Pop-up surprise

[MacGyver]

Got a call from a friend of mine who said he was having big problems with his computer (which in reality is a big POS but he's on a fixed income so I try to help him out wherever I can) I get over to his place and he explained that there's really nothing wrong with his computer, but that somebody sent him some email as a joke with a link in it, and that he clicked on it. Well you can probably imagine where that link took him. He said there were so many pop-up windows, that his computer crashed. Must have executed some nasty script along the way that propogated his favorites with smut and changed his wallpaper . He was telling his wife and kids that the computer was broken and that they couldn't use it, but the reality was it had been taken over by one of "those" sites! Awful.

I got a good laugh out of it, helped him clean up the mess, clear out his history and temp files, and went on my merry way.

[DANIMAL]

Just a tad embarassing!

[ephmynus]

Did you read this from the link on the front page? You might want to check this out.


IE Bug Can Lead to Strange Search
By Michelle Delio

2:00 a.m. Nov. 7, 2001 PST

If a plethora of pornography pop-up ads appear on your screen whenever you try to do a search, if misspelled URLs lead to you to strange corners of the Internet -- your computer may have been commandeered by a malicious bit of code planted by a greedy website owner.

Internet Explorer is configured to load Microsoft's own MSN search page whenever users click the browser's search button or enter a wrong URL. But a small program embedded in a website or an e-mail can automatically change the system's default settings to direct users to websites that they may prefer not to see.

Not only are users being directed to odd search sites touting the benefits of work-at-home schemes and Internet gambling, some claim that every time they attempt to do a search or happen to enter an incorrect URL, they get pop-up windows with explicit advertising for hardcore pornography.

[senectus]

Yeah, I'd like to see that as well.. If you could post the nasty link I'd appreciate it.

[Outcoded]

Got to love outlook's ability to fill your computer with whatever **** get's emailed to you in such a short amount of time. <a href="http://www.pmail.com/" target="_blank">Pegasus Mail</a> doesn't