Marketscore causes problems when it is removed or quarantined

[Help the needy]

I have discovered that when Marketscore spyware is
removed, I can't access the internet anymore. There is
some error regarding my IP address.

At first I couldn't remove it. But once I didn't my DSL
connection said, "Limited or no connectivity" When I call
my ISP tech support. They tried a lot of different stuff.
The problem was with my IP address. They finally told me
that my network card needed to be replaced.

I decided to try restoring the spyware files I removed,
and it fixed the problem.

This seems to be a serious problem, that if you remove
any of the Marketscore related spyware, it shuts your
connection down. Like it is saying, "If you don't have me
active, you can't connect at all" I am concerned about
this. It seems that my connection is actually go through
the Marketscore spyware some how, (which I admit is to
advanced for my level) But, I want to get rid of it.

Is there anyway to remove this and with out this problem?

 

[YetAnotherMCSE]

Try this link:
http://helpdesk.psu.edu/spyware/marketscore.html

 

[Guest]

I see this was posted almost 3 months ago .... this frustrates me further.

I spent 5 FRUSTRATING hours yesterday and today trying to figure out why all
of the sudden I lost net connectivity after downloading Microsoft Antispyware
and running the scan and finding several adware and spyware bugs.

After finally resorting to system restores, then finally determining it was
Microsoft's AntiSpyware removal attempts at removing the MarketScore spyware
that caused all of my frustration.

If you new about it in mid August, why isn't it fixed in mid November?
Losing network connectivity is a rather "serious" consequence of a poorly
written removal routine and I think should have been handled

 

[Anonymous Bob]

I see this was posted almost 3 months ago .... this frustrates me further.

I spent 5 FRUSTRATING hours yesterday and today trying to figure out why all
of the sudden I lost net connectivity after downloading Microsoft Antispyware
and running the scan and finding several adware and spyware bugs.

After finally resorting to system restores, then finally determining it was
Microsoft's AntiSpyware removal attempts at removing the MarketScore spyware
that caused all of my frustration.

If you new about it in mid August, why isn't it fixed in mid November?
Losing network connectivity is a rather "serious" consequence of a poorly
written removal routine and I think should have been handled

This is a *must* read:
https://my.infotex.com/article.php?story=20041202084738608&mode=print

How to remove:
http://www.lbl.gov/ITSD/Security/systems/marketscore-spyware.html

http://castlecops.com/article5856.html

I hope this is helpful to you.

Bob Vanderveen

 

[Guest]

That's some very interesting information. I DID manage to kill the
marketscore application, after a lot of search, trial, and error ... and the
PC still works.

I just don't understand why someone (Microsoft) can't build a removal tool
that works properly (leaving you with a working machine)

Thanks

 

[Dave M]

R Keck;
We're all expecting that exact same thing. The code your currently using is
basically the same Giant AntiSpyware code that was released to Beta back in
January when Ms bought it, with some maintenance upgrades, but nothing major,
although the software definitions are updated weekly. The definition updates
are shared with Sunbelts CounterSpy which is not Beta, so of necessity it must
be kept current. What your asking for is the programming of the product to
change, and we forum contributors of all people realized the limitations of the
Beta1 product. Notice how many times we have to say "Scan using Safe Mode" on
this forum, in order to eliminate resistant malware. For-what-it's-worth,
Sunbelt's definitions include:
MarketScore.com
Marketscore.InternetAccelerator
Marketscore.JDCouncil
Marketscore.OpinionSquare
Marketscore.RelevantKnowledge


Microsoft has been working on re-coding since January. That's a long time
without a major upgrade. I think you can rightfully expect Beta2 to be
significantly more sophisticated. Though I've got to say spyware has changed a
lot over the past year... gotten nastier... more likely to hide... and now
supplemented with professional commercial threats like the Sony rootkit...
that's like trying to hit a continually moving target, and not an enviable
position to be in for their development team. I'm hardly a Ms apologist, but
I'm willing to give them the time it takes to build what I know they can. I'd
rather have quality than some frequently patched Beta1 code that doesn't do
anything well ...IMHO

Meanwhile, I'd encourage you to run two or more Anti-Spyware products, ADaware
SE and Spybot S&D are free to virtually everyone that comes in this forum.

 

[Anonymous Bob]

That's some very interesting information. I DID manage to kill the
marketscore application, after a lot of search, trial, and error ... and the
PC still works.

I just don't understand why someone (Microsoft) can't build a removal tool
that works properly (leaving you with a working machine)

Thanks

I get the impression that Marketscore if one of many programs whose vendors
are trying to clean up their acts to meet the standards set by the
Antispyware Coalition. As such it may no longer can be classed as spyware,
but it's clearly a security and privacy risk. In the current discussion of
Sony's DRM software Kaspersky introduced the term "riskware". I had not
previously encountered this term and if there are objective criteria for
this classification, they remain a mystery.

http://news.com.com/Sonys+antipiracy+may+end+up+on+antivirus+hit+lists/2100-1029_3-5933428.html

Quote
Kaspersky uses the term "riskware" to define programs that behave like
malicious software but may not have malicious intent behind them. Although
it attempts to detect riskware, so that users can be asked what they would
like to do with it and so that policies can be created, it does not
currently detect the rootkit used by Sony's DRM. "At the moment this is
still under discussion and no final decision has been made," Emm added.
End Quote

Bob Vanderveen

 

[Bill Sanderson]

That's some very interesting information. I DID manage to kill the
marketscore application, after a lot of search, trial, and error ... and
the
PC still works.

I just don't understand why someone (Microsoft) can't build a removal tool
that works properly (leaving you with a working machine)

I don't have a lot of in depth knowledge about this, but I can definitely
tell you that question is high on the Microsoft developers priorities. They
mentioned improvement in this area as a significant feature of build
..615--you should check whether you are running that build, but I suspect you
are, because older builds are either expired or had some significant issues
which you would probably have noticed.

The fact that they didn't succeed in eliminating this experience for the end
users is probably something they are aware of, but posting the experience
here does help bring it to their attention.

I believe we've seen far fewer posts such as yours than in the early days of
the beta, but that may be due to specifics of bug distribution, rather than
the improvment of the product--I can't tell. Microsoft probably can
tell--they get the spynet reports of what is getting cleaned, and they
probably know which bugs cause this issue and which do not.

 

[Guest]

I do understand it must be hell to write a good anti-spyware app in today's
high bandwidth world and keep it current and working. But in my eyes ... in
a windows environment, you have admin users, and you have non-admin users ...
an admin user generally is made aware when something "invasive" wants to
install and he can choose to allow or dis-allow. Buy my 13 year old
daughter, who is a non-admin can "elect" to install something that presents
itself to her and it succeed???

As far as I'm concerned, for non-admin users, ABSOLUTELTY NO registry
changes should be allowed, not even to retain recent searches and other
non-critical changes that are constantly made by the OS (or system files
renamed or deleted) ... by the OS or an installation routine ... wether known
or unknown.

Is that not a reasonable request?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

It probably is, but you're going to need to tell it to the app developers,
and there are a lot of those.. I know this isn't much comfort, but Vista
will make big changes in this area--and it will take considerable work to
get there--and even then there will probably remain backwards compatibility
issues with some third party apps.

 

[Guest]

Help!

I need to remove MarketScore.InternetAccelerator. I printed off the
directions from CPP at Berkley, and I am going to c:/windows/system32, but
when I enter each of the commands I'm getting:

"(command) is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable
program or batch file."

I am running XPHome, SP2..anyone know what I'm missing?

Thanks!!