clicking search page links,
results in randomly redirected URL pages
svchost.exe and rundll32.exe used to load malware/spyware DLL
Today, for the second time in a month, I was asked to help remove a spyware/malware from a computer running Windows XP SP3. In both cases, the symptoms were identical. The user immediately noticed something was wrong because their web browser started to behave oddly. Here is what happened:
- Open the web browser of choice (IE or Firefox or Opera) and load a search portal (Google, MSN or Yahoo) site
- type in something to search (“winter coat”)
- on the results page, if you right-click on a link and “open in new tab/window”, the page opens and immediately gets redirected to some other random page (usually some other portal site)
- HOWEVER, if you right-click on a link and select “copy shortcut”, then MANUALLY open a tab and paste the link, the page opens just fine
The first time this happened (Feb. 3, 2010), it was on a friend’s computer and he is a veteran IT person (network system administrator for 10+ years). He keeps his computer very secure, usually.
We checked the usual system settings (network settings, proxy settings, “odd” programs running, etc.). We ran the usual anti-spyware and anti-virus scans, call came back clean as usual.
Avast AntiVirus – clean
ClamAV – clean
HiJackThis – normal
MalwareBytes – clean
Spybot SD – clean
However, running the SysInternals utility, PROCEXP.EXE, I happened to notice this line:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe “C:\WINDOWS\system32\efsadub.dll”,DWLGXPLFFX
which was running as a sub-process under svchost.exe (C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs).
The file “C:\WINDOWS\system32\efsadub.dll” (notice the “b” in the filename) had its special bits set as “read-only”, “hidden” and “system”. When we try to change the attributes, we get “Access Denied” (even from an Administrator account). Hell, we even tried to access this in Safe-Mode Command Prompt Only, we get the same error. We could not rename the file either, obviously.
I was finally able to change the attributes and rename the file after running “
For the VirusTotal analysis report on the file “efsadub.dll“, goto:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/b1ff584a9b490418a159ab4afe85ae1802e4c4634c942756640a4411467ef25d-1264975725
Today (March 5, 2010), a client called and his computer had the same symptoms. Again, I checked the usual suspects (running programs, etc.) and performed the usual scans (anti-virus, anti-malware, etc.). They all came back “clean”. However, I did notice that the signatures were slightly dated (about a month old). When I tried to update them, error messages resulted. MalwareBytes gave an error and hung in a loop. Symantec Anti-Virus LiveUpdates just failed.
ClamAV – clean
MalwareBytes – clean
Symantec Anti-Virus – clean
I then ran the PROCEXP.EXE utility from SysInternals. There were no odd DLLs loaded like the last time. Hmm… so this is not exactly the same as last time.
Since this had to be a malware that loaded at startup, I decided to check the System Services. I then noticed an “odd” service running named “Server WebCheckChannelAgent Performance Folder Provisioning Icon Driver CPL”, with a short-name of “srvoko6”. I tried to disable it and it kept resetting to “Automatic”.
Looking at the properties of this service, revealed that it was loading via “%SYSTEM%\svchost.exe –k netsvc6”. I searched the web on the terms “srvoko6” and “netsvc6”, I came across this site:
http://www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5=c801bd4576fc95cb03e918950edd21a1
which mentions the “ok6o.dll” and “ok6o.sys” files. So I searched for those files, and found them (they were not hidden). Trying to rename them worked, but they were immediately recreated by the malware.
NOTE: the above ThreatExpert site reports that this service was also named “Office Workstation Remote”. This tells me that the service display name can vary.
Instead, I used “CACLS.EXE” to change access permissions to these files so that nobody (or system service) was allowed to access them. Rebooted the computer and verified that the malware was no longer actively running. This time, I was able to successfully disable the service and renamed the “ok6o.dll” and “ok6o.sys” files.
I was then able to restore permissions to those files and delete them. Updated signatures for MalwareBytes and Symantec Anti-Virus, followed by a complete system scan. This time those programs found the installer stub files “C:\WINDOWS\bill103.exe” and “C:\WINDOWS\rdr_1267369102.exe” (which most likely are random filenames the initial download script created).
For the VirusTotal analysis on the file “o6ko.dll“, goto:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/7d6d2edc4eac763bc687e578008474dc85245b1e55d5ca5ae958d220f4802fbf-1267641995
For the VirusTotal analysis on the file “o6ko.sys“, goto:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/d599b5fb31b6387ff7e540fabb655bbde0990ce9db1e6f1918bec6ac21d43278-1267374431
As you can see from the VirusTotal analysis reports, not all anti-virus scanners detect or flag these files. So, for most of these malware/spyware, it still requires manual detection and removal.
STRONG WARNING: be very careful of websites that tells you do download an executable to remove the malware/spyware. If you are not familiar with the website, DO NOT download and run the program, it can possibly install another piece of malwayre/spyware onto your computer. It is best to call a professional (or at least someone who knows with 100% certainty what they are doing) to clean your computer.
NOTICE: when renaming files and changing attributes or permissions, it is strongly advised that you do those via command-line commands in the “Command Prompt” window. If the malware/spyware is attached to the Windows Explorer process and/or its handles, it can intercept your mouse-click commands, making it seem like you did what you wanted to, but in reality the malware/spyware actually created another copy of itself with a different name and reinstalled itself using those new copies. The “Command Prompt” method is the most secure way of doing this work; however it is a lot of typing.
Feel free to post comments below if you need help or have recommendations.
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
clicking search page links,
results in randomly redirected URL pages
svchost.exe and rundll32.exe used to load malware/spyware DLL
Today, for the second time in a month, I was asked to help remove a spyware/malware from a computer running Windows XP SP3. In both cases, the symptoms were identical. The user immediately noticed something was wrong because their web browser started to behave oddly. Here is what happened:
- Open the web browser of choice (IE or Firefox or Opera) and load a search portal (Google, MSN or Yahoo) site
- type in something to search (“winter coat”)
- on the results page, if you right-click on a link and “open in new tab/window”, the page opens and immediately gets redirected to some other random page (usually some other portal site)
- HOWEVER, if you right-click on a link and select “copy shortcut”, then MANUALLY open a tab and paste the link, the page opens just fine
The first time this happened (Feb. 3, 2010), it was on a friend’s computer and he is a veteran IT person (network system administrator for 10+ years). He keeps his computer very secure, usually.
We checked the usual system settings (network settings, proxy settings, “odd” programs running, etc.). We ran the usual anti-spyware and anti-virus scans, call came back clean as usual.
Avast AntiVirus – clean
ClamAV – clean
HiJackThis – normal
MalwareBytes – clean
Spybot SD – clean
However, running the SysInternals utility, PROCEXP.EXE, I happened to notice this line:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe “C:\WINDOWS\system32\efsadub.dll”,DWLGXPLFFX
which was running as a sub-process under svchost.exe (C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs).
The file “C:\WINDOWS\system32\efsadub.dll” (notice the “b” in the filename) had its special bits set as “read-only”, “hidden” and “system”. When we try to change the attributes, we get “Access Denied” (even from an Administrator account). Hell, we even tried to access this in Safe-Mode Command Prompt Only, we get the same error. We could not rename the file either, obviously.
I was finally able to change the attributes and rename the file after running “
For the VirusTotal analysis report on the file “efsadub.dll“, goto:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/b1ff584a9b490418a159ab4afe85ae1802e4c4634c942756640a4411467ef25d-1264975725
Today (March 5, 2010), a client called and his computer had the same symptoms. Again, I checked the usual suspects (running programs, etc.) and performed the usual scans (anti-virus, anti-malware, etc.). They all came back “clean”. However, I did notice that the signatures were slightly dated (about a month old). When I tried to update them, error messages resulted. MalwareBytes gave an error and hung in a loop. Symantec Anti-Virus LiveUpdates just failed.
ClamAV – clean
MalwareBytes – clean
Symantec Anti-Virus – clean
I then ran the PROCEXP.EXE utility from SysInternals. There were no odd DLLs loaded like the last time. Hmm… so this is not exactly the same as last time.
Since this had to be a malware that loaded at startup, I decided to check the System Services. I then noticed an “odd” service running named “Server WebCheckChannelAgent Performance Folder Provisioning Icon Driver CPL”, with a short-name of “srvoko6”. I tried to disable it and it kept resetting to “Automatic”.
Looking at the properties of this service, revealed that it was loading via “%SYSTEM%\svchost.exe –k netsvc6”. I searched the web on the terms “srvoko6” and “netsvc6”, I came across this site:
http://www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5=c801bd4576fc95cb03e918950edd21a1
which mentions the “ok6o.dll” and “ok6o.sys” files. So I searched for those files, and found them (they were not hidden). Trying to rename them worked, but they were immediately recreated by the malware.
NOTE: the above ThreatExpert site reports that this service was also named “Office Workstation Remote”. This tells me that the service display name can vary.
Instead, I used “CACLS.EXE” to change access permissions to these files so that nobody (or system service) was allowed to access them. Rebooted the computer and verified that the malware was no longer actively running. This time, I was able to successfully disable the service and renamed the “ok6o.dll” and “ok6o.sys” files.
I was then able to restore permissions to those files and delete them. Updated signatures for MalwareBytes and Symantec Anti-Virus, followed by a complete system scan. This time those programs found the installer stub files “C:\WINDOWS\bill103.exe” and “C:\WINDOWS\rdr_1267369102.exe” (which most likely are random filenames the initial download script created).
For the VirusTotal analysis on the file “o6ko.dll“, goto:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/7d6d2edc4eac763bc687e578008474dc85245b1e55d5ca5ae958d220f4802fbf-1267641995
For the VirusTotal analysis on the file “o6ko.sys“, goto:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/d599b5fb31b6387ff7e540fabb655bbde0990ce9db1e6f1918bec6ac21d43278-1267374431
As you can see from the VirusTotal analysis reports, not all anti-virus scanners detect or flag these files. So, for most of these malware/spyware, it still requires manual detection and removal.
STRONG WARNING: be very careful of websites that tells you do download an executable to remove the malware/spyware. If you are not familiar with the website, DO NOT download and run the program, it can possibly install another piece of malwayre/spyware onto your computer. It is best to call a professional (or at least someone who knows with 100% certainty what they are doing) to clean your computer.
NOTICE: when renaming files and changing attributes or permissions, it is strongly advised that you do those via command-line commands in the “Command Prompt” window. If the malware/spyware is attached to the Windows Explorer process and/or its handles, it can intercept your mouse-click commands, making it seem like you did what you wanted to, but in reality the malware/spyware actually created another copy of itself with a different name and reinstalled itself using those new copies. The “Command Prompt” method is the most secure way of doing this work; however it is a lot of typing.
Feel free to post comments below if you need help or have recommendations.
Well, RIMM / Blackberry broke the Google MAIL Messages Integration in their BIS service, but the GMAIL plug-in works as described (and that is GREAT). Here is what I found.
If you have a working GMAIL account on your Blackberry, think twice before proceeding. 
Once you’ve re-add the GMAIL account using the default Blackberry method (fill in the e-mail address and password, then Blackberry figures out the rest). So this mode is what some service providers are calling “G-IMAP”. Also, this seems the only option if you are adding the accounts from the handset itself. Once you have “synced up” (activated) the account, your GMAIL INBOX messages can be found in the “email address” icon and the Blackberry Messages (which is what it should do). However, your GMAIL ARCHIVED messages (those that “skip the inbox” via a GMAIL filter automatically) will also show in your Blackberry Messages (all messages folder, the “M” button), which is NOT what it is suppose to do. That is a problem for me, as I have a lot of e-mail that I filter away from the INBOX and do not want to see on my Blackberry.
So, I decided to try setting up the account and force it to use the old IMAP setting. To do this you must be adding the e-mail account from the BIS web interface from your service provider; go to add another e-mail to the Blackberry, but this time, I leave the password field blank so that it would now ask me for the server settings. On the next screen, put in “imap.gmail.com” for you server settings. Again, Blackberry figures out the rest of the settings. Let us now call this “IMAP” setup, which it is (and it does NOT use the new Blackberry GMAIL plug-in). However, Blackberry decides that for this particular IMAP server (imap.gmail.com), it should check “All Mail” and not the “INBOX” folder. Once again, we face the same situation with GMAIL ARCHIVED messages showing up in the “Messages” folder on the Blackberry.
Now, for a work around. For the “IMAP” setting configuration we just did, we can go and change the IMAP server name to “gmail-imap.l.google.com” (which is a CNAME for “imap.gmail.com”). Save your settings. Your GMAIL account is now back to the way it should work (before Blackberry decided to make its non-standard changes and break the GMAIL integration). 
NOTE: this does not use the Blackberry GMAIL plug-in, so in order to “mark as spam” or “change labels” you need to install the Google GMail App.
I’ve spent over 4 hours on the phone today explaining first to T-Mobile, then to a RIMM Blackberry customer service, then a Blackberry tech at RIMM, and then finally another RIMM Blackberry tech who had “access to a RIMM Blackberry Analysis:”. They kept saying it was my Blackberry configuration that was wrong, like my BIS Filters were set incorrectly (which were set correctly) and that my “Service Book IDs” were incorrect causing the problem. To top it off, they say that because I kept deleting the account and recreating it, my “Service Book IDs” will keep changing and resulting in blah blah blah.
Finally, I got him (Don) to agree to try it out on a handset himself. So Don was adventurous and said he had no problems with his GMAIL working on his Blackberry. He went ahead and deleted his GMAIL account from his Blackberry and recreated it. Then he want to his GMAIL account and created a filter (for all messages with Subject:archive, “skip the inbox” and “marked as read”). Now I had him send a test message with the subject “archive” from another account to his GMAIL account. He now saw that archived message showed up in his Blackberry Messages “as opened”, which should not have happened. He said “Ah, I see what you are talking about now” and went to talk to an Analyst.
So now Don tells me, it seems to be an isolated case with my account and that he would look into it further. Gave me a case number and said that I should call back in a few days for status updates. What!?!?! I told him that he should “Google” it and see how many other cases of this problem there are. He said he would keep the ticket open for the next 5 days. Oh my goodness, Research In Motion really wants some more bad press?
Damn, must we provide them the code too? All they have to do is fix their “special code” (probably one conditional statement) which pertains to “imap.gmail.com” and no other servers. Most likely they have something that says if the IMAP server is “imap.gmail.com” then check “All Mail” folder instead of letting it check the standard “INBOX” folder like all other IMAP servers it checks.
If you have experienced this issue with your Blackberry, please add a comment below and/or a URL to your forum posts.
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
Well, RIMM / Blackberry broke the Google MAIL Messages Integration in their BIS service, but the GMAIL plug-in works as described (and that is GREAT). Here is what I found.
If you have a working GMAIL account on your Blackberry, think twice before proceeding.
Once you’ve re-add the GMAIL account using the default Blackberry method (fill in the e-mail address and password, then Blackberry figures out the rest). So this mode is what some service providers are calling “G-IMAP”. Also, this seems the only option if you are adding the accounts from the handset itself. Once you have “synced up” (activated) the account, your GMAIL INBOX messages can be found in the “email address” icon and the Blackberry Messages (which is what it should do). However, your GMAIL ARCHIVED messages (those that “skip the inbox” via a GMAIL filter automatically) will also show in your Blackberry Messages (all messages folder, the “M” button), which is NOT what it is suppose to do. That is a problem for me, as I have a lot of e-mail that I filter away from the INBOX and do not want to see on my Blackberry.
So, I decided to try setting up the account and force it to use the old IMAP setting. To do this you must be adding the e-mail account from the BIS web interface from your service provider; go to add another e-mail to the Blackberry, but this time, I leave the password field blank so that it would now ask me for the server settings. On the next screen, put in “imap.gmail.com” for you server settings. Again, Blackberry figures out the rest of the settings. Let us now call this “IMAP” setup, which it is (and it does NOT use the new Blackberry GMAIL plug-in). However, Blackberry decides that for this particular IMAP server (imap.gmail.com), it should check “All Mail” and not the “INBOX” folder. Once again, we face the same situation with GMAIL ARCHIVED messages showing up in the “Messages” folder on the Blackberry.
Now, for a work around. For the “IMAP” setting configuration we just did, we can go and change the IMAP server name to “gmail-imap.l.google.com” (which is a CNAME for “imap.gmail.com”). Save your settings. Your GMAIL account is now back to the way it should work (before Blackberry decided to make its non-standard changes and break the GMAIL integration). NOTE: this does not use the Blackberry GMAIL plug-in, so in order to “mark as spam” or “change labels” you need to install the Google GMail App.
I’ve spent over 4 hours on the phone today explaining first to T-Mobile, then to a RIMM Blackberry customer service, then a Blackberry tech at RIMM, and then finally another RIMM Blackberry tech who had “access to a RIMM Blackberry Analysis:”. They kept saying it was my Blackberry configuration that was wrong, like my BIS Filters were set incorrectly (which were set correctly) and that my “Service Book IDs” were incorrect causing the problem. To top it off, they say that because I kept deleting the account and recreating it, my “Service Book IDs” will keep changing and resulting in blah blah blah.
Finally, I got him (Don) to agree to try it out on a handset himself. So Don was adventurous and said he had no problems with his GMAIL working on his Blackberry. He went ahead and deleted his GMAIL account from his Blackberry and recreated it. Then he want to his GMAIL account and created a filter (for all messages with Subject:archive, “skip the inbox” and “marked as read”). Now I had him send a test message with the subject “archive” from another account to his GMAIL account. He now saw that archived message showed up in his Blackberry Messages “as opened”, which should not have happened. He said “Ah, I see what you are talking about now” and went to talk to an Analyst.
So now Don tells me, it seems to be an isolated case with my account and that he would look into it further. Gave me a case number and said that I should call back in a few days for status updates. What!?!?! I told him that he should “Google” it and see how many other cases of this problem there are. He said he would keep the ticket open for the next 5 days. Oh my goodness, Research In Motion really wants some more bad press?
Damn, must we provide them the code too? All they have to do is fix their “special code” (probably one conditional statement) which pertains to “imap.gmail.com” and no other servers. Most likely they have something that says if the IMAP server is “imap.gmail.com” then check “All Mail” folder instead of letting it check the standard “INBOX” folder like all other IMAP servers it checks.
If you have experienced this issue with your Blackberry, please add a comment below and/or a URL to your forum posts.
I just saw this report on NY Fox 5 News (well it took them a little bit of time to post it to their website):http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/port-authority-police-radio-concerns-100118
I cannot believe that the NY/NJ Port Authority is not using a “more proprietary” radio frequency. Listening to the radio transmissions, it seems that they are on the same frequency as other civilian businesses using UHF radios. Whoever decided on using those “store bought” (well it has to be from a specialized 2-way radio dealer) radios is kind of a joke.
Literally, terrorists can simply get onto that frequency by purchasing one of those easily obtainable radios and keep it keyed up. The Port Authority police would basically have no 2-way radio service. Unlike the Fox 5 News report, it is not a “concern” it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Just imagine, if the TV station transmitters were easily available for purchase by civilians. All that a terrorist needs to do is have one of these transmitters on and send a blank signal (well, more exactly “radio noise”) and effectively it would kill the true signal and nobody would be able to watch a particular TV channel (over-the-air, that is). Now imagine that happening with the cell tower frequencies. Hmmm…. yeah, that is why those frequencies are restricted from civilians.
I think Homeland Security and the NYC Anti-Terrorism Task Force (maybe even the mayor and governors of both states) needs to force the Port Authority to resolve this issue ASAP. It is an easy fix. Just replace the radios and the repeaters. Keeping them UHF radios, would not require them to replace antennas (which can be more difficult). It really is a no-brainer, it is only some money. President Obama seems to be printing them out of the Treasury, so what is another truck load? At least these would actually save lives, unlike those full body scanners which can cause some unknown DNS damage (but that is another post).
So beware while driving through the NY/NJ tunnels and bridges. This issue seems to affect all of them.
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
I just saw this report on NY Fox 5 News (well it took them a little bit of time to post it to their website):http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/port-authority-police-radio-concerns-100118
I cannot believe that the NY/NJ Port Authority is not using a “more proprietary” radio frequency. Listening to the radio transmissions, it seems that they are on the same frequency as other civilian businesses using UHF radios. Whoever decided on using those “store bought” (well it has to be from a specialized 2-way radio dealer) radios is kind of a joke.
Literally, terrorists can simply get onto that frequency by purchasing one of those easily obtainable radios and keep it keyed up. The Port Authority police would basically have no 2-way radio service. Unlike the Fox 5 News report, it is not a “concern” it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Just imagine, if the TV station transmitters were easily available for purchase by civilians. All that a terrorist needs to do is have one of these transmitters on and send a blank signal (well, more exactly “radio noise”) and effectively it would kill the true signal and nobody would be able to watch a particular TV channel (over-the-air, that is). Now imagine that happening with the cell tower frequencies. Hmmm…. yeah, that is why those frequencies are restricted from civilians.
I think Homeland Security and the NYC Anti-Terrorism Task Force (maybe even the mayor and governors of both states) needs to force the Port Authority to resolve this issue ASAP. It is an easy fix. Just replace the radios and the repeaters. Keeping them UHF radios, would not require them to replace antennas (which can be more difficult). It really is a no-brainer, it is only some money. President Obama seems to be printing them out of the Treasury, so what is another truck load? At least these would actually save lives, unlike those full body scanners which can cause some unknown DNS damage (but that is another post).
So beware while driving through the NY/NJ tunnels and bridges. This issue seems to affect all of them.
Avast tonight released their updated VPS 091203-0 signature file which has been causing a lot of grief to everyone around the world with false-positives for the trojan/worm Win32:Delf-MZG[Trj].
The only fix for now is to disable updates and go back to a previous signature file that is not “bad”.
Luckily I have another machine which has not yet taken down this update, so I saved the 400.vps file from C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA into my USB key. I then copied this older version of the 400.vps file onto the computer with bad 091203-0 VPS signature file. I placed it into C:\ for easy access later (because we will be using the Command Prompt, so everything would be typed).
Now on the computer with the bad VPS signature file,
disable the Avast updates by setting it to “Manual”.
Reboot the computer (assuming Windows XP) into
and type the following:
cd “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA”
ren 400.vps 400.vps.091203-0.bad
copy C:\400.vps
(this is why I recommended putting it in C:\ above, less typing)
Then reboot the computer back to Normal mode.
Your Avast VPS signatures should now be reverted to the older version.
Good luck!
Update: December 3, 2009 8:25AM EST
Avast released an updated signature file (VPS 091203-1) that is suppose to resolve the bug. Goto http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=377
.
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
Avast tonight released their updated VPS 091203-0 signature file which has been causing a lot of grief to everyone around the world with false-positives for the trojan/worm Win32:Delf-MZG[Trj].
The only fix for now is to disable updates and go back to a previous signature file that is not “bad”.
Luckily I have another machine which has not yet taken down this update, so I saved the 400.vps file from C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA into my USB key. I then copied this older version of the 400.vps file onto the computer with bad 091203-0 VPS signature file. I placed it into C:\ for easy access later (because we will be using the Command Prompt, so everything would be typed).
Now on the computer with the bad VPS signature file,
disable the Avast updates by setting it to “Manual”.
Reboot the computer (assuming Windows XP) into
and type the following:
cd “C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA”
ren 400.vps 400.vps.091203-0.bad
copy C:\400.vps
(this is why I recommended putting it in C:\ above, less typing)
Then reboot the computer back to Normal mode.
Your Avast VPS signatures should now be reverted to the older version.
Good luck!
Update: December 3, 2009 8:25AM EST
Avast released an updated signature file (VPS 091203-1) that is suppose to resolve the bug. Goto http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=377
.
Jessica Biel most ‘dangerous’ celeb in cyberspace. Followed by Beyoncé, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Brady, and Jessica Simpson to round out the top 5.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10317029-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Suggestion: use a safer browser like Mozilla Firefox 3.5.
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
Jessica Biel most ‘dangerous’ celeb in cyberspace. Followed by Beyoncé, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Brady, and Jessica Simpson to round out the top 5.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10317029-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Suggestion: use a safer browser like Mozilla Firefox 3.5.
Since approximately 9am Eastern Time, Twitter has been down. Just now on CNBC, they announced that Twitter came out and confirmed they are under a DoS (Denial-of-Service ) attack.
Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/32297641/
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
Since approximately 9am Eastern Time, Twitter has been down. Just now on CNBC, they announced that Twitter came out and confirmed they are under a DoS (Denial-of-Service ) attack.
Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/32297641/
I just upgraded to Firefox 3.5 and realized that Microsoft snuck in (spyware-like installation, without user acknowledgment) an extension to Firefox 3.0 that is not compatible with Firefox 3.5, that extension is the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.0.
Microsoft has released a newer version of that extension, version 1.1, which is compatible with Firefox 3.5. However, Firefox 3.5 cannot automatically update to it, you have to do it manually and can be found here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9449
Well … being that I want to use Firefox and stay away from Microsoft’s browser and plug-ins, I wanted to find a way to remove the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.0 extension, since you cannot just click “Uninstall” like all the other extensions I have in Firefox. Besides, why would I want to keep an extension installed that I did not install myself? Would you knowingly keep a piece of spyware running on your computer? Heck no!
So digging around, I found clues on how to remove it. Here is a script that I wrote to remove the extension from the computer and remove it from Firefox. However, I still had to manually remove the additional information Microsoft added to the Firefox UserAgent header.
@echo off
echo Removing dotNET Assistant Extension files …
rd /s “%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension”
echo.
echo Removing dotNET extension from registry …
REG.EXE DELETE “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions” /v “{20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}” /f
echo.
echo.
echo MUST manually remove the UserAgent setting from each Firefox profile …
echo.
echo you can manually delete this line from each prefs.js:
echo user_pref(“general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet”, “(.NET CLR 3.5.30729)”);
echo.
echo or do it from “about:config” within Firefox
echo.
However, this code did NOT work for all of my workstations. I found that in those cases I needed to manually remove an entry from the registry, so I created this .REG file:
REGEDIT4[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions]
“{20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}”=-
Finally, to remove the added text from the UserAgent header in Firefox.
One way to do this is to simply open the prefs.js for your Firefox profile and remove the line which reads:
user_pref(“general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet”, “(.NET CLR 3.5.30729)”);
Or you can … in Firefox, type “about:config” into the URL box and you should see this:
Now in the filter box, type “useragent” and you should see something like this:
Right-click on the “general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet” line brings up a menu, select “Reset”.
Now close out of Firefox completely and restart it. You are now done.
Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963707
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
I just upgraded to Firefox 3.5 and realized that Microsoft snuck in (spyware-like installation, without user acknowledgment) an extension to Firefox 3.0 that is not compatible with Firefox 3.5, that extension is the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.0.
Microsoft has released a newer version of that extension, version 1.1, which is compatible with Firefox 3.5. However, Firefox 3.5 cannot automatically update to it, you have to do it manually and can be found here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9449
Well … being that I want to use Firefox and stay away from Microsoft’s browser and plug-ins, I wanted to find a way to remove the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.0 extension, since you cannot just click “Uninstall” like all the other extensions I have in Firefox. Besides, why would I want to keep an extension installed that I did not install myself? Would you knowingly keep a piece of spyware running on your computer? Heck no!
So digging around, I found clues on how to remove it. Here is a script that I wrote to remove the extension from the computer and remove it from Firefox. However, I still had to manually remove the additional information Microsoft added to the Firefox UserAgent header.
@echo off
echo Removing dotNET Assistant Extension files …
rd /s “%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension”
echo.
echo Removing dotNET extension from registry …
REG.EXE DELETE “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions” /v “{20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}” /f
echo.
echo.
echo MUST manually remove the UserAgent setting from each Firefox profile …
echo.
echo you can manually delete this line from each prefs.js:
echo user_pref(“general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet”, “(.NET CLR 3.5.30729)”);
echo.
echo or do it from “about:config” within Firefox
echo.
However, this code did NOT work for all of my workstations. I found that in those cases I needed to manually remove an entry from the registry, so I created this .REG file:
REGEDIT4[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions]
“{20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}”=-
Finally, to remove the added text from the UserAgent header in Firefox.
One way to do this is to simply open the prefs.js for your Firefox profile and remove the line which reads:
user_pref(“general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet”, “(.NET CLR 3.5.30729)”);
Or you can … in Firefox, type “about:config” into the URL box and you should see this:
Now in the filter box, type “useragent” and you should see something like this:
Right-click on the “general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet” line brings up a menu, select “Reset”.
Now close out of Firefox completely and restart it. You are now done.
Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963707
Source: http://www.google.com/appsstatus
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
Source: http://www.google.com/appsstatus
.highlight { background-color: #FFFF00; } |
With WordPress v2.7, you can now mark a post as “Sticky”, which puts it at the top of the page. If you are using a WordPress 2.7 compatible theme, then it should work right out of the box. However, for older themes, you need to make a few simple modifications to your theme template and stylesheet.
In your template index.php file,
| change: | <div class="post" id=... > |
||
| to: | <div <?php post_class(); ?> id=... > |
Add this to your template styles.css file:
.style { background-color: #FFFF00; } |
Now any posts that is checked as “Stick this post to the front page” will be highlighted and moved to the top of the front page.
NOTE: you must be using WordPress 2.7 or newer to have this feature.
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
.highlight { background-color: #FFFF00; } |
With WordPress v2.7, you can now mark a post as “Sticky”, which puts it at the top of the page. If you are using a WordPress 2.7 compatible theme, then it should work right out of the box. However, for older themes, you need to make a few simple modifications to your theme template and stylesheet.
In your template index.php file,
| change: | <div class="post" id=... > |
||
| to: | <div <?php post_class(); ?> id=... > |
Add this to your template styles.css file:
.style { background-color: #FFFF00; } |
Now any posts that is checked as “Stick this post to the front page” will be highlighted and moved to the top of the front page.
NOTE: you must be using WordPress 2.7 or newer to have this feature.
|
Well some simple editing of the plugins’ code can make it look like this:
|
First … we modify the CSS stylesheet for the Sociable plugin. Change the first line in …/wp-content/plugins/sociable/sociable.css
| from: | div.sociable { margin: 16px 0; } |
| to: | div.sociable { margin: 5px 0; } |
Next … we modify the code of the AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget plugin and the ShareThis plugin; changing DIV and P tags to a corresponding SPAN tag.
To make it easier for you here are their respective Unix patch files:
addthis_social_widget.php.patch and sharethis.php.patch.
NOTE: whenever you update these plugins, you must modify the code again (unless the authors alter their code).
Enjoy!
©2010 Johnny Chin. All Rights Reserved.
|
Well some simple editing of the plugins’ code can make it look like this:
|
First … we modify the CSS stylesheet for the Sociable plugin. Change the first line in …/wp-content/plugins/sociable/sociable.css
| from: | div.sociable { margin: 16px 0; } |
| to: | div.sociable { margin: 5px 0; } |
Next … we modify the code of the AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget plugin and the ShareThis plugin; changing DIV and P tags to a corresponding SPAN tag.
To make it easier for you here are their respective Unix patch files:
addthis_social_widget.php.patch and sharethis.php.patch.
NOTE: whenever you update these plugins, you must modify the code again (unless the authors alter their code).
Enjoy!