All right...got it!

The latest upgrade of AVG Free found the bastard! "Trojan Horse IRC/Back Door.SdBot.145.0". Actually, both my machines had it on it, as well as a number of Alexa probes. But the thing didn't appear to have my slower machine as badly tied up, so I was able to get the AVG Free (7.0x) download and its latest virus definition downloaded; it was that latest virus definition that found it. (Running AVG Free 7.0 w/o the latest definitions didn't find it...)

Anyway, both PCs are surrounded by ZoneAlarm, and have latest AVG Free, SpyBot and AdAware running. Damn! Grygus is right...if this is what it takes to keep your machine "safe" running (if that's the correct term) Windozw connected to the net, then his timeline for making the entire net useless is right on schedule!

And in answer to Another Scott who posited whether the SP$ disk was OK...it did pass inspection. However, consider this: On my "slow" (read: older PII 400MHz) machine, I wiped the disk, then loaded SP4, then ZoneAlarm, then updated it to its latest version while running its "older" self, then installed SpyBot, updated it to its latest version, then ran it...and it found Alexa. Is Micros~1 shipping Alexa with its software? Andrew?

Post #199,786 by jb4 3/21/05 3:17:01 PM Reply	All right...got it! The latest upgrade of AVG Free found the bastard! "Trojan Horse IRC/Back Door.SdBot.145.0". Actually, both my machines had it on it, as well as a number of Alexa probes. But the thing didn't appear to have my slower machine as badly tied up, so I was able to get the AVG Free (7.0x) download and its latest virus definition downloaded; it was that latest virus definition that found it. (Running AVG Free 7.0 w/o the latest definitions didn't find it...) Anyway, both PCs are surrounded by ZoneAlarm, and have latest AVG Free, SpyBot and AdAware running. Damn! Grygus is right...if this is what it takes to keep your machine "safe" running (if that's the correct term) Windozw connected to the net, then his timeline for making the entire net useless is right on schedule! And in answer to Another Scott who posited whether the SP$ disk was OK...it did pass inspection. However, consider this: On my "slow" (read: older PII 400MHz) machine, I wiped the disk, then loaded SP4, then ZoneAlarm, then updated it to its latest version while running its "older" self, then installed SpyBot, updated it to its latest version, then ran it...and it found Alexa. Is Micros~1 shipping Alexa with its software? Andrew? jb4 shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub* + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf.* BULLSHIT
Post #199,797 by Silverlock 3/21/05 3:53:04 PM Reply	Alexa shipping with windows? Yes. It's the "related links" foofaraw in tools/related links. If you use that, IE will contact Alexa servers. There is a registry entry in brand spanking new installs that allows for this. Thus, Alexa does indeed ship with Windows. ----------------------------------------- "In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." -- H. L. Mencken Support our troops, Impeach Bush. D. D. Richards
Post #199,810 by Andrew Grygus 3/21/05 4:23:18 PM Reply	Yeah, but it makes a good test . . . . to prove your spyware program is actually working and hasn't been disabled by something. Even a SP will usually put Alexa back on. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]

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