Computer update

[ranuel]

Still no internet at home. I've pretty much given up on MSN being helpful. I'm going to try deleting MSN.EXE and associated crap off the computer and reinstalling it but first I want to move my saved emails from my MSN account to Gmail just in case.

Even if it works after over a week of no service at home I've realized that dialup at home is a luxury item now. I can continue to download stuff to read at home using the guest Wifi access at work after I clock out for the day and I can plan to visit the library a couple of times a month. Used to be my only option if I wanted to stay in touch with my friends who were scattered all over the world was the dialup but with Wifi proliferating everywhere that's not the case now. Money is tight so I need to cut stuff anyway.

It's going to be a pain at times but I think it will be workable and maybe next year when things should be better I can add it back.

Comments

[fenikkusuken.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Perhaps they've discontinued your dialup service in the area (phone line issues, as opposed to MSN issues) and are going to cable?

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

Nah, ATT runs the phone lines and they don't even have DSL available in my neighborhood. I get the same issue dialing from my cousin's house too so it's something on my computer.

[fenikkusuken.livejournal.com]

Well, shoot. That's gonna cut into your online playtime! How can you admin your RPGs?

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

I haven't been playing for about a year. I've turned over the GM duties to someone else who is trying to get a face-to-face game going.

[scribefigaro.livejournal.com]

If your computer is still rooted (and it probably is) you're just running a zombie computer; while it might give the appearance of your old OS it actually belongs to a botnet now. You were probably infected by someone else who got their system compromised and nonetheless remained on the Internet to infect others.

You have no idea what sort of website your computer is currently serving up. You're probably selling people fake antivirus programs. But you might be running a child porn website. You don't really know.

It's possible your ISP deliberately suspended your service because your computer was infecting other users.

With the OS rooted, anything you install can be compromised before you ever have a chance to use it. The only way to fix things (other than wiping the hard drive and starting anew) is to fix it from outside the OS, such as booting with a live CD and running tools like Malwarebytes AntiMalware and Spybot S&D on the compromised hard drive.

http://www.hirensbootcd.net/cd-contents/136-hbcd-106.html

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

My ISP (MSN) says I should be good. Spybot, Malwarebytes, and McAfee say I'm clean and nothing obvious to me shows up on Hijack this. I've run ComboFix, Superantispyware, and CCleaner too.

I cleaned out Backdoor Bandok over a week before this issue started and everything ran fine until there was one of those "We've updated XYZ enjoy the new features" things from MSN the last time I logged in sucessfully. Which is why I think something glitched with that.

I've got a Dell netbook so no CD drive.

I pity the person trying to run a porn site off of a computer that spent several hours a day hooked to a 30k dialup connection. I can't even watch Youtube without waiting about 10 minutes per minute of video for it to load.

Is there anything out there that will let me see what is using my bandwith?

[scribefigaro.livejournal.com]

(These are all really good things, props.)

But the thing is, if you have a really good rootkit it sticks itself into the OS to redirect file system and memory access *around* these things, so when (say) MBAM scans your registry the rootkit only lets it see a fake registry.

You can use an application to change a bootable CD ISO into a bootable USB ISO, but I imagine you're not interested and I haven't done it myself so I can't really help you anyway. :)

Is there anything out there that will let me see what is using my bandwith?

Open up a command line, type "netstat /b" to show you all open connections and the applications using them. This won't tell you how much traffic is actually being handled by each port/application, though. For that you'd need a packet sniffer like wireshark or some other network utilization tool.

http://www.wireshark.org/ (free)

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm downloading Wireshark and will play with it from home. I tried runing the "netstat /b" command and it flashed by too fast to read and then closed.

[scribefigaro.livejournal.com]

You have to open a command line window first.

start -> run -> "cmd"

And with the window up, "netstat /b"

You'll have to scroll up and down to read everything.

Wireshark is surprisingly user-friendly for what it does.

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll check it out.