Preserved Topic: Oh boy...

fun fun fun...
I just got a virus that deleted all the jps I had on my harddrive! Or rather, it converted them to useless files. There were over 4500 of them...

Normally I would not even open I file like that I get in an e-mail, but the ironic part was that I was expecting to get a logo sent to me from the person I got this file from!

Oh well... I will just take the opportunity to reinstall the system on my computer, as I needed to do taht anyway... It sure is annoying though! And I do think I have backup for at least most of the files that were lost...

There, at least it feels a little better now that I have been able to compain to you about it

Bummer bro, I hope you didn't loose anything too important. It sure does suck when something like that happens, but you can always make yourself fell a little better by knowing the fact that it will always happen to someone else too.

Good luck with the re-installation.

- Scattered.

Hey ZOX, How did you get the virus? From your message it seems you got it through an e-mail with an attachment. What was the attachment? What should the rest of us look for so we don't get te same virus?

I *think* the file was called "eoyibow.bmp.vbs" but I am not all sure.

The .vbs part should have told me that it was a script, but I never even looked close enough at it to notive that.
It also changed the starting page of IE to a page at Fortunecity, but all it got there was a page not found.

I hope noone else will get it.
At least my computer is up and running again now, and at the moment it is faster than it was before, as it does not have all those programs and fonts and stuff to slow it down. PhotoShop, Illustrator et al. are all back in their places, so I don't feel quite as lost any more

To avoid things like this in the future, I would suggest to everyone to use Kaspersky Anti-Virus (aka AVP). IMO, AVP is definitively the BEST anti-virus software available! Norton AntiVirus is nothing compared to the beautiful AVP...

BTW AVP comes together with AVP ScriptChecker, which stays resident and checks all scripts that get passed to the Windows Scripting Host.

i just have to question anyones sanity that would open up a vbscript file sent from someone that was supposed to be sending a logo.

my two cents.

(nickname=twItch)(realname=steve)(email=steve@th-inknet.com)(chatname=8520632)(minutiae= whatthefuck)

well, that just proves I belong in an asylum, doesn't it?

Had I noticed that it was a vbscript I would of course not had opened it in the first place. But since I was expecting that logo, I did not even stop to look at the file name before I clicked it. I guess I have leared a lesson though

I already know I am insane because I like to completely reformat my harddrive about twice a year. I backup my important junk and everything else is gone. I personally think it just makes things on my computer run faster. Since I don't have any client files like most of you do its not a big hassle.

is that along the same token as the olympic jogger that never cleans his socks because he believes it helps him run faster?

You mean it doesn't?

All that time and I could have been wearing a clean jockstrap. Damn.

Actually there are several reasons a machine will run faster if you format the disk and re install everything.

1) This is one way to defragment the disk.
2) You get rid of all those old files you no longer need left by the operating system and applications.
3) The hystresis of the iron oxide tends to deteriorate in those areas of the disk that don't get changed very often.

It seems to me that formatting the disk every six months is a little excessive.

I tend to do it about every two years. But then it usually takes me about a month to bring the machine back up after formatting the drive.

PJ Plaugher once commented "Operating systems rust" and formatting the drive removes the OS Rust.

There's also one more reason why people start vbs files. You know that there's an option to hide file extension for known file types, right? Well, a lot of people leave it alone at the default settings and they actually see that 'infected' file with the name like this: something.jpg (actual file name is something.jpg.vbs). Almost every average computer user won't notice what that file actually is and that's how those viruses are spread...

Wait, you got the virus from someone that was supposed to be sending you a logo? Im assuming he was a friend of yours, whats the deal with that?

Well, that's the ironic part. It was one of those virii that spread by sending itself to everyone in the mailbox. It just so happened that I got it about 15 minutes after he had sent me another e-mail where we discussed the logo. So I just assumed that was what it was.

I have been on the net since '93 or something like that, and this is the FIRST time I have ever encountered a virus. Talk about bad timing!
Good it was not a very mean one, at least.

Mr. Max. In what way is the AVP better than other virus programs? I think we got Norton, and are looking at something call Panda, also. I did not have anything installed on my computer though (duh!)

I've been plagued by the anticmos.a and the stoned virii lately....I've clean and deleted them but they keep reappearing... :-(

Sorry to hear it Zox, that sucks. I'd be so screwed if that happened to me. I have no backups to most of my files. Glad to hear your recovering from it.

Mr Max, where is that option to turn on and off file extentions? I used to be able to see them when I opened a folder, and then one day I realized they were gone. I've poked around but to no avail, I can't find where to get them back.

Butcher, on Windows 2000 it is located under "Tools / Folder Options / View / Hide file extensions for known file types".

ZOX, I'll answer to your question regarding AVP later...

Cool! Thanks Mr. Max!

sounds like you got a form of the love bug virsu vox. I'm sure you guys read about it somewhere. It infects media files (.mp3, .jpg, .etc).

The worst thing is that anybody, if they're sent a copy of the virus, can rename it something else and send it to somebody else.

If you renamed your copy, vox, you could send it out again in a new iteration. These things are evil people, trust me. Also, if you have any visual basic knowledge, save the file to your drive, DON'T EXECUTE IT. Then right click on the file and open it with notepad or some other text editor. In fact, as an extra precaution, rename it to *.txt or some other non-executing file type. Then you can see the actual code.

And as a bonus here's a quaint anecdote:

Did you know that Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel prize, invented dynamite. He thought that it's destructive capabilities were so great that nobody would ever want to use it.