Tag: internet security

A Stalking Website?

Posted onAuthorTruXter

I was just notified that I was listed on a website “spokeo.com”.
They have every single house I ever lived in, listed.
They have me listed at some crazy high amount of income. They show photos of my house from the street. and they show how many people live in my house and their age.
I thought these “find people” websites had a legal standard of what information they could show?
The person who told me this was a sister of mine. She had to move from the area she was living in because of something that happened to her daughter. Needless to say, they never caught the guys, but they occasionally get mail from one or two of them bragging about what they did. So my sister moved. Now she is getting mail from them again. The guy(s) even told her how they found her. and yes they list her daughter there also, and her daughter’s age.

My sister requested herself removed and my mother and everyone else she knew the address of. Spokeo sent a removal confirmation email, but they are all still listed on that site.
I had to locate every home I lived in with in the past 20 years.
I am still listed on their stalking website.
I am legally unlisted. So how they obtained my information clearly was illegal.
Possibly bought and sold a thousand times over.

To remove yourself from Spokeo go to spokeo.com/contact
go to the drop down menu select “privacy”. type in your name. Do not type in your phone number
Tell them to remove you from the list, and leave a link to the page(s) your are listed on.
There sometimes will be a second page with spot for you to post the link and type in a confirmation code.
I didn’t get that confirmation code, but my sister did. Could be because she removed a lot of people.

Everyone please report this website after you request yourself removed from their listing.
Report them to Google as intrusive, report them to bing as intrusive and posting your personal information.
Get them removed from search engines because what they provide should be illegal.
This site could lead to possible identity theft at the least.
Internet security needs to be a bit more secure than this.
This is how you report a bad website.
Here is another form to report a bad website.
Not sure if either of those will do the trick though. If you have a better link, please post it below.

Here is the confirmation email they sent me.

Dear Spokeo User,

Your directory listing(s) have been removed as requested. Please allow 24 hours to see this change.

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
Nancy
Customer Support Specialist

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:10 PM, wrote:

User: non-user
Email: xxxxxxxxxx
Name: xxxxxxxxxx
Topic: Privacy

Message:
You have me listed , I have registered through the Texas state to not be listed in any directories, paper or electronic, other than state officials only. You have every home I have lived in before and after I registered with the state. You might be in violation of federal law. I would like to know who you got my contact information from. They themselves are in violation also. please email me contact information of who gave you my information. as you know, I have to do my research before I bring in a third party. Just as you have to verify who you are listing before you just list. I prefer my privacy.
http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=xxxxxxxxxx/info
http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=xxxxxxxxxx/info
http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=xxxxxxxxxx/info
http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=xxxxxxxxxx/info

To the readers of this post, If you have a friend or family member listed on that site and you know they are not tech savvy, please request their information be removed from that site, for them. Please help stop this company from intrusion. Please re-post this on your Facebook account or Twitter account, or email this link to family members.

And yes you can request your information be made private from news, public listings and anything not you or the government. In Texas you have to talk to the Department of Public Safety. It’s a short form. I was in and out pretty quick. Did it back in 1996.

A-Squared Free Is Gone

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Many of us knew of Asquared free. The software that got Emsisoft noticed in Google. It was the best malware scanner out there. Well Emsi found it in their best interest to remove their malware scanner and merge it’s code with their virus scanner. I have no idea how long the virus scanner will be free. I do know the virus scanner / Anti virus was trial for as long as I can remember the company site.

There is another way to still get A-squared free, is by downloading the “emergency kit“. and just run it as a stand alone. The Emergency kit was created for usb use. That I.T. guys can float around the office without having to download and install the software on every single infested computer. Also prevent a virus (during the active infection) from directly attaching it’s self to the malware scanner and crippling it.
I was downloading asquared updates yesterday july 26th 2010 during the day at work. When I got home, it was off the site. I tried to update my home pc but was prompted with a notice of the change and would have to uninstall and that a-squared would no longer scan for me.

By now you understand I got an infection while at work and got spooked by it by the time I got home right? Well I am running the emergency kit. So far found 4 viruses that Norton didn’t find, malware bytes didn’t find and that S&D didn’t find. In fact they all showed I was clean. Even though I got the fake virus scanner prompt on this antiquated operating system (XP).

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.

Best Free Virus Protection

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Internet safety is an issue that has been nagging at us users for many years. The cold hard facts is that we all need it. some people rest assured in the thought that Microsoft will be releasing a free virus scanner or virus protection of sort really soon. Cold truth is, you had that with vista and tyou learned how to dissable it and complained about it. That pop up that kept asking you if you are sure you want to install something, well expect it to come back for windows 7 and xp and vista, just a better skin. It will not be perfect, otherwise the operating system would be impenetrable. Simply because um… the software is made by the people who made the operating system. Hackers and scammers will be breaking it within  minutes of it’s release.

So for the time being Microsoft’s protection thingy is released, let’s fix ourselves up for cheap. Better than cheap, let’s do this for free.

Protection

Ok start with, DO NOT OPEN EMAIL ATTACHMENTS FROM STRANGERS! Never click a link in your email from your bank. because it’s never your bank, and just to be on the safe side when the email looks serious, close your browser, re-open your browser and type in your banks link manually.

Go to this website mvp’s hosts file Read what is being said there, read it well. Halfway down the page you will see

MVP's Gif

MVP's Gif

There will be a link near it to download a zip file. do it, download the file and copy all of the content onto your desktop. double click the file on your desktop named “mvps” , read what it says, hit your spacebar or any button you wish other than escape (not sure what escape would do) and you are done. you have now blocked your computer from connecting to known  advertisement websites. Many of those advertisement websites  also have foul software called “malware” . Malware includes virus, trojans, worms, adware, spyware and manhy things the like. So if you get a virus and it tries to push a bunch of pop ups on you, you will not get them. you will just get windows that pop up but saying you can not connect to the server. Some times those popups will install more malware on you so it’s great that you limit it.

Ok now that we are in this much of a safe zone, you must know that you are still vulnerable. You can still download a virus and have it install on your computer and compromise your computer. So as a cool little trick; next time you download something from a website go to these three sites and have it scanned for malware.

Virscan.org – This scanner allows you to scan with currently 37 different virus scanners. look at the botto n of the screen and see what the latest scan results show, you can see that some virus scanners will find stuff while others will not., refresh that page and see new results.

Virus total .com Same as the one above, some scanners not the same, so more results possibilities.

Jotti’s Malware scanner, I think is the original. this site used to allow you to see real time results from all scanners. not so much anymore.

If you chose not to install a virus scanner, I suggest you  at least run an online virus scanner once every weak or two. at the least, check twice a month, because you never remember the last time you entered credit card information. so start with these 3  free online virus scanners.

CA Internet Security Online virus scanner. The actual Software reminds me of an old virus scanner from the 90s called innoculateIT.

F Secure Online Scanner Online virus scanner

Bit Defender Online Scanner This one is slow on an infected machine, but it sure gets some results. For years i have used this one, even while using a paid virus scanner, it works very well. if you are on vista or windows seven, right click your Internet explorer icon and select “run as administrator”.

I would suggest Symantec/Norton or Macafee, but last time I checked they both find stuff but will not remove it, then when you buy the software and scan again, it finds nothing. Or at least that is the results I got the past five times I fell for it. Maybe it’s a coincidence, yeah, probably is.

if you want to install a free  virus scanner

Here is a list of the ones to try for free that by the majority of tech guys on the net, have been voted best free online scanners

PCWorld Post on free virus scanners i really can’t believe Avast and Avg are in that list….

I myself chose to install A-squared and set it for all protection modes. It does not run but a tiny process, never gives you a notice, but you can scan with it. and well I do that on a regular basis. Twice a week before bed. or just before I type any personal information into a website. To make sure there are no current cooties.

What to do if you feel you are infected.

shut your computer off and disconnect it from the internet. go to another computer if available. If none are available, or you have no portable thumb drive/ jump drive so you can sneaker mail software to your machine, then you have to do this from the infected machine, just disconect the internet each time you start one of these processes I tell you.

Here is the Download  list (include all of the downloadable software listed above)

Malwarebytes a free scanner that works well. Kind of specific needs though.. it really works.

A-Squared Hijack Free not a scanner but a process killer. kinda like HJT

If your scans show Vitumund or smitfraud or vundu use these two carefully smitfraudfix Also follow these instructions for smitfraudfix usage. Now get VunduFix. safe mode for best results on either program.

To get to safe mode: reboot computer and repeatedly tap the F8 button before the windows  logo and splash screen. Make boot selection and log in. Now run the programs.

If your computer only takes you to Google English try this post by…. well yours truly :-)

Keep them from hunting you out

firewall, best firewall is an internet router, go to the electronics store and get one. or go to amazone or bestbuy.com or go to compusa.com  just do something wise.

Hopefully I helped protect your computer or atleast increased your internet security and savvy.