traffic in this thread, I'll leave it here for now.

dogs

GreeBo wrote:

Everyone is far to busy on this board, just look at the throughput.

This isn't aimed at you or anyone else... But some people have said why do I oppose these the tech support threads, the more traffic the better, right ?

No.

I wouldn't care if there were five posts a year on the Security board provided they were relevant. My goal is to make this a place for security discussion. Nothing else. Traffic on this board doesn't bother me at all ...although amazingly it's been increasing since I've made the changes. So **** you

GreeBo

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Jesus, all I said was that read the charter if your unsure.

"i thought this was a place for computer security??????"

The question marks indicated to me that you had become unsure, so I pointed you in the direction of the Charter. Don't read to much into it or anything.

/me shakes head

ahh methinks I sees the problem.
You read it as "is this not the computer security forum????" whereas what he actually said was "this being a forum on computer security i just thought ?????"
which I take to mean "this is the right place so I thought it was ok to post here, is it not??????????"
Problem solved. Apologies to any and all offended.

Nice one mod for leaving the thread here and open.

GreeBo

dogs wrote:

This isn't aimed at you or anyone else... But some people have said why do I oppose these the tech support threads, the more traffic the better, right ?

No.

I wouldn't care if there were five posts a year on the Security board provided they were relevant. My goal is to make this a place for security discussion. Nothing else. Traffic on this board doesn't bother me at all ...although amazingly it's been increasing since I've made the changes. So **** you

I can see (from the Charter) that when you say Security you are really talking about a narrow seb section of Computer Security, right?
Would it make sense to have a sub category for malware/hijacking etc?
And then have a different one for the theoretical/more involved side of things?
Im guessing you have no interest in Modding the former but maybe someone would?

dogs

GreeBo wrote:

I can see (from the Charter) that when you say Security you are really talking about a narrow seb section of Computer Security, right?

No.

Last time friends:

No tech support threads.

If the admins want to create a tech support board that's irrelevant.

thetourist

dogs - all the respect in the world for the forum and the charter ( and to be honest i understand that there is a huge difference between a tech support type forum on security from a theoretical point of view ) but to be honest i am a bit confused as to where you draw the line - i mean to say that i read the sticky before i posted and decidedly didnt ask any questions that i felt would cross the line - however aparently i did ??? now maybe im a bit thick about exactly where the ocean meets the shore in this reguard but i think you should consider that maybe other people might make the same mistake - i mean i read the charter, tried to abide by it and still ended up posting something unwanted - which is annoying to me. i post on tons of boards and have never encountered this problem really

all im trying to say is that when you have a forum called computer security - then some other people ( ie. me in this case ) will misunderstand details like ( and i still dont get this btw ) why modem hijacking etc is nothing to do with computer security ....

..... i think that if it's going to be as strict as you seem to want it then you should make the charter a lot more concise as it does nothing to describe what exactly you mean when you say security ( which i feel most people would read in the broad sense and take to mean protection from anything which might harm my computer or data ) - as far as i can see all it does is to disuade people from seeking tech support - which as far as im aware is not the issue here ... or is it ???

tck

Modem hijacking is a usually a tech support issue and would be duely considered for post incident response. Why? because its 'security on demand' or dealing with a known issue when it arises.

There's already guides and preventative measures written about it.

I think when they mention security here, its about issues which have yet to be considered or potential security issues that may arise in the future i.e. yet to be discovered or happen (basically information which has yet to be brought to public awareness).

thetourist

Modem hijacking is a usually a tech support issue

i find it difficult to understand how initiating a discussion about how to deal with a threat - ( any threat ) could be construed as tech support - i mean if i had asked how to remove a dialer or something then i could understand .. or asked what was going on with a machine .. but i didnt - i asked what peoples experiences were with software to protect against this threat ..... now if we cant talk about our experiences at tackling security problems here then i fail to see what the forum is for ??

when they mention security here, its about issues which have yet to be considered or potential security issues that may arise in the future i.e. yet to be discovered or happen (basically information which has yet to be brought to public awareness).

... and it's not for talking about progress being made in software to fight new or relatively new threats ???? - but i suppose it's alright to mention software/techniques reguarding fighting future threats - i find this a bit of a contradiction to be honest. Also there is nothing in the charter about this - how is one supposed to guess this ??



i can completely understand banning tech support questions but i cant understand people not taking a broad view of that which is not considered tech support - simply because where one draws the line is going to be slightly different for everyone and in cases like this it's usually better to err slightly on the side of allowing some stuff in which is not quite what you're after rather than alienating and embarassing well meaning visitors, some of whom may have had the potential to enrich the forum.

There's already guides and preventative measures written about it.

i've done a LOT of searching and have found these to be repetitious and a bit 'standard' ... i mean to say barring international numbers .. come on !! Also only one program which guards specificaly against this threat - the point of my thread was to see whether people thought or found there was a better way of doing things or something .....

uberwolf

/wonders if he'd said nothing in the first place would this just have passed...

GreeBo

uberwolf wrote:

/wonders if he'd said nothing in the first place would this just have passed...

Yeah is all your fault!

One point that I would like to make about where threads like this live is:
If you (as yourself or especially as newbie) suddenly found that you had a Hijacking problem would you search for it in the OS forum or the security forum?

tck

just install firefox

thetourist

tck wrote:

just install firefox

yes i know that will help prevent further recurrences - as would being carefull what you click on in the first place; however i was asking of peoples experiences reguarding removal/prevention software - firefox is just a browser and will not remove or guard against threats as such - it just lessens the chances of getting them ( the acive x controls variety that is) thanks though.

dogs

GreeBo wrote:

One point that I would like to make about where threads like this live is:
If you (as yourself or especially as newbie) suddenly found that you had a Hijacking problem would you search for it in the OS forum or the security forum?

I'd probably think something like this:

"I have a problem with my computer. My computer runs Foo OS. Perhaps I should post to the Foo OS board and see if anyone there has encountered a similar problem."

GreeBo

dogs wrote:

I'd probably think something like this:

"I have a problem with my computer. My computer runs Foo OS. Perhaps I should post to the Foo OS board and see if anyone there has encountered a similar problem."

mnyeah, he has a security problem with his computer. :cool:
In fact, arent we assuming that he uses Windows?

thetourist

dogs wrote:

I'd probably think something like this:

"I have a problem with my computer. My computer runs Foo OS. Perhaps I should post to the Foo OS board and see if anyone there has encountered a similar problem."

knowing joe average; i doubt it if he would see it that way - if it's a prob with security ( malware, hijackers etc ) he would prob go to the security forum i think - as op systems have very little to do with security - except of course the security holes in windows etc.- so why there - i mean you could just as easy say he should look on a software forum because he might need a certain type of software to fix the problem !! just my 10c ( mainly expressing the view for you to take or leave as you please - not really trying to pressure you to change the way you do things )

dogs

I think this journey has ended.

ecksor

GreeBo wrote:

I can see (from the Charter) that when you say Security you are really talking about a narrow seb section of Computer Security, right?

The topics that are relevant on here is covered by the FAQ that is stickied.

However, the problem was that the forum was starting to become focussed on a narrow set of topics relating to user problems. The new guidelines are an attempt to counter-act that.