160 replies to this topic

[cnm]

Mike started this thread, on an old board.

"Just out of curiosity, where did you all hear about spywareinfo? I know many of you from other security/privacy sites, but what about the rest of you?"

[Mr. Swenk]

Well i first heard of SWI through google.
I had something that was making a dial tone noise everytime I maximized a window. I never found out what it was, cause someone here ( trained of course ) told me my log looked clean.

In the end, a few months later I crashed my laptop, and started clean.

Now I find myself addicted to spyware and going for the fight against!

[Freebird]

It's been so long now that I am not sure I remember clearly. I thinks I came across it on another forum, or it could have been Google, but I knew as soon as I got here, that it was the one for me.

[sasquit]

I poked around in Google after my PC became infected. I found the information I needed at Merijn.org, which led me to SpywareInfo.

[Kao]

Google searched for Wsup and WToolsA and it brought me to a thread on here.

[ford101]

I was having probs with trojans and viruses, and especially spyware, in the form of pop-ups. Found this site in a link from www.net-integration.net. Glad they had it.

[mjp65aa]

I had the about:blank coolweb bastard bug. I did search for the site it was changing my home page to with the word "removal" via Google and that linked to one of the many posts here asking for help with the same problem. As it turns out I did a complete CD restore to purge my system, but i see this site is a great value to any web addict like myself. I have been reading a lot of the posts for the last few days to educate myself, and sometimes even entertain myself. Thanks to all of you that devote time and effort to help strangers. I seen a few posts from people who are mad they are not geting help fast enough. I not even part of this and that makes me angry, lol. Anyway, keep up the good work.

[Dain_Bread]

Hi I just joined the forum and I was direected here by the web site http://www.anti-spyw.../resources.html. For the past 2 months I have been mulling over which direction I should take my career. I knew it was going to be security related but I was leaning more towards wireless security. Then I started noticing some of my customers and friends having weird problms with their puters. And they all seemed to be spyware related. so today I decided I am gonna learn everything (lol if thats possible) about this stuff. I started as a computer operator in 1979 in the air force. Since 1992 I ave been self employed fixin puters. Just after someone gave me 5 8088 1 8086 and one souped up 286. I appreciate all the help I have already recieved and if my 1 cent is worth anything I will try to be of assistance if I can.

[ErikAlbert]

In the beginning, I didn't even know about spyware until my pc didn't work properly anymore.
I'm a free lotto player and one of the free lotto websites, didn't work anymore.
So I blamed wrongly the webmaster of the lotto website and he adviced me to run SpybotS&D.
Until then I was convinced that Norton Internet Security protected me completely from any malware. Yeah I was real newbie in those days.
Spybot reported more than 200 spywares on my pc and that was my very first contact with spyware.
After running Spybot, my pc was still not fixed. So I had to format/install my harddisk from scratch, because my online banking didn't work anymore.

I'm a moderator at "LottaLottos" (= Free Lotto Forum) and one of the members told me about THIS forum a few days ago. That's how I got here.
I wasn't really looking for a Spyware forum, but the Free Lotto World is dying and LottaLottos was becoming very boring.
I know enough about the Free Lotto World now, so I needed something new and malware seemed to me a real challenge and a neverending story
That's what I need to keep myself busy and usefull at the same time.

Edited by ErikAlbert, 26 June 2004 - 07:55 AM.

[gravylover5]

I heard about this forum (specifically Boot Camp) from sspears and temerc over at the boards at cexx... I came here to join Boot Camp.

[Bosnia Versus Spyware]

I live in Bosnia ,and accidentaly I found one edition off the croatian magazine called PC Chip, they had an interwiew with Merijen "Angel of internet" about hijacking and simillar stuffs, which helped me a lot. Somwere in the interwiew as a closing line they recomended this site together with computercops.biz, as a best sites on the internet against every kind off computer intruders. So I decided to check U out, and now I have U on my Home page.

[808chick]

I came here to join Boot Camp. My cousin is also a helper trainee (sweet_g). So I herad about this site from her. I browsed around at first under her name, just to check it out, and then I became a member. I mean, who wouldn't want to learn how to fix computer probs, especially if you had them.
Think I'll make myself at home. I love it here

[Maorza]

Found SWI through Merijn.

Got infected with the early CWebb and About hijackers. Didn't know what hit me.

I cheated and upgraded to a better tower only after I could not boot my OS unless it was in safe mode.

But the experience of watching SD remove 100+ maladies from my pc stayed with me. I visited here for awhile after downloading CWShredder then and still heeded no advice. Too little too late I got the free Zone Alarm and Spywareblaster . By then all I could do was keep an eye on when and how often my browser changed.

Then with this tower I have been super cautious and have done everything as well as I can to protect my PC. Then I discovered hijackers and pop-ups on my parents computer. While researching I remembered Merijn and found my way back here. What seeemed undecipherable a year ago now started to make a bit more sense as I perused the logs more and more.

To see what kind of help the advisors(experts) and helpers give is great. There are good guys on the net after all. Seeing some of the really tested vets "slap around some spyware" as somone here so eloquently put it only to discover I could be given the opportunity to learn and help was just too much to pass up. I've lost a previoius battle against adware, which is why I want to help all I can in the war. That may mean alot of me staying out of the way so as to watch and learn.

But I will. I intend to be around awhile.

/\/\

[yohsef]

I Googled on "infamous_downloader".

[Exasperated in Phoenix]

Like a lot of others, I found my way here whilst trying to remove some crudware off of a friend's PC. Isn't Google grand? I just wish they'd filter the hijack and spyware sites out of their results, 'cos I've tracked a few infestations down that originated with from a Google search. Sigh. BLOCK THOSE DOMAINS, you twits! I can't very well suggest to folks that they stop using search engines.

Now, a few months later, I've cleaned and secured around 40 to 50 of the machines locally, and I've only just begun. I've been handing out mini-CDs like they were going out of style with all of the latest tools, and a bunch more folks have been able to help themselves.

After this weekend, I may re-think the process. I just spent a full 20 hours cleaning a giant load of P2P trojans, spyware, adware and BHOs off of a friend's computer at work. It'd ground to a halt 'cos 3 different spyware proxies were fighting for domination. The ugly part was a new Look2Me variant that nothing would remove, and I had to rip it out kicking and screaming. It was a jolly romp thru the Registry to finally find all of the pieces so I could delete 'em. It appears that most of their crudware originated from Yahoo, in it's various forms. The latest news on the banner here doesn't surprise me a bit. I've cleaned Gator off of a lot of computers whose users preferred Yahoo. Say it with a western drawl, and it's closer to correct. That's yay-hoo, folks! One of the little pieces of nastiness was bright enough to shut down NAV 2003 (with all of it's updates), and it then downloaded a bunch of friends. Isn't that special?

Merijin's site's offline, obviously undergoing a massed attack from a slew of new backdoor trojans doing a DOS. All I get are timeouts, but fortunately most of the latest stuff can be found and downloaded at MajorGeeks.

The most frustrating part of this long affair is that *I* haven't had any of the malware installed. I run Opera and Pegasus, purely so most of the junk can't attack me. I've only convinced a few folks to switch to Opera; most of the rest of the herd are afraid of something new.

<side note: no, I don't do requests. If I don't know you, find another weenie>

[thats hot]

I heard about it through google while I was looking for something to fix my res:// problem.

[jborchardt1]

I heard about it when I had a problem with my IE home page being reset to searchv. My ISP recommended that I download HJT and check in with SWI for help and my problem was fixed. Thanks to everyone.

[zxladie]

I always check CNet reviews for their opinion on all hardware and software before I buy or recommend anything to clients, friends or anyone who's computer I work on. I had downloaded WinXP themes from CNet's Download.com and while it was installing I thought I saw brower redirect files in the files it was installing. Stopped the install, checked the registry, found ShowBehind, got angry, uninstalled WinXP themes, and when I couldn't find anything about ShowBehind in a search at Lavasoft, did a search from msn.com and Spywareinfo's forum message board came up as one of the top 5 hits. And the rest is history. Boot Camp is my home page. AFTER I posted a very disgusted user opinion regarding spyware infested apps being available at download.com. Then another disgusted email to CNet TechWeb.

[FruitBat]

I found out about your excellent services from surfing. I was trying to find a solution to that Bridge.dll nasty when I came upon this site. I asked about a fix for it ....and WHAM!!! in no time at all I had a fix for it.

You really are a "God Sent" to us all who are just learning and are making mistakes in the meantime LOL.

Thank-you Heaps and Bunches
FruitBat
PS: tellin all my family and friends about this site (Tee-hee)

[sue2404]

Amazingly through Microsoft - in a roundabout way! I had the dreaded about:blank problem which I didn't realise, and I'm not sure MS did, but they told me to download CWShredder and that is where I found out about this site and, thank heaven, you - and not MS - fixed the problems. Since then I've recommended you to others - don't know if that's good or bad as you seem to be overloaded!

[oldduke]

I had two computers completely locked up, wouldn't move, saturated with spyware and viruses (not mine, the wife's and the munchkin's). Got on a third that was still functional and typed SPYWARE HELP into Google.com and hit on everything that came up. This site appeared to have the best help/discussion. Thanks for providing it.

[SpywareDestroyer]

I found it from the Spybot Site from its links section.

[Omygosh]

Great Question,but my answer is somewhat lacking! I found this forum after finding my way to Merlin's site.I'm not real sure how I found his site,it was most likely from PC WORLD. After spending countless hours on the phone with several microsoft tech's trying to figure out "Unable to update windows" issue (free support) I had to reinstall windows and IE5and 6 to finally close those holes, they left me hanging,in that paid support was needed to fix other issues I declined.It was then that I discovered I still had the dreaded about:blank disease! Thats when PCworld led me to Merlin which led to my installing AD-AWARE,SPY-BOT,and CWShredder.Then I got Hijack This an joined this great group. I read an reread after posting, the pinned topics and other live logs then {proceeded to analyse my log,fixed some stuff,read some more fixed some more and finally got help in getting my log posted.(I do not recomend any novice to attempt this on their own.)} If your waiting to get help spend all your free time reading the articles so your ready when help arrives Excellent site,well moderated,informative,extremely helpful and best of all it's free.

[Penfold]

Computer mechanisms and tweaks have long been an interest
of mine; and I found the SpywareInfo site through my web surfing.
I have a particular interest in Spyware/Malware and have dealt
with my own pc nightmares. I have been a support technician at various forums and always found useful information on this site.

Edited by Penfold, 18 July 2004 - 06:04 AM.

[Jumper]

I was assisting my wife with a browser hijack on one of her computers at work and did some research on Google, and came across this site. I actually was able to correct her problem based off of what others were posting. Since then, I come here first and each time I have been able to correct most issues based on what others have posted.
Decided today that I should become a member. I figured this site has helped me out, I would like to be able to help someone else in the future.

[Slice18]

i had a bad spyware prob ans personaly i am VERY good with computers! but when u came across spyware that i hadn't seen before i needed help and i serched google and found this the next day i was telling my freind about it and he uses it 2!!! so i decided to help people using the power if HijackThis!!!! Spyware Deseves it!

[frodo]

Googled for it - the last time I had spyware problems.

Just want to thank you for the great work you guys do. I enjoy reading the newsletter to find out about the latest threats and see what's happening in the world of spyware.
Good luck and keep fighting!

- Frodo

[Taylor]

I have been an avid reader of SWI
and other computer help forums for some
time now. I became interested in spyware
and wanted to learn more after having battled
in various "trojan wars" myself.
I found this site while surfing!

[Minor Threat]

I found it when I had IE hijacked. I think it was by Blank Find if I remember correctly. Since then I've followed the site regularly. I recently joined because back when I first needed help you didn't have to register in the forums. Because of this site I switched to Mozilla Firefox and Thunderfox and am loving it. I also learned to efficiently use Ad-Aware and SpyBot. Thank you SWI.

[in_need_of_help]

I got hijacked by solongas and when I did a search on google for "solongas" this was a sight I came across. I posted my problem and while I've been waiting for a reply I have been reading some of the forums. It sounds like you guys are doing a fantastic job. Keep up the good work.

[paperghost]

My site is listed on http://www.a-sap.org - pleased to be here

[cowsgonemadd3]

I got led only by the best hands down search engine ever made! And the name is google! Dont weight google yourself today!

[laly_1988]

Mike started this thread, on old board.  http://www.spywarein...showtopic=13021

"Just out of curiosity, where did you all hear about spywareinfo? I know many of you from other security/privacy sites, but what about the rest of you?"

I sarted using CWshredder becuase we had a bad problem are homepage got hijacked (about:Blank), and it did the trick spywareinfo. .

[DawsonV5]

G Gle brought this wonderful site into my life.

Edited by DawsonV5, 21 August 2004 - 05:26 AM.

[sun]

Actually this may sound funny.....but a year and a half ago I was a newbie in the 21st century having let my PC that bit the dust in the 2000 crash go to its rightful resting place and I decided enough "DOS"!!!!!!!! I don't need a computer......but got the shock of my life.....when everyone told me to go to "wubya wubya wubya dot............"....... then I realized I had to to get with it if I want to communicate. I bought the notebook and was talking to a waitress at a restaurant the day I made my electronic purchase and she lamented about "spycameras"....or something that her daughter had on their family computer that was causing catastropic happenings........she likened it to star wars!!!!!!!! I went home didn't believe there were spy cameras possible...but started googling spy and called my neighbour who is a tech and he directed me to what spyware is all about as well as did Mr. Google and through combined efforts I found your site and I revisited the restaurant and directed the waitress to your site and we are all profoundly grateful to your inciteful knowledge, time and effort that you put in to make PC's in our backyard and on our planet more secure for us to use.
Keep up the perserverance......it indeed is admirable and cudos as well to all the other volunteers ....your spirit is well respected

[ivar]

found this site via a Dutch startpage on anti virus. Had the CWS trojan several months ago and managed to get rid of on my own(NOT!). Don't reboot my sytem that often so it's possible it was never gone afterall...
At this moment I'm waiting for someone to look at my log(s), didn't know that so many people are bugged and if the help here was paid for a small group would have a real day(and night) job on this, luckly it isn't so, understand that's why CWS and many others exists, cheap trick it is, dont let them get in front of my car
Meanwhile a free trial version of spy sweeper is helping me a bit to hold on my startpage an prevent me to go crazy(when I'm not getting sick of the pop-ups spy sweeper is "offering" me..)
Keep up the good work!
Greetings ivar

[Webby]

Google search for VX2.abetterinternet or Twain-tech

Started getting popup ads; they soon became a nightmare of frustration. I bought a spyware program call 'Spyware Doctor' - it identified VX2 and Twain-tech on my system but was unable to get rid of either, so I did a Google search to find out more and a link to this site was near the top of the results.

I am reading through all the older related posts and fixes and trying them before posting my own problem - my computer is still infected by both, but I am confident I will get it clean eventually.

Excellent site! Thank you all for your time and effort to battle these pests for all of us that would otherwise be clueless.

Web

[jacquibaby]

I did a search about spam on yahoo and this forum came up....brilliant!

[Uncle_Sam]

I was a member of the computer cops forum, after getting infected and searching for help.

Started a thread asking how I can help. and someone there gave me the link to this site.

[black goku]

I was infected by a nasty case of CWS, about:blank AND only the best. So I found SWI through google.

Edited by black goku, 04 September 2004 - 04:20 AM.