rtroxel — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 17:57:34 +0000

I ran three anti-bot programs this morning: AdAware, SpyBot and ZeroSpyWare.

I found one piece of malicious software called CWS.SearchX. It created or modified the file (in XP) C:\windows\system32\fxssvc.exe.

Fxssvc.exe is the name of XP's fax driver, so maybe the bot activates when you try to send a fax.

According to ZeroSpyware, it hijacks the user's browser, sets the start and search pages to about:blank and keeps a record of pages visited in a logfile in the root directory.

I think "legal" ad cookies do this as well. I guess it's a matter of who uses the information and how the use it?

rtroxel — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:46:02 +0000

I'm going to try that. Thanks.

Busy — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:22:36 +0000

send your self an email (from same account) with some weird words in it, something like

Hey Belly,
how is belly button fluff today, bely fluf buton ?
thanks
button

and see if you get any spam with the silly key words used.
It might not work if the words are too weird, they might have to match them to spam topics

rtroxel — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:43:18 +0000

Quote: What e-mail service are you using?

Comcast, which has a lousy reputation for spam.

Abhishek Reddy — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:42:15 +0000

I could be a bot at the receiver's end. See which contact addresses you get spammed for (all?).

OtterBob — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:58:47 +0000

In the words of Bugs Bunny, "ehhh, could be". What e-mail service are you using?