What is Digg?192 Comments
- t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -9/+139"This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world," Allchin told the audience.
You mean they didn't know before this? - BloodJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -18/+137BALLMER SMASH!
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -38/+139probably because they are all using Macs at home..
- RCourtney, on 10/12/2007, -5/+67I'd like to preface this by stating I am no Linux fanboy, nor do I hate Windows - I think both have their appropriate uses (paperweight jokes aside).
Having said that, this sorta thing seriously scares me.
FTA: "Among the problems was a program that automatically disabled any anti-virus software."
Other than sadistic people and those who think the endless loop of killing off viruses and the subsequent reinfection is a Microsoft FPS game, who on earth tries to repair a hard drive that heavily infected on a fully-up system?
It did not dawn on even the "top engineers" to turn off the computer, remove the hard drive, plug said hard drive into a clean system as a slave and THEN run anti-virus/antispyware programs?
I'm reminded of a quote... "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
This sorta idiocy should never be admitted publicly - even if it helps explain why they suddenly give a rat's arse about security, viruses, and spyware. - drizek, on 10/12/2007, -5/+57They dont even have to set it up as a slave. They could have just booted up into a knoppix livecd and ran clamAV from there.
- zleetd00d, on 10/12/2007, -10/+57They just happen to use good security measures on a PC.
It's easy to avoid a virus. It's hard to get rid of one. - titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -5/+39WOOOOOOOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! YYYYEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Ok ready to tackle that virus problem. Gotta get pumped, WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! - t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+34Obviously Ballmer and a team of MS engineers don't know your "secret"... :P
- breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -7/+37Defender even allows you to launch counter measures against incoming missiles so you can keep your cities from being destroyed.
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -9/+38Perhaps he got tired of throwing chairs at it? *ducks*
- ericnmu, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3720 bucks says Ballmar didnt even look at the thing. Allchin made it up.
- crickert, on 10/12/2007, -10/+35Not to get totally off subject, but I'm tired of people bragging about how they use all these ***** tools to clean up PC's. I've worked on several machines for customers who first used the Geeksquad to "supposedly" clean them up. I have counted numerous times when I get a customer that brings me a machine where some other tech (e.g.) tries to use all these half assed cleanup techniques that work for about a day or two before the spyware comes back.
In my opinion, spending 3 hours on any machine to clean it up is ridiculous. Just backup data files, format, and reinstall. Apply updates with Autopatcher and install user applications. All can be done much faster and with much more reliable results than than trying 13 tools to clean system.
Don't know about most people, but I feel so much better giving a user a clean reformatted PC rather than some half baked, mickey mouse, geeksquaded, freeware cleanup experiment. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26"***** 1080solutions are pussies. I'm going to ***** bury those guys, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to ***** kill Bonzie Buddy!"
*throws chair* - VSKBadCRC, on 10/12/2007, -12/+35I've been working for the Geeksquad now for almost two years, and I've seen PCs with about every problem imagineable; bad hard drives, crippling viruses and spyware, mainboards that literally caught fire, damage from power surges and lightning strikes, you name it, I've probably seen it.
I love doing spyware and virus removals on computers, I can usually take a PC that's plagued to death with the stuff and have it completely clean and all problems fixed and repaired in 2-3 hours, depending on how fast the PC is.
It bothers me that the greatest minds of Microsoft don't know how to fix their own OS though. But to their credit spyware is extremely elusive, it can take on many forms and hide in a lot of places; rootkits, for example. Unless you look for them specifically, you'll never find them.
But yeah, if it's so bad you can't even scan on the infected machine - pull the damn drive out, scan it as a slave drive on a working PC. Check for rootkits (DLL Compare is your friend), killbox any found rootkits, scan with all the reliable spyware/virus scanners (Spysweeper, Pest Patrol, Ad-Aware, PC-Cillin, Ewido). Put the drive back in it's machine, boot into safe mode, MSConfig -> Disable all startup progs, disable all non-Microsoft services, run Hijackthis, kill any suspicious entries (If you're comfortable just doing that, or use the online entry reference tool for that), use DLL compre to make sure there aren't any rootkits that have resurfaced. Run WinsockFix (good practice anyways), reboot the machine.
Usually at this point you're picking off rogue registry entries, cleaning up bogus links on the desktop/start menu, removing Control Panel icons (WinAntivirus for example), and repairing any minor problems with the OS, removing damaged software (Norton and McAfee, here's looking at you), and reinstall or get something new.
Reboot three times, do a final scan with all your anti-spyware software, one last virus scan, if the light is green, the machine is clean. - mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27developers developers developers etc.
- Lonny, on 10/12/2007, -10/+31"It did not dawn on even the "top engineers" to turn off the computer, remove the hard drive, plug said hard drive into a clean system as a slave and THEN run anti-virus/antispyware programs?"
I'm going to go the very obvious route here and assume they were trying to use conventional methods that the average person could do with little instruction. They could have just as easily backed all his important documents up and reformated the entire drive. But they were trying to find a conventional method not a technical one. - t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -6/+25Norton 360 - turns viruses round 360 degrees!
- PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21@"developers developers developers"
No, no no…
"Antivirus, antispyware, regedit, delete!
I
love
this
operating system
YEAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" - Philoushka, on 10/12/2007, -9/+23oh my! I can imagine Steve "lumping" the PC home. From TFA: "the world's 13th wealthiest man with a fortune of about $18 billion, spent almost two days trying to rid the PC of worms, viruses, spyware, malware and severe fragmentation without success."
And I thought *I* had it bad with people asking me to find out "why it's so slow". But Ballmer doing favours for friends? Sweeet!
I have got to wonder, though: did he manage to disable WGA to get WindowsUpdate working? Did he have an XP Pro keygen on the USB stick in his pocket? Maybe he tried WinDiz? - NicP, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15"of course, like when someone crashes into a tree, stupid car."
If you built a car and 90% of drivers crashed it into a tree would you be blaming the drivers?
My point being if most of the users are having the same problem, its perhaps time to change the way the software works to fix the problem, good luck trying to change the users. - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Maybe the "Developers, developers, developers, developers!" chant was to encourage malware developers?
;) - BloodJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -35/+48Do you guys seriously think Steve Jobs could do much better?
- jwoelich, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14"I'm going to go the very obvious route here and assume they were trying to use conventional methods that the average person could do with little instruction. They could have just as easily backed all his important documents up and reformated the entire drive. But they were trying to find a conventional method not a technical one."
Right, because the average person has their PC packed up by Steve friggin' Ballmer and carted off to Microsoft headquarters to have their spyware/virus/malware problems dealt with. - leer317, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19If a team of top engineers at MS weren't able to save the hard drive, yet they're the ones creating OneCare Live, doesn't that mean that they wouldn't be able to properly secure the drive anyway??
- D4RKfantasy, on 10/12/2007, -10/+22Solution = C: FORMAT
- t35t0r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Wow, I would have thought Ballmer would have thrown the PC (and a chair) at somebody.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12ha, steve jobs, friends...thats a good one
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12i would pay to see how much he yells when hes mad at a computer, its gotta be good if you consider how worked up he gets at presentations
- angryredplanet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10The only problem Dig, is that 95% of windows users are noobs. That was the targeted demographic for the Windows OS's although in later years things have changed a little.
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11The main problem is not just that lots of people write viruses for Windows, it's that it's easy to write them. When you are in windows, your permissions are the same as a root user in Linux. When you log into Linux (if you're smart) you don't log in as root, you log in as a user with less permissions and when you need to do something as root you provide a password, perform that task, and close the root session. Windows is faulty by design, and Linux/Unix is secure by design. There is a bit of security by obscurity, but that's not the whole story.
- nbx909, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11microsoft shouldn't sell software that fixes their bugs... it should be free... This seems illegal to do as well but i'm not a lawyer...
- PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18I remember the first time I did that. I'm a Mac user, so when I was helping a friend set up his new-built Windows box and didn't bring my activation patcher, I did a quick search for one on the internets. (It had been built as a Flight Simulator-only computer).
Suddenly, there were about ten new processes running, and when I killed any one, another process respawned it! I hadn't accepted any installation dialogs on any of the sites, so I was shocked that Windows could allow this to happen. He immediately reinstalled Windows. He does this every once and a while, just to keep the system fresh, and doesn't allow me to go on the internet with it even with Firefox.
Stupid Windows. - VSKBadCRC, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"In my opinion, spending 3 hours on any machine to clean it up is ridiculous. Just backup data files, format, and reinstall. Apply updates with Autopatcher and install user applications. All can be done much faster and with much more reliable results than than trying 13 tools to clean system."
And that option is always there, but it's not always the best option for everyone. It's easy for anyone that is comfortable working on PCs to wipe it, reload it, then install everything. But there's a lot of little things they lose, like printer and hardware drivers, personal files, their music, their videos, family photos, whatever applications and games they have installed; anything that's been configured by them or someone else.
Sometimes they don't even have the software CDs, or can't find them in a timely fasion. We have people come in all the time that would rather wait for the repairs to be done on their computer instead of paying their computer manufacturer $35-$50 to replace their system restore media.
In a lot of cases, to make it easier for those clients that come in, it's better for them if the system is cleaned of all viruses and spyware, and I do mean all - yes, leaving any part of one can result in the machine becoming re-infected; or if they opt out of antivirus or antispyware software. I don't represent the entirety of Geeksquad, but I can honestly say I've never had a machine I've done a spyware/virus removal come back because of problems, but I know some of the other stores in our area don't know how to effectively do this, they spend way too long then end up reloading it anyways.
/end rant. - AlexLand, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I'm not really sure how you folks expect ANYONE to fix a computer as obviously riddled with viruses and spyware as this one was. It's really not that hard to use firefox and any antivirus program and never get malware ever.
- sremick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"I have counted numerous times when I get a customer that brings me a machine where some other tech (e.g.) tries to use all these half assed cleanup techniques that work for about a day or two before the spyware comes back."
That's why cleaning a PC is more than just removing the junk. It's also a user re-education. Of course it's going to get re-infected if the user continues with the bad practices that got them infected in the first place. Get them off IE and onto Firefox (a big cleaning bill is usually good incentive for that), teach them about attachments and such, etc.
"In my opinion, spending 3 hours on any machine to clean it up is ridiculous. Just backup data files, format, and reinstall."
Bully for you. In my opinion. a lengthy process of reformatting, reinstalling Windows (hmm where's that Windows CD...), reinstalling drivers, reinstalling all the applications (hmm where are those CDs...), reconfiguring the myriad of preferences set by the user over the years, reinstalling the data, and trying to glue it all together again and make it work like it did before is ridiculous. I have yet to find a machine I couldn't clean. Not to say I won't someday, but I have a good track-record. And I've done a lot of the, including many having some of the worst ***** out there. It's rare that I can get by with just the likes of Ad-Aware and Spybot, most of the time I'm forced to use lots of specialized (and lesser-known) tools that are far from "*****". Sometimes they are custom works-in-progress being written for a current nasty that has no other means of removal, by some of the hardcore guys that hang out in the private anti-spyware forums. My USB flash drive is full of such tools.
"All can be done much faster and with much more reliable results than than trying 13 tools to clean system."
Maybe you should learn to be better-skilled at using the "***** tools" so it doesn't take you so long to use them. What's faster for you might not be faster for someone else, and just because all you run up against are vanilla MS Office PCs with a handful of Word and Excel docs doesn't mean that accurately reflects the users a lot of the rest of us come up against.
I haven't a clue how to use an oscilloscope, and might fuss with the hundred knobs and buttons for hours and get nowhere, but that doesn't mean that a tech who knows how to use one could use it to figure out a problem in 5 mins. I'm sure he doesn't consider it "*****"... to him, it's an invaluable tool.
"Don't know about most people, but I feel so much better giving a user a clean reformatted PC rather than some half baked, mickey mouse, geeksquaded, freeware cleanup experiment."
Granted, but if the job is done right, it's not "half baked". Powerful tools in the hands of unskilled techs doesn't reflect badly on the tool, it reflects badly on the tech. I feel better about returning peoples' computer to the way they were before they were infected, not the way they were out of the box before they started using them. Otherwise you get endless calls after the fact asking about why X Y and Z don't work like they used to, or what happened to the data for such'n'such program (which you missed during the backup). That's not a happy customer, and burns your rep. My rep is built because while 99% of the other "computer guys" around my area make their customers suffer with reformatted PCs, I can clean without reformatting. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12You get Spybot Search and Destroy free?! You lucky duck!
- SpyDerMann, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Shawnz: Please go to this page and see what you're missing. This isn't your daddy's spyware anymore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit - t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Had to do that once. Someone decided to use Google and IE as their tools of choice to find some cracks and serial numbers. 10 mins of browsing -> one laptop, slow to a crawl, and barely working. Boot into Safe Mode, copy 10GB of work files to an iPod (no USB2 in safe mode - took AGES!), and format the PC. So much fun.
- sp4rky, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17MS defender may not be great but it sure does help prevent alot of stuff.
- RocketMike, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10If a virus writer were to write a real virus for OS X (REAL virus - one that does real damage, and spreads like wildfire, and isn't a "proof of concept"), they'd probably be very respected in the virus writing community. That would be quite an undertaking, considering that it hasn't been done yet.
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Well here's an easy solution (not resolving to installing a different OS):
Format
Install WinXP/Vista
Install Firefox
Install Nod32
Install Outpost Firewall
Turn off Microsoft Firewall
Delete all references to IE (shortcuts etc) so that the user will never use it.
With the help of a little common sense that should get rid of most of those problems.
Edit: Bah was supposed to reply to the story not to this post! Digg's layout is REALLY weird, I would definitely change quite a few things... - SmokedL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@To those claiming to be able to guarantee the health of a computer after numerous infections.
It doesn't matter how much you know or how many tools you use. Once a computer is compromised, even years of man hours of work on the machine can give you no better than "We're pretty darn confident it's clean". That holds for any operating system by the way. The only thing that might enable you to do it at all is if you have a resent (as in number of changes made) snapshot, guaranteed to be clean, against which you can run a file by file binary comparison, and you have the great luck to find that the differences are few enough to be handled one by one. Of course, this method is way to expensive to actually practice in real life in the great majority of cases.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure you're all good at what you do and rightly take pride in that. But you have to be realistic and honest. You need to tell your clients that the only way you can guarantee that their system is clean is via a complete reinstall, that they are taking a calculated risk choosing any other course of action.
Of course, even taking that path you need to go over any of their personal documents that may contain scripts with a fine-tooth comb. - Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Not Quite. I do tech support for people as a side job and here are a few of my sworn enemies:
SurfSidekick
Nail.exe
I have found that the easiest way to get rid of these is to reformat. Sure I could spend hours of my time and the customer's money to edit the registry, apply hotfixes and whatnot but it's easier to backup their data, format, and re-install Windows. What's better, a slow, crippled, but clean computer or a brand new install of Windows? I'll take #2 any day of the week.
I wish I wasn't a gamer, I'd go over to Linux full time. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Is Steve Ballmer a programmer? Does he have any tech knowledge, or is he a biz guy? That would explain alot of things about MS.
- Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14I have had spyware like this, took me 2 weeks to finally kill it, the problem is its like a hydra, i kill it hear it pops up there. I was fortunate in that it was one of the nicer ones that didnt kill my antivirus, made it much easier, but everytime I kiled 3 downloader trojans, a few more would be sitting there waiting to redownload them (yes I could have disconnected but I was playing games and downloading programs to destroy it)
got to one point where my firewall was saying "sad7a8as9.exe wants to connect to the net->no; akklsd8922nm.exe wants to connect to the net ->no; asdfkjl...."
so I can understand how this can happen, particually if it is a nasty one that does kill your programs - monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8exactly .... lol it'll be fun when there's spyware created specificly for OneCare.
can't wait for Microsoft to create TwoCare to protect OneCare from spyware and viruses - TheSpellingNazi, on 10/12/2007, -24/+30@Superkendall
Actually. if the Mac had a virus, the entire community would be unprepared for it.
Its a good thing people dont really want to write a virus for ~5% of the computer base.
-------------------------------------------------------
Flame on! - aphexcoil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7One thing that I've done on my home computer when running Windows XP is keep a copy of VMWare's virtual machine on my system. I do all of my surfing and dirty web crawling inside the virtual machine. If it gets hosed, I just restore from a good virtual file before the damage occured and continue surfing.
I don't think I've ever had to use the web browser on the main OS -- except for updates.
You should check out virtualization. -
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