Something More Terminal
One of my computers suffered a terminal failure over the weekend, and I needed to take it to the menders yesterday. The symptoms were that it refused to even start, recycling round the login endlessly, but never getting near starting.
Before this a scan by Clamwin had shown that the computer was infected by the DroopTroop virus. There were several instances in a sub-directory where I had downloaded an old blog and Clamwin also flagged that winlogon.exe and Internet Explorer had been replaced by versions that had been modified by the trojan. The first explained why the computer wouldn’t start and the second, why Internet Explorer didn’t search properly and pointed me at a load of porn and shopping sites, I didn’t want.
The machine was completely unuseable.
So what caused it. Either the downloaded blog contained the data, so did someone find a way of commenting on the blog and adding the virus in that way?
But the machine had also been used by my late son to download all sorts of computer games from various sites. I would have thought that he would have been more sensible than to introduce a virus.
The computer has never been used for e-mail, so I doubt that route was possible.
On the other hand, the computer has been showing odd behaviour for months and I called the menders in to fix it. We thought that somehow McAffee was corrupted and this was causing the computer to stop. It looks like the virus was there then. I removed McAffee and replaced it with Clamwin. Another fault was that the computer wouldn’t run Windows Media Player. It just said it was an illegal win32 application.
This is a list of Drooptroop symptons from the PCThreat web site.
Modified browser homepage settings and search results
Hijacked Windows desktop wallpaper and strange desktop shortcuts and icons
Abnormal Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Drooptroop.cpt files in Windows task manager system processes, tower speaker error bleeping sound
Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Drooptroop.cpt reactivates itself after been deleted manually, extremely difficult to get rid of
Legal registry keys, dlls and system files missing, causing “Blue Screen Of Death” error
Abnormal bandwidth use, slow Internet browser and Windows system
Pop-up blocker unable to block annoying porn and gambling related bulk pop-upsWhat Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Drooptroop.cpt will do when embedded within a computer is as follows:
Records browsing habits, monitors Windows system activity to generates equivalent pop-ups
Bypasses security tools and forwards credit card, usernames, passwords and other private information to outside hackers
Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Drooptroop.cpt downloads and installs diverse malicious programs via Windows and browser security loopholesTrojan-Dropper.Win32.Drooptroop.cpt has also been seen to display the following behavior:
Adds a Registry Key (RUN) to auto start Programs on system start up
Registers a Dynamic Link Library File
Executes a Process
This Process Deletes Other Processes from Disk
So you can see it is an evil thing to get on your computer to say the least. Luckily, I only used this computer for developing Visual Basic programs and the odd bit of browsing of news and other respected web sites.
I suppose that I could have inadvertently installed something nasty in the last few months, becausev of my awful typing. But I hope not!
Moving Phones
Obviously, as I’m moving, I will have to change my phone. Here I’m on BT, but in London, I’ll be using cable for broadband and TV, so it would seem logical to use that for phones as well.
I hadn’t realised that I will be able to move my number, but I can. So I won’t have to tell a lot of my contacts, what my new number is! It will be a great time saver.
Giving It To a Museum
Today I contacted The Centre for Computing History in Haverhill and later they collected some of my boxes of software. They may also take some of my old hardware, like a DecWriter, a very early and powerful HP Vectra and the Artemis 1000 system.
They certainly need help in all forms.
The Price of an Artemis 1000 System in 1984
In going through my papers for possibly the last time, I found this invoice for an Artemis system. Or at least for the hardware required.
A Metier Invoice for an Artemis System
Effectively, my recollection is that this was about the time we sold the company to Lockheed and it was for old-times sake more than anything. I have a feeling I actually bought my old development mchine from the attic. It’s still in my shed now and I suspect it is the only one left!
Are We Winning the Spam Wars?
If you believe this article in The Register, the answer may be yes. Here’s an extract.
Spam volumes almost halved in the three months between August and the end of October, according to Symantec.
Symantec’s hosted services unit (formerly MessageLabs) credits a 47 per cent sharp decrease in global spam volumes to action by the authorities against botnets and organised cybercrooks. In October, authorities in the Netherlands took down several servers associated with the Bredolab botnet. The action followed the September closure of spamit.com, a key player in the unlicensed pharmaceuticals spam racket, and arrests in the US, UK and Ukraine of scores of suspected members of a ZeuS phishing Trojan ring.
If more of us installed proper protection against spam, we might continue to see a decline.
Let’s hope so! If you don’t want to spend money on spm protection, you could always use Clamwin, as I do.
A Spat Over a Breast Enhancement Cream
There is a legal spat going on between a company called Rodial and a plastic surgeon called Dr. Dalia Nield. You can read about it in this article in The Independent.
It strikes me that this one will run and run, but it could be one that falls into that category, where someone makes a legitimate comment, from professional knowledge and experience, and someone else decides they’ll challenge that statement in the Courts by suing for libel. Read the article in The Independent and you will see that Dr. Nield is supported by Sense About Science, a charity which fights against these actions and in the past supported the author, Simon Singh.
These sort of actions worry me, as I have pretty strong opinions on some controversial subjects and one of these days I might arouse the ire of a rather nasty snake oil salesman. So I will not come down in favour of one party or another.
I do know of Rodial though, but in a strange way. At least twice a week for several months, I have got a sales e-mail from them. When I got the first, I thought it was a spam e-mail, as it was trying to sell me a breast enhancement cream or other such product, that I have no need for. Mainly because I’m a man, but also because I don’t use any creams or potions at all. I should also say, that, I’ve seen lots of this type of e-mail from spammers in the United States and as this email seemed little different, I immediately regarded it as being of the same type, even though it enlarged breasts rather than the male organ. I didn’t even bother to try to unsubscribe, as it came from a retired e-mail address, I don’t use very often. So that means they must have obtained an old list from somewhere. I wonder what the Information Commisioner would say about that. I’m not bothered, as I just set the spam filter to drop them straight into the Spam Folder, as I do for most of the spam I get, as often unsubscribing tells the spammer that the e-mail address is real.
Trying to Stop Inevitable Decline
There are two related stories today about improving the lot of rail passengers and improving the Royal Mail.
The Royal Mail is probably past saving especially if they raise prices, as people will not be prepared to spend more to get letters delivered, when e-mail and the telephone is there. After all phone charges are dropping because of competition and the Royal Mail will only compete by dropping prices.
As to improving trains, we need to replace some old stock like the Pacers, but many are saying they’ve had enough with commuting five days a week and are using the Internet to cut some of those journeys. We are also getting to a point, where people won’t pay more to commute, if stories about low-ridership on the fast commute lines to St. Pancras are true. So perhaps we might see some strategic spending on the worst parts of the network, but the grandiose plans of some are surely dead in these austere times.
The Daisy 2011 Presentation Browser
I’ve just rewritten the first of my suite of Daisy Web Tools, the Presentation Browser.
Presentation Browser Screen Shot
I originally wrote the program for three reasons.
- You can control the size of the browser window, so that it fits your on-line Internet-based presentation. In the screen-shot above, the browser has been set to 800 x 600 pixels and some of the tolbars have been removed to give a cleaner view of the web page.
- The program allows you to print clean copies of pages from the Internet. The classic is wanting to print say a recipe or a set of instructions and instead of one page with what you want, you get the first bit on one page, the second on another and ipmteen pages of garbage. The Daisy Presentation Browser, allows you to select the part of the page you want and then print it.
- The program also allows you to take copies of web pages and then paste them into other programs, like Word and Paint. It makes producing manuals and on-line documentation a lot easier.
The software is free and can be downloaded from this page. There is a simple registration process to unlock some features of the program. As I hate spam with a vengeance, I only use e-mail addresses collected in the registration process to return user and registration codes.
The software works on any version of Windows later than 2000 or NT4.
To run the software you need to have Internet Explorer installed on your computer, but it doesn’t have to be your default browser.
Would You Trust Western Union?
I’ve never used them, but I’m led to believe they are a reputable company.
But as I get at least five e-mails every day, where the company is mentioned in some form of scam, I don’t think I would even use them to transfer money to someone who I knew to be totally genuine. And I wouldn’t accept any money from someone who wanted to use Western Union!
So why do they allow their name to be taken in vain, by all these criminals?
One In and One Out!
I had a bone density scan some weeks ago and as I’ve not heard anything, I asked the nurse to see if there was anything on their computer, when she did my Warfarin blood test and gave me a shot of B12 today.
There wasn’t any news and judging by how I feel, my bones may not be tip-top, but they certainly aren’t in falling apart mode, as I would have hoped that I would have been called in for the bad news.
It strikes me that there could be a big increase in efficiency here, with possible cost savings!
If you have a test that can be quantified accurately and you are well on the right side of the problem level, surely, you can be told the results either by a more or less standard e-mail and/or letter.
With my bone scan, it might say that I’m reasonably fine, but I should come back for another scan in say six months. A copy could also go to my GP, so she would know as well. I have a feeling, that a lot of communications from hospitals to GPs are actually letters not e-mails and are scanned in the surgery. If I’m wrong, which I hope I am, about these letters please correct me!
There must be hundreds of instances in the NHS, where a sensible bit of automation could save money and redeploy staff to more important duties, than writing lots of similar letters.
We are seeing instances of automation, like appointments systems that text you reminders, but we need to see more. I personally would like to see a better system for anti-coagulant testing.
The Anonymous Widower 