messenger SPAM !

  • Thread starter Thread starter paul
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paul

please God make the owners of these companies sending messenger spam ,
driving people crazy so they absolutely would never buy anything advertised
by them , unicks in very painful operations without pain killers !!!!!!
 
Thanks I'll try that ! hope it works.

Do they really think by annoying people they'll make a sale ?
 
paul said:
please God make the owners of these companies sending messenger spam ,
driving people crazy so they absolutely would never buy anything advertised
by them , unicks in very painful operations without pain killers !!!!!!
Click to expand...

Try a firewall or turn off the messenger service.

To turn off the messenger service:

Control Panel - Admin Tools - Services

Find the messenger service and stop it. If you right click - properties, you
can change it to manual instead of automatic.



- The names of things (Control Panel, Admin Tools) might have changed.
Things seems to change pretty often, just find the thing closest to "Control
Panel" or whatever.


ps. I just ordered a Voodoo book, myself. Supposedly, you can do crazy
things with that. ;-)
 
Hi Paul - These are most likely due to open NetBios ports 135, 137-139
and 445. You really need to block these with a firewall as a general
protection measure. You can stop the popups by turning off Messenger
Service; however, this still leaves you vulnerable. (For some other
reasons you should probably also specifically block the following
additional ports as well: UDP 135, and TCP 593)

See: Messenger Service Window That Contains an Internet Advertisement
Appears http://support.microsoft.com/?id=330904 which identifies reasons
to keep this service and steps to take if you do.

You can test your system and follow the 'Prevention' link to get
additional information here:
http://www.mynetwatchman.com/winpopuptester.asp Unless you have very
good reasons to keep this active, it should be turned off in Win2k and
XP. Go here and do what it says:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/docs/messagepopup/ or, even better,
get MessageSubtract, free, here, which will give you flexible control of
the service and viewing of these messages:
http://www.intermute.com/messagesubtract/help.html Recommended.

(FWIW, ZoneAlarm's default Internet Zone firewall configuration blocks
the necessary ports to prevent this use of Messenger Service. I don't
know the situation with regard to other firewalls.)

Messenger Service is not per se Spyware or something that MS did wrong -
It provides a messaging capability which is useful for local intranets
and is also sometimes (albeit nowdays infrequently) used by some
applications to provide popup messaages to users. However, it can also
be (and now frequently is) used to introduce spam via this open NetBios
channel. For a single user home computer, it normally isn't needed and
can be turned off which will eliminate the spam popups. This DOESN'T,
however, remove the vulnerability of having these ports open, when in
fact they aren't needed, since they can be perverted in other ways as
well, some of which can be much more damaging than just a spam popup.



--
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
Please respond in original thread in Newsgroup.




In (e-mail address removed), paul typed:
please God make the owners of these companies sending messenger spam ,
driving people crazy so they absolutely would never buy anything advertised
by them , unicks in very painful operations without pain killers
Click to expand...
!!!!!!
 
Greetings --

Couldn't agree more. I also use a LinkSys router to connect my
home LAN to the Internet.

However, it's not always wise for everyone to rely entirely upon a
hardware solution. The router, like WinXP's built-in firewall, is
more-than-adequate protection for the experienced user, but can't
protect the novice user from himself. Like WinXP's native firewall, a
hardware router doesn't monitor out-going traffic and warn the user of
any spyware or Trojans that the inexperienced/gullible user may
download and install.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
Miguel De Anda said:
I honestly wonder if M$ did this on purpose and somehow made some money off
it? Like, they get a cut of whatever people may buy through these messages.
I mean, most people wouldn't have a clue as to how to get help on shutting
this thing off and it seems like this vulnerability is enabled by default. I
think M$ was in on it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and they're behind the killing of Kennedy *and* Kenny, secretly
operate an airbase filled with alien technology out in the Nevada desert,
and are attempting to control your mind.

Better get that aluminum foil hat ready.
 
paul said:
please God make the owners of these companies sending messenger spam ,
driving people crazy so they absolutely would never buy anything advertised
by them , unicks in very painful operations without pain killers !!!!!!
Click to expand...

I honestly wonder if M$ did this on purpose and somehow made some money off
it? Like, they get a cut of whatever people may buy through these messages.
I mean, most people wouldn't have a clue as to how to get help on shutting
this thing off and it seems like this vulnerability is enabled by default. I
think M$ was in on it.
 
I honestly wonder if M$ did this on purpose and somehow made some money off
it? Like, they get a cut of whatever people may buy through these messages.
I mean, most people wouldn't have a clue as to how to get help on shutting
this thing off and it seems like this vulnerability is enabled by default. I
think M$ was in on it.
Click to expand...
Absolute Rubbish! the messenger service has been in NT for years - it's
designed to enable Sysadmins to broadcast a message over a network -
like "The Network is closing in 10 minutes. Please save all your work
and log off"
 
Get Real, only people that do not how to solve the problems could possible
blame Microsoft for this.
 
Donald Link said:
Get Real, only people that do not how to solve the problems could possible
blame Microsoft for this.
Click to expand...


Most people on Windows know very little about computers. People usually use
computer do simple things such as typing a document and checking their
hotmail. If people wanted an operating system that required tweaking, they
would choose linux.
 
Are you for real. There is no operating system that does not require
tweaking. Even back in the early day of DOS there was major tweaking going
on all the time. Still does not change the fact that problems developed on
computers and operating systems all the time. Finding the solutions and
reading would cure a lot of these problems. However, many people just do
not want to do the bare minimum and then end up blaming the wrong thing.
 
I'm not even talking about problems with the operating system, that list is
too long. I'm simply talking about a simple choice that was made a while
ago. Why didn't M$ disable those messages, at least when they come from
outside sources. If somebody wants to receive messages from another
network, then let them tweak it. The majority of the people do not want to
receive messages.
Click to expand...

Because MS produces software that they hope will be of the greatest use
to the greatest number of people. I see you are using OE to post. Why do
you think MS bundles OE and IE with Windows? So people can USE it. Would
you have liked to have to enable a Mail/Newsclient and a browser BEFORE
you could use it? The same principle apples to most of the other in-
built software and services that run with XP.
The REAL point here is that you should be security-conscious and use a
Firewall as a matter of course. Then you wouldn't have seen the
messenger messages anyway.
 
rifleman said:
I did enable it. I clicked on the cute little icon on my quicklaunch. Only
required services should be started by default. The service that moves the
little arrow when I move the mouse around, that should be started all the
time.
Click to expand...
But XP is replacing win9x AND 2000 AND NT - therefore a large proportion
of purchasers will be in the business environment (MS hopes!) and
therefore used on domain networks and therefore messenger is a used
component straight out of the box....if you follow your argument to it's
logical conclusion, Windows would come with Explorer and nothing else
apart from a manual on how to enable all the different services and
options, and given the ability of Joe Public NOT to read the manual, how
much chaos do you think that would cause?
Click to expand...
 
rifleman said:
But XP is replacing win9x AND 2000 AND NT - therefore a large proportion
of purchasers will be in the business environment (MS hopes!) and
therefore used on domain networks and therefore messenger is a used
component straight out of the box....if you follow your argument to it's
logical conclusion, Windows would come with Explorer and nothing else
apart from a manual on how to enable all the different services and
options, and given the ability of Joe Public NOT to read the manual, how
much chaos do you think that would cause?
--
(I may be wrong...I usually am....)
Google is your Friend
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam:
www.gbpcomputing.co.uk
Click to expand...


Then why is it that this messenger spam thing seems to be the most common
topic on this newgroup? I'm sure that only a small percentage of the people
out there even know where to start looking for help on this issue.

I'm not saying that all services should be off, just that some of them (one
so far I guess) cause problems to a lot of people.
 
Miguel De Anda said:
Then why is it that this messenger spam thing seems to be the most common
topic on this newgroup?
Click to expand...

Because it's a new form of spam, it's invasive and annoying, and most people
don't run firewalls.
 
Then why is it that this messenger spam thing seems to be the most common
topic on this newgroup? I'm sure that only a small percentage of the people
out there even know where to start looking for help on this issue.

I'm not saying that all services should be off, just that some of them (one
so far I guess) cause problems to a lot of people.
Click to expand...
Because it's like the OE Attachment question - nobody reads previous
posts!

People also don't install or activate a firewall as a matter of course -
perhaps in a way this has been a good thing because it has brought many
people's attention to security.
 
Because it's a new form of spam, it's invasive and annoying, and most people
don't run firewalls.
Click to expand...
Even though XP comes with one built-in.... OK it's not as good as
Zonealarm or Kerio, but it's better than nothing!
 
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