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crazyflyingdonut

Have you ever gotten malware?

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54 minutes ago, seed said:

 

Get rid of AdBlocker, and AdBlock Plus for those who use it.

 

Adblock Plus is particularly awful nowadays as it only blocks certain ads and allows others. Get uBlock Origin instead, smarter and blocks all ads.

 

 

Would definitely not recommend that either. MS made vast improvements to the built-in protection on W10 but MSE is terrible, I remember seeing statistics and the detection rate for malware was pretty awful. You're better using something else instead.

 

 

Me too, Dan has some pretty fascinating stuff. "Old school" malware was pretty interesting (and destructive, see CIH), nowadays it's more concerned about making you pay the creators to regain access to your files than immediately wreak havoc everywhere.

Yeah i used to use AdBlock and AdBlock Plus but after popups were getting through i decided to look up alternatives and read about uBlock Origin (not uBlock) and i've been using that one ever since.

 

I also know that MSE isn't very good but tbh i have never had any issues with it (it's very non-intrusive) and i rarely if ever download anything anymore anyways unless it's a Doom WAD. I'll look into alternatives at some point though.

 

I remember looking up old DOS virus's one day for no apparent reason. Found some interesting ones. I really only remember the names such as "Jerusalem" and "Stoned". It's nothing i'd really understand though.

 

Also i have no idea why the page didn't quote correctly. I tried it a few times before replying...

Edited by CyberDreams

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A long ago, it being some kind of scripts that broke Firefox. Before I used only Ubuntu Linux OS.

Also in my case Avast is blocking Prboom-Plus and Chocolate Doom, thinking they are malware, so I added them to to exceptions.

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1 minute ago, riderr3 said:

Avast is blocking Prboom-Plus and Chocolate Doom, thinking they are malware.

Avast doesn't like source ports that aren't "modern".

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28 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

A long ago, it being some kind of scripts that broke Firefox. Before I used only Ubuntu Linux OS.

Also in my case Avast is blocking Prboom-Plus and Chocolate Doom, thinking they are malware, so I added them to to exceptions.

 

PrBoom+ as well? Interesting.

 

I know there's been reports of it blocking Crispy but not others.

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7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

LOL that’s actually a great comparison! Viruses were more “jokey” back then, from the ones that set out to fuck you to the near-harmless. Now it’s much more cold and utilitarian, to steal your details or access your funds or whatever else without you knowing.

 

There were some rare examples of ransomware even "back in the day", but, again, those were more about proving how "c00l & 1337" their creator was, than actually making them rich. The fact that the usual spreading mechanisms were floppy disks and BBSs surely didn't help. But yeah, today, with the ability to secure a direct connection in real-time to one's victims, surely changed the playing field. Writing an "oldschool" virus that just wipes the boot sector of a disk clean sounds so quaint and unprofitable nowadays....

 

What's more worrying (or interesting, depending on how you look at it) is that as soon as some new kind of ransomware appears, many "me toos" or "wannabes" appear, too. Many of them are actually fake and pretend that they have locked your computer and encrypted your files (some are merely an annoying Javascript or "You're leaving this page" popup, that don't survive the browser application being terminated).  They rely more on social engineering than actual m4d h4x0r sk1llz. You could call that a sort of "made-in-china" or "poor man's"  ransomware degeneration ;-)

 

1 hour ago, CyberDreams said:

Yeah i used to use AdBlock and AdBlock Plus but after popups were getting through i decided to look up alternatives and read about uBlock Origin (not uBlock) and i've been using that one ever since.

I suspect that making an "impenetrable" ad blocker isn't really all that hard (just rejecting any assets not coming from the page's own domain would be super-effective) but eventually all ad blocker authors are, let's say, approached and convinced to make exceptions. So while new, relatively unknown ones may work better than more popular ones for a while, eventually they will be bought out, made mainstream, and be replaced with other "mavericks" for the time being.

 

On the other camp, it's also not that hard to make a page that outright breaks if ads aren't loaded (no, I'm not talking about those whiny "You're using an adblocker! Shame on you!", I mean stuff not working with no warning whatsoever) but this is rarely employed outside of dodgy russian download sites...

 

Not that there isn't an actual arms race between online ad developers and browser/ad blocker developers over getting ads through/blocking ads., but like in most of the real world, in the end it's a political, more than a technical issue.

Edited by Maes

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Not sure if this counts. Around 2000 or 2001 there was this GBC emulator that would let you play in color mode for like 10 minutes, then it would restart itself in GB mode. You had to pay to have GBC compatibilty. I somehow found the full version somewhere, and the next time I booted my PC, instead of launching Windows it would show this scary screen accompanied with alarming PC speaker noises. At the time I didn't know english very well but I knew it was the emulator devs giving me shit for pirating their emulator. Had to boot into safe mode and delete the thing. Also around the same time I got the typical porn malware that would leave shortcuts on your desktop, but who didn't get those when they were kids? Lol.

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I used to download a lot of "cursor themes" thinking they looked cool back in win xp days, when in fact I was just filling the computer with useless junk and viruses to a point when I couldn't open anything without getting a new internet explorer window showing ads.

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On 5/21/2019 at 2:30 PM, crazyflyingdonut said:

Have you ever gotten affected by malware of any kind? 

Actually Many Many times. I was moron enough to even test one on my PC lol.

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2 minutes ago, The Doommer said:

Actually Many Many times. I was moron enough to even test one on my PC lol.

If you're gonna do that, use a virtual machine at least.

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1 minute ago, crazyflyingdonut said:

If you're gonna do that, use a virtual machine at least.

I know. I made that mistake many years ago like when I was 14-15. I'm quite aware now.

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On my own devices not really.. At least nothing serious (because it is almost impossible to have a 100% clean device when connected to the internet0. But boy do people bring laptops that saw some real shit for me to try and fix. People are terrible at figuring out shady sites.

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My work computer was infected with WannaCry before I even logged on for the first time, caught it from another user on the network (I know exactly who, thanks shared files), despite my stressing to the boss that it was an extremely dangerous payload he didn't fix it and wouldn't give me admin privilege to fix it, so I just did my best to quarantine it until I informed the IT department myself.

 

It was the same one that turbo murdered the entire NHS system in 2017, to put into perspective how hazardous it really was.

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I always lived dangerously when it comes to surfing the web, and i never had any malware since the mid 2000's. All thanks to a combination of Firefox + NoScript and AdBlock Plus (I don't use the latest versions, BTW).

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17 hours ago, Doomkid said:

LOL that’s actually a great comparison! Viruses were more “jokey” back then, from the ones that set out to fuck you to the near-harmless. Now it’s much more cold and utilitarian, to steal your details or access your funds or whatever else without you knowing. Not that I miss them, fuck all viruses and may any programmer of viruses be launched into the sun - There’s an element of nostalgia there though!

 

"Virus oldschoolexual"

 

I have had malware on every computer I've ever used except a few for work... It was called "Windows".

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A long time ago, my family bought a new computer to replace our first computer. I remember trying to play Wolf3D shareware on a floppy disk I got in junior high. McAfee antivirus popped up and said it detected a virus and asked if I wanted to clean the disk. I interpreted that as "delete everything on the disk" and said no. I kept playing for a few minutes, exited it and left the disk in the drive. Next time I booted up the computer, it wouldn't go into win98 even with the disk removed. Oops.

 

I had to lie through my teeth to the Circuit City sales clerk that the computer just wouldn't start when I powered it on. They seemed to buy my story and gave me a replacement tower. When I went home, I promptly had McAfee remove the virus on all of the disks I had used with the old computer. I don't think I ever played Wolf3D since.

 

I have Avira and Spybot S&D but I don't know if updates for the latter are worth installing. I use Firefox with NoScript and uBlock Origin (didn't know it could block elements, so good riddance to trending Twitter horseshit), but that certificates thing a few weeks back has me realizing that I can't use my current one for important stuff. Is there any way to use two versions of Firefox? I want to use the latest Firefox for non-trivial stuff and keep my current Firefox for youtube and plugins.

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A long time ago.. when I would download games online (I have DOOM: Classic Complete on ps3 so I gave back to the makers) but it was usually because I already had the game but the disc was so scratched up and well it wouldn't read it (diablo, starcraft)

 

And things started to get to the point where I had something in my personal computer.

 

It... randomly shut off on its own when i would try to use it again.   My files on my desktop would get discolored and see through like (like how you right click a file and make it hidden/show hidden) if i tried to open something  the desktop wallpaper would change to something else.

 

The eyes on the desktop wallpaper of the skull head which has taken mine out and replaced itself follows ur mouse pointer wherever you move it.

 

PC became so slow and it even overheated... like it was going to fry.

 

It gave out noises i cannot describe hence turn down volume to 0%

 

I remember the desktop wallpaper it wouild change to, it was just a skull head with crossed bones on the bottom but it was moving... becoming blurred and like just staring at you then I think it zoomed in a little and got bigger.

 

Was I scared?? i dont know... but I think i ddint turn my computer on for a long time after that day/ (then i took it to geek squad best buy)

 

Kind of like this picture below but it was more on to the point that something is really wrong. 

infected-computer-virus-malware-warning-on-screen_baarpk46_thumbnail-full04.png

Edited by vanilla_d00m

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I had a funny DOS virus. All it would do was, every few minutes it would auto-repeat the last typed character like 200 times. You try to type in DIR <Enter>, but you'd get DIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

 

Annoying as hell. For the longest time, you'd think you did it by mistake :)

 

I would find these viruses, because I had the wonderful task of cleaning up all the floppies at my job. I burned out a couple of floppy drives before getting all the floppies clean.

 

Found another virus. Upon researching, I found out that this one was made by a "virus generator" program. It would add the signature "NuKe Azreal" into the infected files. This variant had a "doomsday clock" built in, where, on a specific day of the year, it would try to overwrite the partition table on drive C: But disassembly revealed a bug in the virus that would cause it to only overwrite one single sector over and over. Dumb shits.

 

Making money is one motivation, I guess. But those viruses that simply deleted the data of random people, without warning? That takes a demented fuck to pull off something like that. Sad.

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I actually have a weird story about something that I'm not even sure was technically a virus, but it was nonetheless something that had gotten on my PC at some point.

 

Back in early 2007, I moved out to a somewhat rural area that didn't have very good internet access. In addition to a new PC I had just bought, I had an old Pentium III with me that I used to play some old games (this was before I knew much about source ports and emulators). I was playing the original Aliens vs. Predator on it, and I seem to remember that the game either... crashed, or refused to load up. Then, out of nowhere, I get some pop-up porn ad on my computer screen. I quickly get rid of it and re-launch the game. The game works fine, but all my save files are dated to the year 1900. I seem to remember the game playing fine afterwards and the dates eventually correcting themselves. Never had the issue again.

 

The reason it was so bizarre was that this particular PC wasn't connected to the internet at the time, and hadn't been connected to the internet for probably four or five years, maybe longer. It was an old hand me down my parents had given me at some point before I finished high school. I never had internet access on it after I got it, either. So whatever this whole occurrence was, it was related to some URL the PC had visited at some point, years and years in the past, which had lain dormant and never caused any issues up until then. And I never saw it cause any issues after that.

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40 minutes ago, Caffeine Freak said:

I actually have a weird story about something that I'm not even sure was technically a virus, but it was nonetheless something that had gotten on my PC at some point.

 

Back in early 2007, I moved out to a somewhat rural area that didn't have very good internet access. In addition to a new PC I had just bought, I had an old Pentium III with me that I used to play some old games (this was before I knew much about source ports and emulators). I was playing the original Aliens vs. Predator on it, and I seem to remember that the game either... crashed, or refused to load up. Then, out of nowhere, I get some pop-up porn ad on my computer screen. I quickly get rid of it and re-launch the game. The game works fine, but all my save files are dated to the year 1900. I seem to remember the game playing fine afterwards and the dates eventually correcting themselves. Never had the issue again.

 

The reason it was so bizarre was that this particular PC wasn't connected to the internet at the time, and hadn't been connected to the internet for probably four or five years, maybe longer. It was an old hand me down my parents had given me at some point before I finished high school. I never had internet access on it after I got it, either. So whatever this whole occurrence was, it was related to some URL the PC had visited at some point, years and years in the past, which had lain dormant and never caused any issues up until then. And I never saw it cause any issues after that.

Those .COM and .EXE hacking viruses would often adjust the date/time of files, to indicate that a file had already been infected, so it could avoid multiple infection.

 

For example, they may change the date/time seconds field to be a multiple of 4 (going from 33 seconds to 36 seconds).

 

But, the way you describe it, it sounds like the virus tried to destroy the file allocation table during a delayed payload, and DOS fixed it with the backup copy it maintains. Did you remember running a disk check? May that's what fixed the date/time stamps?

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4 hours ago, kb1 said:

Making money is one motivation, I guess. But those viruses that simply deleted the data of random people, without warning? That takes a demented fuck to pull off something like that. Sad.

 

As weird as it sounds, that was the norm for viruses made before the Internet entered in every household and office. Their purpose was to inconvenience and/or totally obliterate a user's PC (or simply technically infect all of their floppies, even if the virus itself was otherwise asymptomatic), and maaaaaybe brag about how clever the virus author was with witty messages, surprise screens etc.

 

There really wasn't a way to track your progress, your rate of infiltration or "phone home" like modern malware does, and there was no direct profit to be made. Your maximum aspiration would be breaking somebody's PC in their mother's basement, so to speak. You could say that writing viruses was more of a "pure sport" at the time, and was a sport reserved for relatively skilled programmers. Today it's all more utilitarian, accessible to the masses even (even ignorant scammers), and doesn't even need to actually pull an infection in a technical sense: it's enough to convince a victim that they have an infection, something that can be done even with a simple JavaScript popup.

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45 minutes ago, kb1 said:

Those .COM and .EXE hacking viruses would often adjust the date/time of files, to indicate that a file had already been infected, so it could avoid multiple infection.

 

For example, they may change the date/time seconds field to be a multiple of 4 (going from 33 seconds to 36 seconds).

 

But, the way you describe it, it sounds like the virus tried to destroy the file allocation table during a delayed payload, and DOS fixed it with the backup copy it maintains. Did you remember running a disk check? May that's what fixed the date/time stamps?

 

I honestly don't remember doing anything at that point beyond getting rid of the pop-up and restarting the game. I think I restarted my computer. Don't remember if I ran a disk check. Obviously if something like that happened today, I'd be much more thorough. 

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3 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

 

I honestly don't remember doing anything at that point beyond getting rid of the pop-up and restarting the game. I think I restarted my computer. Don't remember if I ran a disk check. Obviously if something like that happened today, I'd be much more thorough. 

 

If it was an oldschool MS-DOS virus running under a Windows 9x (or even early XP) enrironment, it probably wouldn't have worked as intended anyway. A little-mentioned tidbit of virus history is that moving from MS-DOS to Win 9x and then to Windows XP made most of them virtually obsolete. Not that there was a paucity of up-n-runners ready to fill-in that gap. Only that in the Win9x era, "viruses" were now mostly written in Visual Basic, rather than raw, pure assembly :-)

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13 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

@Maes That PC was running on Windows 98.

Yep, and Win 98 was essentially a DOS app :) 16-bit app support (.COM and .EXE hackers), as well as boot-sector infectors.

 

On 5/23/2019 at 5:09 AM, Maes said:

 

As weird as it sounds, that was the norm for viruses made before the Internet entered in every household and office. Their purpose was to inconvenience and/or totally obliterate a user's PC (or simply technically infect all of their floppies, even if the virus itself was otherwise asymptomatic), and maaaaaybe brag about how clever the virus author was with witty messages, surprise screens etc.

The technical aspects were quite interesting, and I could see how someone might think the "witty messages" were funny. But, again, destroying the hard-drives of random people is nothing but pure evil.

 

On 5/23/2019 at 5:09 AM, Maes said:

There really wasn't a way to track your progress, your rate of infiltration or "phone home" like modern malware does, and there was no direct profit to be made.

That's what makes it so insidious. Greed is one thing, but, random destruction? Imagine if, for example, someone had done that to id Software on Nov. '93? Dirty punks!

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53 minutes ago, kb1 said:

That's what makes it so insidious. Greed is one thing, but, random destruction? Imagine if, for example, someone had done that to id Software on Nov. '93? Dirty punks!

 

Well, TBH, I think that only a small minority of viruses had an actual "evil" super-destructive payload.

 

Most had just a replication mechanism (be it by file infection, boot sector infection etc.) and replicating themselves was their primary goal, and since their goal was to replicate and spread (like actual viruses), they couldn't be too destructive or disruptive, at least not on purpose and/or not always. Even the destructive kind only activated its deadly payload under specific conditions, e.g. after spreading to a certain number of floppies, on a specific date, or if it was detected by AV software.

 

But in practive, what eventually ended up inconveniencing most users , even with the most "harmless" of these viruses, was that they simply spread to all executable files in your disk and that once you got one "past the gate", you often got more of them.

 

Even if most of the time the infected programs kept working "as intended"  (to the point that most people with infections didn't even realize they had them), eventually they altered the file sizes too much, infected some too critical file, or in general interfered with normal functioning in unforeseen ways, prompting the user to -finally- acknowledge that something was wrong. Usually, multiple virus infections could co-exist on the same computer and even in the same file, often with unforeseen consequences as well.

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Many of them avoid double file infection. But, if you get 2 viruses that use a similar "already infected" mechanism, one virus can wipe the flag of the other, defeating that mechanism for the other, or both.

 

I find it bizarre that modern realtime virus scanners hook the file system exactly the way viruses used to, running their code in response to every file system call. Talk about a virus! I miss the days when you could trust computing.

 

 

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I, as a tiny and rather stupid kid, once accidentally börk börked one of the old XP computers with a "Destroy Your Desktop" trojan that caused the taskbar and almost every single window to close itself out whenever I logged in. It wasn't pretty. There was also a rather hilariously inefficient Gandcrab ransomware attack on my current computer somewhere in 2018, as the only files it really got were useless cache files and other slightly more important files I could re-install at will.

 

"Oh no, I must pay with a cryptocurrency to get my useless Steam cache files back! Whatever will I do!?"

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