Windows/NetBIOS pop-up Spam: 411
bofus writes "This article from Wired News presents a new way to deliver unsolicited advertising content - the MS Windows Messenger service.
It appears that the client software hasn't been widely distributed yet, but it's probably only a matter of time before a free clone is circulating. This method could become the delivery method of choice for all kinds of unsolicited junk, given the number of unsecured PCs out there.
On the flip side, if you run a relatively secured machine and have some sort of firewall, this probably shouldn't concern you."
ahh nuts! (Score:5, Funny)
Hello, would you like to get laid? Call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx
alas, now that I know it's spam.. my hopes have been crushed...
Re:ahh nuts! (Score:5, Funny)
Hello, would you like to get laid? Call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx
alas, now that I know it's spam.. my hopes have been crushed...
Of course I meant it. But you never called
But what about the small penised people? (Score:3, Funny)
Their mind has wandered...
SEX...
Sex with the (wo)man of their dreams...
oh, how wonderful life could be... but alas no, not for this poor soul. For they only have a tiny small penis.
And right then, at that very moment just as their dream is being crushed by their own insecurities, up pops Windows Messaging Service:
++ INCREASE THE SIZE OF YOUR PENIS!!!! ++
++ New pill adds 3 inches to your cock! ++
How right it would be for them at that moment, to give this poor poor person some hope in life?
So my question is "Who are we to judge the rights and wrongs of this 'Mass advertising/marketing/spamming' product; a product that might give hope to just one or two of the thousands of millions spammed?"
That said, personally I couldn't give a rats-arse about some spotty virgin geeks' lack of sex - but hey, SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE must actually buy these products. Find that person, kill them, and the whole spamming problem is solved! Surely?!!
---
Lots of love, Zaiffy baby!
is there an echo in the room (Score:4, Informative)
what client ?!?1 (Score:5, Informative)
it is a cli and batchable, this can be supremely irritating as the only info given with the popup is wins name which is useless unless you are in the same domain/ou.
Re:what client ?!?1 (Score:2)
Any tool with minimal user thought is valuable to spammers. It beats the hell out of the other options (like thinking or learning how the internet works)
Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:2, Troll)
That's all we did here in the lab and it took care of things quite nicely.
It's not very Newtonian to be running services that you just simply do not need! Newton was a very smart man who took advantage of several areas that he was able to, but I doubt he would ever have wastefully ran services that he didn't ever use.
Please be smart and think/act like a physicist. Just don't stop brushing your teeth/hair or start wearing Spandex(TM) pants and bicycle helmets to work -- that's just plain weird!
Ah well, back to the lab...
Re:Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:2)
OK I know check the dependencies but it's still a dice roll. I decided it's easier to just install Tiny firewall on all the boxes, let 'em talk to eachother all they want but not allow 'lsa services' to chat w/ the internet.
Nothing (Score:3, Informative)
Frankly, the only time I've seen it used is when I annoy the hell out of my co-workers by sending them anonymous popus using this lovely piece of Windows software [webattack.com].
Re:Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:4, Informative)
Port 135 is not messenger. Messenger is an RPC service and port 135 is the RPC port locator on Windows (like portmap on unix). Messenger can use any port at all - blocking port 135 works because client machines connect to port 135 to locate the port that the messenger rpc service is running on. Blocking port 135 may stop a bunch of other things from working, but net stop messenger stops just messenger.
Not that I really care - I would just cut off the port and then worry about only if someone complains.
Re:Why Windows users use firewalls (Score:3, Insightful)
OK a few points here. (1) personal firealls are good for lots of things, personally I use one to stop applications connecting OUT not IN (i.e. stopping apps "phoning home". Show me how to do that without a firewall please. Sure if you're running only O/S apps and have personally inspected the code of all of them to look for ring backs then you're fine. I run windows on several boxes, and that isn't possible. (2) It's better to be safe than sorry. My linux router/server does have a firewall, but it's services are also tightened up nicely. Why not use both? We've seen issues recently where trojanised apps open sockets during the install process, or later on, without people expecting it. With my firewall in place I really don't have to worry about that, sure my weekly scans will find any unexpected open sockets but the firewall will have blocked hem long before that.
I'd say that someone relying on a firewall for his security is a lot fucking worse off than someone with solid servers and no firewall in place, because all a firewall is going to let you do is filter the packets based on IP. Spoof an IP and hit something that can be affected with a small amount of data or manage to take control of a machine on the local network, and your "high security" system is toast. It's like the r-services with IP-based trust all over again.
And a fundamental misunderstanding of firewalls like that doesn't make you look smart. My firewall (for instance) will allow ftp access to the server from the internal net, but not from the external one. Is it IP based? partly. Could you spoof it? Of course not. Sure you can make your packet look like it's coming from 192.168.0.5 but how the hell do you make it look like it's coming from eth1 not eth0? Routers use IP based stuff, a secure firewall does as much as possible based purely on interface.
Re:Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:2)
Net Stop Messenger in San Francisco (Score:4, Funny)
The only time it's really a problem is Critical Mass [critical-mass.org].
Re:Instructions for Windows NT/2000/XP Users (Score:4, Informative)
Right Click the icon for This Computer on the desktop. Click on manage.
Doubleclick Sessions and Services.
Doubleclick Services.
Scroll down to Messenger, doubleclick it.
Click on Stop. Change pull-down menu from Automatic to Manual.
Click on Apply.
You are done.
Re:what client ?!?1 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:what client ?!?1 (Score:3, Informative)
-----------------------
net send 127.0.0.1 ILoveYou! Kindly read the attached popup from me to you.
a.bat
----------------------
It'll just run itself over and over again. Doing it from home (384k DSL) to here (typical college maxed out T1) got about 3 per second... your results may vary.
Secret Weapon (Score:4, Funny)
Good article, real funny (Score:5, Funny)
That sure is a funny way to say "death threats."
"The girls of the internet. Ooh, I'd go online with them anyday!"
-Homer Simpson
It's called a firewall... (Score:2, Informative)
It'll block everything you don't want if you set it up correctly.
Wonderful... (Score:2, Interesting)
The Solution (Score:3, Informative)
Or we could just bitch about it on
Re:The Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Solution (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, if you're one of those poor souls running some bastard custom dialer (eg, SBC/EnterNet) then you're SOL.
Re:The Solution (mod this up please) (Score:4, Informative)
The method described above does not disable netbios over tcp/ip - so it has no chance of stopping the popups.
If you firewall off or disable the netbios traffic [microsoft.com] you should be fine according to microsoft.
I just tested this at home and was unable to disable the popup messages on my win2k box. however firewalling the messanger port or disabling or messanger is a guranteed method of stopping this nonsense.
Re:The Solution (Score:2)
net send (Score:5, Funny)
net send %1 "crapflood of info"
goto one
It was kind of amusing to watch. People would click the OK button on the message and as soon as it went away another popped up. The best thing is the beep that accompanies the message. Oh the assinine joy....
The Register... (Score:2, Informative)
El Reg [theregister.co.uk]
How to do it (Score:3, Informative)
c:\> net send \\ip_address "message"
Re:How to do it (Score:2)
Re:How to do it (Score:3, Interesting)
I soon began to use a batch file to repetedly spam them with messages, a little while later I build a Visual C++ program to allow a user to input the user they wished to spam along with their message and how many times to spam them. It was amazing to watch how fast the program I made spread through the junior high.
After about a week and a half I was called into the office and suspended for 3 days because roughly 56 people in my class used my program to harass their classmates.
Do yourself a favor - kill this service anyways. (Score:5, Informative)
"Cool this service allows people to modify my registry remotely, sweet!"
While I know there are some legitimate and possibly useful reasons to have these services enabled, why on earth are they enabled by default?
Re:Do yourself a favor - kill this service anyways (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Do yourself a favor - kill this service anyways (Score:2, Informative)
"Cool this service allows people to modify my registry remotely, sweet!"
You do realize that you have to provide authentication (ie. username/pwd) for this to work, don't you? You can't just wander around networks checking out others' systems.
Simon
It's already happening... (Score:2, Informative)
its almost as if... (Score:5, Informative)
There were many helpful suggestions in those posts.
Simple fix... (Score:4, Informative)
The Messenger service is stopping.
The Messenger service was stopped successfully.
Then when you're up for it, just disable the service entirely from the services administration tool. It won't break any workstation functionality.
So what's next? Spam on my HP Printer [digitaltrust.it]?
Re:Simple fix... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Simple fix... (Score:3, Funny)
-- Cheers,
-- RLJ
Even better fix.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod Parent Up, Please! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Simple fix... (Score:5, Funny)
I've sent messages to random printers before. Back in the days before Napster, there was a P2Pish search engine that scoured the net for open SMB shares. People would often share their whole C drive (retardedly), but the most fun was to send messages like "I'm running out of ink. I'm running out of ink. I'm running out of ink. I'm running out of ink. (etc)" or "You should reall secure your machine.." to remote printers shared to the world over SMB.
S
Just to point out the obvious... (Score:2, Insightful)
net send slashdot "First post!" (Score:5, Funny)
Least of your problems. (Score:4, Informative)
If your NETBIOS ports are open, getting spam should be the least of your worries. You'll be too busy dodging winnuke attacks and fileshare scans/cracking. Close off ports 137 and 138 on any WAN connections. Of course, any competent windows network admin already knows this.
If you READ the article (Score:4, Informative)
... youll see that the messager service uses port 135, not 137 or 139.
Re:Least of your problems. (Score:5, Funny)
I can't find a port setting on my NT Lan Manager - what are you talking about?
Are you useing that TCP/IP thing? That's for hackers on the internet.
You should be useing NetBEUI - now that's a stable protocall, made by the fine folks at Microsoft. Not one of those "Internet" (read: hacker) protocalls made by one of those unwashed UNIX people.
I've heard the MSN is going to move to NetBEUI - so I know it's the network protocall of the future!
If you can't use NetBEUI - at least give Banyan Vines a try. Works great with our Windows for Workgroups!
Stay away from OS/2 - thats bad Mojo. Amiga people like OS/2 so I know it's bad.
Re:Least of your problems. (Score:5, Informative)
Works like a charm and doesn't require any extra software. Hell, you could have the cable modem company's favorate version of multiple machines on a cable modem (modem with multiple IP service plus the client machines all plugged into one hub) using this and you'll still be safe.
Does anyone here actually understand TCP/IP? (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of "Paper MCSEs" understand this because the networking exam covers the OSI model. The same thing goes for those "Paper CCNAs".
Here's how it works. When I do a net send "Message", the following occurs. Once the data portion of the net send information is formatted by the appropriate layers, it's handed down to the protocol layer and wrapped in a UDP header with a port number. UDP is the protocol responsible for maintaining a communication session between hosts. The port number is like an apartment number in a street address. A lot of services have to talk using the UDP protocol, so it's divided into port numbers (As an FYI, the same is done for TCP). This in turn is handed down to the network layer where it will get a source and destination address stamp (The IP addresses). That in turn is handed down to the data link layer which stamps on the source and destination MAC addresses (Your computer and the default gateway). From there, it hits the physical layer and is on the wire. Along the way, the data link layer changes every hop that is made because the MAC addresses involved change at each router hop. Once it gets to the destination IP address, the recipient strips off the layers to reveal the data. It knows to hand that data up to the NetBIOS services because they're the ones listening on UDP port 138. Finally, you get a little window trying to sell pr0n. Here's a picture [uic.edu] that shows the different layers of a TCP packet and their function.
Here's a rundown on NetBIOS port usage.
UDP port 137 is used for NetBIOS name resolution.
UDP port 138 is used for browsing, domain authentication, and datagrams (This is what the messenger service uses).
TCP port 139 is used for the actual session. This is what you transfer files through.
TCP port 135 is the RPC service. Some people often confuse it with the NetBIOS ports. I don't know why.
So, technically, you'll want to block UDP ports 137 and 138 and TCP port 139. Unfortunately, a lot of home equipment is geared towards the novice and they don't separate the UDP and TCP protocols. You are forced to block both TCP and UDP for any given port number. Because of this, you end up blocking more than is required.
For those interested in this brief tutorial, I highly encourage you to get a CCNA study guide even if you're not going to get the certification. Lots of valuable networking info.
Lucas
MCSE, CCNA, Ex-Microsoft NT Networking and Security Support Rep
Re:Does anyone here actually understand TCP/IP? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the problem with this is what exactly? Your firewall should block everything unless you specifically exempt it. Only people living in 1994 are still trying to play the "I'll just block dangerous ports" whack-a-mole game with their firewalls. Any el-cheapo home Linksys box will block all inbound connections by default. There isn't any reason to be using NetBIOS across the Internet period. It's a horribly insecure protocol that was never designed to be used across a WAN. Keep it on the intranet where it is meant to be used.
Re:Does anyone here actually understand TCP/IP? (Score:3, Informative)
From a security standpoint, you're right. At home, I use SPI. Sometimes though, I turn it off and just block the commonly attacked NetBIOS ports since most scanning activity is for NetBIOS and SQL(I don't run SQL at home). From a control freak standpoint, it's just plain rediculous to specify a port without specifying a protocol. I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine.
Legality? (Score:2, Interesting)
Only "positive" feedback? (Score:5, Funny)
What about the thousands of calls that go something like, "YOU MOTHER F*CKER!!! STOP MAKING THESE F*CKING POPUPS COME UP WHEN I'M PLAYING COUNTERSTRIKE OR I'LL F*CKING RIP OFF YOUR F*CKING HEAD AND F*CKING SH*T DOWN YOUR F*CKING NECK!!!!!"
Sorry, I don't have anything else to say. The stupid lameness filter is censoring my post for yelling.
To stop this on WindowsXP: (Score:4, Informative)
When that comes up, expand 'Services and Applications', and click on Services.
Scroll down to find "Messenger". Right-click and go to Properties. Set 'Startup Type' to 'Disabled'. Hit 'STop' to stop the service. Click OK. Close Computer Management.
Done. You're now clear.
(Many people won't need this. But I'm sure at least one person will.)
Re:To stop this on WindowsXP: (Score:4, Informative)
Next /. poll: (Score:2, Funny)
( ) An Instant Message client
( ) A method of sending popups
( ) An Email Client
( ) My own worst enemy
( ) Cowboy Neal's Little Secret
Even if you have a firewall... (Score:2, Informative)
A local university ehre is having some serious issues with that. Of course, people using Macs or Linux are once again quite exuberant about the fact that they aren't affected.
And closing the port or disabling the service on individual systems may not be possible, because different applications need to use the service for other uses. Printer servers for example use it for notification of print job status.
already out there (Score:5, Interesting)
i just wish windows would log things like the origin of said messages so the abuse could be addressed at its source.
This is old hat... (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple years ago, a co-worker of mine were at his house when he turned on windows networking and set his domain to "WORKGROUP" did the obligatory reboot suffle and started surfing all the shares in the area. It was hilarious, people had their entire C:\ drives shared, etc. Needless to say, after we got him setup with a firewall (linux/maq box) sure enough the logs just rolled with people trying to connect to ports 137/138/139. In one regard may ISP's block the netbios ports on their ingress and egress gateways.
Heh, we've been getting this.. (Score:5, Funny)
It's usually selling "diplomas from prestigious non-accredited Universities, based on work experience. No testing or coursework required"
I guess not locking down the box, they just assume we'd be stupid enough to fall for it.
Every once in awhile I'll do a
"NET SEND * ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"
Noone here has a clue what it means or where it came from.
Dammit! (Score:4, Funny)
Anyone remember Code Red? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn...if I had thought of it (and if I didn't think Internet advertising is evil), I could've made a mint off all of the lusers who let their servers get infected with Code Red! If I had figured out how to do something similar with Nimda, I could've made an even bigger killing!
(Details of my adventures with Code Red are up here [alfter.us]. The live counter is gone now because my rusty SQL skillz resulted in MySQL thrashing away for more than a minute to generate four numbers.)
Slap em! :P (Score:3, Interesting)
Slap [securitysoftware.cc]:If your like me you run firewall software that tells you when someone tries to access your system. Sometimes I respond with a few packets of my own just to let them know that I am paying attention. I wrote Slap to make responding to these access attempts easier and more entertaining. Just enter the IP address of the person you wish to slap and click on the Slap button. The program will attempt to access all the ports in the list and send them a packet with a personal message. (The default message is 'Leave Me Alone!') Slap integrates with Black Ice and Zone Alarm and can use information received from these software firewalls to "Auto Slap" intruders and add their attacks to your list of responses. --Here is a cool Wav file to use with this.
better, just drop em -- Re:Slap em! :P (Score:4, Interesting)
which is being used to launch the attack and/or hide the tracks of the real blackhat
by sending data back to that ip, you may be unwittingly being used to help the intruder hide
and you may appear to be the intruder in the logs of the machine which the blackhat is using as a stepping stone
that's probably not what you are trying to do
and that's why I just add those ips to a droplist instead of sending data back
Probably not the case here (Score:4, Funny)
Why would anyone pay for this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sad really.
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
We've been getting a lot of these... (Score:4, Informative)
The tricky part is that they use UDP, since many firewalls "forget" to filter it unless you remind them with a CLI, sledgehammer, and repeated threats to use an etherkiller.
There's no reason to let UDP ports below 1024 in from outside your network, except for the specific services you're running, to the specific servers you're running them on.
Jouster
It's already out there... (Score:2)
Anyway, another reason to be glad I run a Mac OSX box at home.
--ST
A few points (Score:2, Interesting)
I work at a large university. The obvious solutions don't quite work for us. We'd like to be able to block 135-139. However, some of us are required to use Outlook. *pause* On an Exchange server. *pause* And, we've been told that some of the Outlook functionality depends on the Messenger service being available.
I block it. But not everyone (particularly some administrative staff and some professors) has the technical knowledge to do so, and some people actually use it.
Not difficult to do... (Score:4, Informative)
As for people saying "turn off the messenger service", there are actually valid uses for winpopups. At my last work, I set up a few perl scripts that would use smbclient to warn Samba users when they were over quota. Before that, users would go over quota and wouldn't know about it until things broke after the grace period.
Obviously, you should be filter Netbios ports at the firewall unless you have a damn good reason to have internet access to them. If someone in your network is using this program to spam, the LART them appropriately.
New 'switch' ad idea.. (Score:3, Funny)
(Ellen Feiss parodies are destined to replace underpants gnome business plans.. Do not resist)
Ad-aware? (Score:2)
I'll say one thing tho...I must have disabled about 10 or 12 things in the Services menu including a LOT of "remote" stuff to remotely control the PC and the windows update feature that I specifically told windows NOT to do.
Here it is again... (Score:5, Informative)
Note, I'm not karma whoring, I could care less.
--
(You will have to graduate from newbie status in order to take advantage of my advice. This means that you will have to climb the learning curve and actually go read some stuff. You can spend a chunk of cash on products to avoid doing just that, but that's much less fun.)
If you're doing things like turning on file sharing or sharing printers, it's (supposedly) very easy to hack you. I say supposedly only because I haven't actually tried this. It's such an infamous hole though that I do believe it. To turn this off, unbind the NetBIOS protocol from the modem/network card that connects you to the Internet. In Windows 2000, that you means you go to the Properties for your network connection (in the Control Panel) and uncheck the 'File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks' option. (It's very easy to fix this in Win9x too using roughly the same technique.) You may have to reboot, I don't recall. That problem will then be solved.
Now to protect yourself from other intrusions and threats.
If you're just running a dial-up connection and don't leave your machine on the network for extended periods of time, then a product like ZoneAlarm (www.zonelabs.com - look for the free version) will serve you well. Actually, it serves you well in two ways: 1) it protects your machine from the outside world coming into your machine in an unauthorized fashion and 2) it protects adware on your machine from phoning home without your permission (actually it prevents everything from using the Internet until you grant permission, not just adware). This is sufficient for dialup.
For broadband users and users who want to leave their machine on the Internet for extended periods of time (more than a couple hours at a time), I recommend using an honest to goodness separate firewall. There is a lot that can be said about this, far more than I know really, but I well give you a couple pointers.
First of all, one of your options is to use a second PC as the firewall. It will need to have 2 network cards, you will need a router or hub for your home LAN, and you will have to get the cable modem (or DSL for that matter; with which I have no experience - shouldn't be too hard) working with that extra PC (via Windows would be easiest to start with). Once that's setup, go grab a Linux distribution like IPCop (or SmoothWall - they're very similar, in fact they were the same product at one time), and install it on that PC. It will require that you reformat the hard drive, so don't plan on storing any files on it. A small hard drive is sufficient. There are FAQs and forums on the IPCop and SmoothWall sites that will help get you setup.
Your second option in the category of 'real protection' (for home users anyway) is to just go buy a hardware firewall. So instead of a second PC, you just go buy a device that does essentially the same thing. I won't go into detail on these as I have no experience with them. I just thought you should know about them.
Two last points:
-PLEASE keep a current anti-virus product actively running on your machine and keep it up to date. If you need a free one, go to http://www.grisoft.com to get the free personal version of the AVG anti-virus product. This one has saved my butt several times from several infections. It may or may not be the best product out there, but it works for me.
-To protect yourself from browser window popups and other shenanigans, go grab WebWasher at http://www.webwasher.com/en/products/wwash/downlo
As always, this advice is just a starting point. Today's perfect security solution may be an open door tomorrow. It's up to you to keep yourself informed and to take action when problems arise.
Good luck and have fun!
... am I missing something ? (Score:2)
We did this to a couple script kiddies (Score:3, Interesting)
another way to stop this spam (Score:5, Informative)
This company made an icq spam engine (Score:3, Informative)
Let me tell you an idea I had.... (Score:3, Interesting)
What about altering the service so that instead of just popping up a window that you can do nothing with but close, there would exist an additional button [REPLY] on the pop up message window, which would then allow you to respond to the alert message as you see fit? (Sending a message back to the source via the same net send facility that they used to send data to you).
Now I presume, of course, that an authorized administrator would have a large say in what services are going to be running on the computers in his domain, so if he wasn't interested in fielding replies to his authorized alert messages, he could simply have the requirement that the normal "one-way" messenger is the one that gets installed on the domain machines. Meanwhile, unauthorized sends would find themselves the target of maybe hundreds or thousands of replies, potentially causing a D.O.S. for them, even if they weren't actually running the messenger service themselves.
Of course, the new messenger service would also log the time, date, and originating IP of the sender, so that it can be confirmed later -- even if the sender does not happen to be running the messenger service himself.
Now I realize that this doesn't do a thing for handling people who fake their IP address, but I'd bet it go some distance to making this virtually unusable by most of the people who would just use such tools to spam.
Happened to me already... (Score:3, Informative)
"U N I V E R S I T Y D I P L O M A S"
Notice the spacing designed to avoid word filtering? It looks like these guys are thinking ahead!
I just got spammed by one of these the other day.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Messenger_Service_Spam.gif [geocities.com]
Misuse aside.... (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, at the same time, UNIX users are in for a treat if their syslogd can accept outside messages. (Default behavior on many OSs, but has been changing.)
Think "kernel.crit".
People are reading part of the article wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Zoltan Kovacs, founder of DirectAdvertiser.com, said the company has sold about 200 copies of the program since launching two months ago. According to Kovacs, the software is ideal for advertising 900-number and other telephone services.
"I have customers who call me back and tell me they love it and it generates hundreds of calls right away," said Kovacs, who noted that Direct Advertiser is a good alternative to bulk e-mail because its messages are not regulated by spam laws.
The above doesn't mean that Joe User, sitting at his desk receiving all the spam via this new method, is calling and saying how they love it -- as several posts have noted. It means that Joe Spammer, the lowest form of life on earth, is calling and saying how they love the 'product' that directadvertiser.com is selling. World of difference there.
Re:SPAM (Score:5, Funny)
All it will take is a few pr0n campaigns through this thing, and backlash will be quick to follow.
You might be able to increase the intensity and speed of the backlash by sending a pr0n ad to a machine conennected to a WiFi network during a powerpoint presentation to stockholders or upper management. (teehee!)
Re:MSN Messanger Alternative (Score:5, Informative)
Much worse in my opinion. MSN Messenger could be uninstalled.
*NOT* MSN Messenger (Score:3, Informative)
Honest mistake though. Oh yeah, and if you're in windows trillian does seem better overall.
Re:MSN Messanger Alternative (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Concern me? (Score:4, Funny)
How to disable it in windows 2000 (Score:5, Informative)
1. Log on as administrator or at least with an account that has admin access.
2. Enter control panel
3. Enter "Administrative Tools"
4. Enter "Services"
5. Scroll down and find "Messenger"
6. Right click > properties > startup type > Disabled.
Scroll through the list and see if there's anything else you might want to disable. (You know, like remote registry editing and all that stuff that Microsoft enabled so you wouldn't have to be troubled to do it yourself :-)
Too bad this hole is getting closed (Score:3)
Re:How to disable it in windows 2000 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How to disable it in windows 2000 (Score:5, Informative)
open a cmd [ (leftwindows)r(/leftwindows) cmd (enter) ]
Type "net stop messenger" without the quotes.
You can start it back by typing "net start messenger".
Say, you need to send a message to someone in your LAN, you open it, then close it back.
Re:How to disable it in windows 2000 (Score:2)
net stop messenger
at the command line.
Of course there is a command that will turn it back on remotely. SC in the resource kit can remotely run the net commands on a victim - I mean remote - computer
sc \\computer net start messenger
Re:Surprised? (Score:2)
XWindows? (Score:5, Informative)
If anything, a poorly configured X server would be even MORE annoying. If you let anyone attach to your X session remotely, they could display pretty much anything on your screen, not just annoying pop-up messages.
I love X, but you have to be careful with it too.
Cheers,
Vic
Not to mention sniffing keystrokes (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone running with xhost access control is asking for trouble. If you're security conscious, tunnel your X session over ssh.
Your Sig (Score:2)
!!aaahhh.make
thanks a lot!
Re:How not to be bothered by this problem (Score:2, Informative)
read the post big guy.
'the messenger service, not to be confused with microsofts instant messaging product'
Re:TechTv Article: Spam Takes New Form (Score:2)