Category: internet security

Stop SOPA Now

Posted onAuthorTruXter

SOPA is a law that is described by the law makers as a method to stop piracy on the internet, by blocking websites and their domain name servers,along with the protect-ip law.
SOPA makes major labels, become the powers that be and prevents the independent labels from starting up on the web, because somewhere, anywhere, somehow, something has already been done before.
SOPA prevents people from reporting news independently and getting out real news without a mass media mentality.
SOPA prevents people from telling the world that they are being treated poorly by the governing bodies.
SOPA prevents speech and freedoms.
SOPA’s acronym states that it is to stop online piracy, but it’s build has little to nothing to do with piracy at all.

Law makers get a 9% approval at first hearing so they stated they would reschedule for 2012. Then they snuck in a a December 21st 2011.
Call your local news and tell them what is going on. We need the whole planet to know. You need to tell your friends. You need to email the news papers, the local news, the national news. If enough people do this, then the whole world knows. You have to prove that everyone knows what SOPA is up to and how crooked SOPA really is.

From here who to contact to fight SOPA

cnn

msnbc

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3303518/

Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.html

Anderson Cooper

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/

http://twitter.com/andersoncooper

http://www.facebook.com/AC360?sk=info

David Gregory

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6872152/ns/meet_the_press-more/t/meet-press-mailbox/#.TuyoTNX3Jgg

AND DO SEEK OUT YOUR LOCAL NEWS STATIONS AS WELL!

Contact each location and tell them how you feel about SOPA
Stop online piracy ACT.. Yeah, act like you are doing us some good while you cage us.

Free Online Virus Scan

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Bit Defender. Supposed to be the fastest scanner. I have no idea how accurate this can be. and I think this one only works in internet explorer.

EmsiSoft’s Asquared online Virus scanner.


Free online Virus and Malware scan. Feel free to use this, bookmark the page share with your friends, on what ever Social site you use. This virus scanner is the strongest Virus scanner I know that is totally free. Removes all virus and trojans and worm parts from your computer for complete internet safety and security. Well, at least no current virus will be active on your computer after a scan. This virus scanner group is fast at updating and many virus scan companies contribute to their research, and back the other way.
This will remove all known trojans and malware from your computer even suspicious cookies.
I am happy to have EmsiSoft’s Asquared on my website.

Facebook Virus FARM

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

The Real Post about the Face Book Spider Bite scam video

The Virus is called “Koobface”
These are the koobface facebook virus files you need to kill
fbtre6.exe , mstre6.exe
These are the registry entries you have to remove from registry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run\”systray” = “c:\windows\mstre6.exe”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run\”systray” = “C:\Windows\fbtre6.exe”

People.. Please. The same stupid virus that has been getting you people since back in the first days of Myspace, is now getting you guys again on Facebook. The virus says ” Wow I can’t believe I can really see who looks at my profile” maybe an exclamation point or two.

How to fix the Facebook virus issue.

Please start with running a virus scan. Any of a good selection of virus scanners will do. If one virus scanner does not find the Facebook virus, try another. There are many listed on that page.
If you can access another computer, please change your Facebook password from another computer while the scanning goes on.
and delete any posts that link to the virus. GO TO YOUR PROFILE TO SEE ALL THE POSTS YOU MADE. You have to delete them to do your part in containing the issue.

I have been fighting the whole facebook hack junk since the end of 2010

Please people, you have to look at the links, look at the Facebook Status posts before you just go wildly clicking.

 

So in this order: scan your computer for a virus, change your password, delete bad posts. done.

How did you get hacked so fast?
You clicked the link, it used some of the Facebook authentication certificate and fooled your computer into trusting it, it gave up your password that you have saved (to make it easier to log in next time). BAM.
The bad ones are from you downloading something that was titled funny so you just had to see what it was.

Also if you are not into the free software that I link on the next page… Look to the right, there are legit ads from Google. Any of them will do. Google only recommends the good stuff. I can assure you that your virus will be removed using Norton or Macafee or any of the big name paid real virus scanners.

Please hit the share button below for your friends on facebook.

Are Google Ads Safe To Click

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

Are Google Ads Safe To Click

I have received a few emails lately, (I guess because of the upcoming holidays and all of the online shopping to be expected) and people are asking me if it is ok or safe to click on Google advertisements. Also I have been asked if it is safe to purchase items advertised through Google advertisements. As much I rant about about Google not being what I expected in many ways, I have to say that Google advertisements are safe. 90% of their reports on the Better Business Bureau have been positive. Considering how huge Google is, and knowing that the only people to typically leave a review or a comment would be angry people. This is great news.
There are other advertisement companies that have just the opposite in scoring.
See at this time of the year, and knowing how sales people are, knowing the salesman might jack the price up a bit to sweeten his pocket, would lead you into paying even more for an item that this little snot had no responsibility in the making of, shipping of or even the concept of the product, I can easily see why you would prefer to shop online for your products. Why pay the middleman who works for the middle man? By straight from the source.

So I have been looking online to find angry posts from people who shopped by, like lets say clicking an advertisement on a website somewhere because the advertisement was relevant to their query. I have yet to find someone complaining about a Google advertisement misleading them.

Now there are tons of rants about how people feel they are not being compensated well enough for their efforts. but that is complete not relevant to theis topic. But yes it will come up while you search for complaints about google advertisement results.

In the past, we have been burned by many crooked advertisers and lazy advertisement agents who do not scan/screen/ filter their advertisements. So of course people are curious and cautious about clicking any advertisement. I can whole heartedly assure you that you have less than a 5% chance of getting harmed by an advertisement you click from Google. Even if you are in that five percent, it is still better than what the salespeople do to you. Jacking prices 35% higher because you look like you are able to afford more than the last guy, this is just wrong. Wrong , Wrong, Wrong!

I trust Google advertisements and have yet to be burned by Google when I click an ad.

a way to  be sure it is a google ad, look in the corner of the advertisement, you should see the word “Google”. If you do not see the word “Google” then that is not a google advertisement.

If I am on a website about black Friday sales, or Christmas sales or any kind of Holiday deals or Holiday Sales and I want to understand them and then I see an advertisement that shows the perfect holiday deal I am looking for and I see the Google logo, I feel 95% safe (plenty enough) clicking that advertisement to get the product or sales or deals that I want.  but any other advertisement, I’m not so comfortable with. I may click to look but if it takes me to site that looks funny or not right, I will shut my browser and begin my search in Google again.

Try it for yourself. Most of the sites you find in google advertisements are reputable sites. If you have no idea who they are, check the company name at  ripoff report, search bbb (Better Business Bureau). Try it with other advertisers also. You will be very satisfied with the results you find in Google advertisements.

Online Malware Scans

Posted onAuthorTips Of Tech

If you are like me and do not like bloating your computer with virus scanners and anti virus programs that run the whole time your computer is on. Then you at least need to scan every now and again to make sure you do not have a computer virus or some sort of spy ware. Most people just call it malware.So for you , the better bet is to use an online scanner to help locate and remove the virus or spyware you may obtain in a regular day’s computer use.
See I have a funny little phrase that describes the usage of a search engine. It’s like playing mine sweeper, Some times you get a nice good run, sometimes you get nailed left and right. BOOM. ” You may be infected” I hate that dang fake virus scanner. So it’s all about CTRL ALT DELETE and pray your web browser does not re-open the same dang page again.
So in my years of computer repair and internet fun I have found a few sites that do not charge you to use their online virus scanner. and they are not a trap or have any special usage clause. Also sometimes your installed virus scanner gets a virus that attaches it’s self to the virus scanner, so now you can’t remove the virus because the virus scanner is not self destructive. (would help if they had a self back up and repaired such issues on reboot).
I now share these with the readers of the TruXtertech.Com Site.
Here is a list of Online Virus scanners that work. For Free
A-Squared online Scanner a very good scanner that seems to be the strongest I know of . I also use the Emergency kit, I keep that malware scanner on a thumb drive.

BitDefender The longest running online malware scanner I know of. This malware scanner has removed a virus from every single computer I have ever used/repaired. Bitdefender also sells a copy of their virus scanner from their site. But it runs like all antivirus programs. Constantly.

Eset Online Virus Scanner. Menu to select the type of scan and actions you would like it to take.

Panda– online scanner

CA– Formerly InnoculateIT formerly Etrust now just CA. I love their virus scanner and performance tools. but again they are constant so I use the online scanner and that’s plenty for me. Their virus scanner is worth a buy though. So if you know someone who needs protection and they aren’t as OCD as me when it comes to keeping the pc fast, do it, get them CA for their birthday or Christmas or just for the heck of it.

Single file Virus Scanners. For scanning something you just downloaded to make sure it doesn’t have a Trojan in it or any other type of malware.

Virus Chief – Uses a few other online single file virus scanners, so you get a large number of virus scanners at one time.
Virus Total – same as above, mostly the same virus scanners.

Jotti– this one is the one that has been around the longest. The guy used to list the “latest in the wild” which would show what cooties have recently been caught, It was fun to watch that page. I guess he got sick of the wasted bandwidth because of people refreshing the page constantly.

Virscan.org – online single file virus scanner. Scans with like 30 virus scanners at once like the others. Takes a bit longer but it gets confirmed by 30 scanners that you do or do not have a virus in your hands.

Try the list, go through it and scan for a virus see what you get. you may, you may not have malware.

I did a virus scanner comparison using a well known virus and all of these scanners listed. come see how they scored. My test was just to see what virus scanners couldn’t detect it. From that point on, I consider those virus scanners that did not detect the virus, garbage and useless.

The Official TruXtertech Toolbar

Posted onAuthorTips Of Tech

Official TruXtertech Toolbar

Got tired of Googling all of the tools I use on a regular basis and decided to put these all in one toolbar.  Since I am of the two I.T. guys at my job, This tool bar will come in super handy.

There are antivirus tools. Virus scanner tools and Search Engine optimization tools.

so now when building website, there is tons of media to listen to and SEo tools to ensure the website being designed is properly optimized and handily ready for Bing, Yahoo and Google to crawl about it.

Grab a copy of this toolbar and see for yourself it is very much useful for Most of your IT needs and wants.

Brilliant spam – Sandra Sellers

Posted onAuthorTruXter10 Comments

Cool spam, I have no idea how they got my email.
Seems they are getting more and more creative these days.

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 7:38 PM, wrote:

Dear webmaster,

We, in Ontime-Ads, are glad to offer you payment on behalf of one of our clients for the publication of a small advertisement on genius geeks.com.
We would like to inform you that we are using a few advertising methods according to the selected website.
While reviewing your website I thought of a great way to advertise on geniusgeeks.com so it will fit it perfectly.

For full details please contact me at sandra.sellers@ontime-ads.com.

*If you have other websites which I can review for advertising please send me their URLs as well.

Regards,
Sandra Sellers
Advertising Specialist
sandra . sellers @ ontime-ads.com

To permanently delete yourself from our list, simply reply to this with a blank email and you will never receive any communication from us in the future.

My response
I don’t know what site you are talking about, and genius geeks has no idea who you are…. your website is nonexistent so. You are a troll and will be posted about online.

I really didn’t talk to the people on geniusgeeks I just stopped by their site and well from the looks of it. They have no reason to advertise me on their site.

For now I will mark this as spam. I am not saying they are spam, I will just shove it in the spam pile till they prove otherwise.

If you can not tell by my post. I do not recommend you use their service. I do not recommend you do not use their service. I do say that it is probably in my best interest if I stay away from them.

If you know anything, please respond.

**Follow up**
Upon Further investigation
There are no records of a Sandra Sellers at any advertising company I could locate.
I see that no one has complained from being ripped off, simply because the scam
is so obvious. It would be in your best interest to get proof of validity.
and it would be in your best interest to not respond to Sandra Seller emails.
AT ALL!
If anyone can post the originating i.p. address of this email from Sandra Sellers
or trace route results, it would be much appreciated.

So do you think the Sandra Sellers on time ads is a scam?

Unacceptable Perv-ofile (School Staff)

Posted onAuthorComputer Tweaker

According to an article in boing boing a school District in  (PA) [Lower Merion School District] Handed out laptops to students. This school reportedly has been reprimanding students for their behavior while at home. One student was shown a picture taken of them while doing something the school objected to, from within the child’s bedroom.

The laptops the children received had cameras on them. Reportedly these camera were used to spy on the children while not at school.

Their is notice that they are worried about children being to informative while online talking with strangers and the wide open public.

Update: The school district admits that student laptops were shipped with software for covertly activating their webcams, but denies wrongdoing.

Any person caught doing such a thing should be more than just investigated, they should be put in public notice.

Do we not have laws that protect us from this? should anyone for any purpose be so above the law that they can get away with such an invasion of privacy?

The students all should be allowed to return the laptops they where given (or are renting or purchased), the school should refund all deposits, and every principal,teacher,executive involved should be fired and replaced and spend no less than 5 years in federal prison for invasion of privacy illegal monitoring and surveillance without proper license and prior permits.

If they let this go, what exactly is freedom for? what is the proof that we protect the rights we obey ?

Beat the Comcast Hijack

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

Have you seen your computer redirect to search3.comcast.com or search5.comcast.com ? Don’t worry, you do not have a virus. Your web traffic is being filtered. Kind of like if your phone misdials a number, you get a mcdonalds commercial or pepsi commercial. Not cool, right? Read below if you want a better understanding of what that means. A cool fix of the issue is there. If you don’t want to read all of that, scroll to the bottom and look for the bold text “Simplest way I know“. That’s the way for someone looking for the quick fix.

If you do not know by now, Comcast is doing something I can describe as being the same thing they were told not to do. But not calling it what they said they would. They are throttling bandwidth and monopolizing from more than one direction. How?

Ok for starts they are filtering and snooping your internet traffic. You can see proof of this activity if you use Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, and type in a link that does not work. Now this in no way says that Internet Explorer is any safer than Firefox, in fact it says internet explorer does the same thing but by the works of Microsoft Bing.

If you type a link that should land you to an error/404 page while using Firefox, it takes you to “http://search3.comcast.com” . Now you see I will not actually link that page because the whole reason they send you there is because they actually make money from yahoo search and the advertisements on that page. Of course they affiliate with Yahoo, they tried to use Google as an example to why they should collect money from website owners because of the traffic they send them.

This move they are making is taking money from the pockets of the Firefox developers. The people at Firefox built their browser and hard coded the search to work with their affiliate program with Google, Firefox team did leave you/us the option to change to what ever search engine we want. Most of us just left it to the default page. This of course left motivation and or funding to the Mozilla group so they can keep developing and reaching more people with their creative works. The creative works of a group who is not a corporation with a desire to force us into a specified direction, to better highlight other software bundled with it, like an operating system that came forcefully attached to a crappy browser, (windows? mac? lol you figure it out) but no it was a method of freedom. Firefox was the step away from CompuServe and AOL forced browser and constant blast of advertisements. but now someone has their hooks into the money of Firefox. I have the fix

How to fix this issue is go to MVP’s HOSTS site, download the zip file to your desk top and extract all files in that zip straight to your desktop. Right click the file labeled “hosts” the one with no extension and select “open with” and find your notepad.exe file and open with that.

Scroll down till you see the list of website addresses and the ip address of “127.0.0.1” .

My trick is to make this my top line

127.0.0.1 search3.comcast.com
127.0.0.1 search5.comcast.com

This now ensures that my computer will never go to them again.

It however does not put any money back into the hands of the firefox team, but it does not profit a company who is making money off of me because I pay my bills on time, now they also want to make money off of my searches while some other team created the web browser I am using. I have a fear they will do the same that aol did with netscape, buy it up and crud it out till no one uses it anymore, causing the extinction of one last free field for us to graze in.

Another alternative is to leave Comcast all together. I am not against that really. but of course Comcast has taken every cable provider in the area I live and bought up all of their business. Leaving me no choice but to use them if I use cable. Dsl hub is pretty close, I am sure I can pay the same price for dsl and get cheaper cable with more channle and not be bothered by Comcast. but really, what good would I be in the act of toppling the monopoly of comunistcast ?

Maybe I am the only person who hears Comcast complain about increased internet use, every time they increase their internet user count by buying out another company (and all of their equipment). I mean really , if you are losing money guys, stop buying crap and just ride your profits for a while, let the customers be comfortable, you are scaring us.

but on another note, as an extra twist of the knife, since Comcast is using Yahoo for their search engine affiliate :-)

put this in your hosts file

yahoo.com search3.comcast.com

and then close it, select “save” don’t rename anything.. now from the files you saved to your desktop

locate the one labeled “hosts.bat” double click it. you will see a blue box, hit your space bar one time and you are done.

Now close all browsers and re-open them

now go to

sdhfajdhfasjdkf.com

If it takes you to “http://search3.comcast.com/?cat=dnsr&con=ds&url=www.sdhfajdhfasjdkf.com”

Then something has gone wrong, read again, try again.

There is always open dns, this of course really puts you in the same place but slower internet and someone else is filtering your net usage.

and http://www.webmasterworld.com/firefox_browser/3966582.htm

you can always drop Firefox and go for another browser of the same engine.

K-Meleon browser

It won’t fix your issue but you won’t see comcast filtering your traffic.

Simplest way I know is make your web browser go to yahoo any time some one types in the “search3.comcast.com” term by navigating to this folder with notepad (opened in administrator mode) “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc”
open the file labeled “Hosts” by using notepad in administrator mode.

That will highlight everything in that file.
Now copy this line and add it under everything you see in that hosts file I showed you how to get to.

72.30.2.43 search3.comcast.com

72.30.2.43 search5.comcast.com

Then close all of your browsers and re-open them. and try to go to this web site “search3.comcast.com” or “search5.comcast.com”
instead you will be redirected to yahoo. there . you keep comcast from further profiting on internet usage you already pay for.

 

 

Alternatively you can use a different DNS than the one that comcast provides. and this allows you to not worry about most of the comcast $$ making pages you will land on… because you are no longer 100% in their network. It allows you to use the service of the people that comcast pays to bring the internet to your area.
Primary DNS Server : 4.2.2.2
http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm
because it works.
crap loads faster and I don’t get that stupid page from comcast when I land on a link.