Month: October 2005

Undocumented command line interface for Countserspy

These are unsupported, undocumented… but might be useful to some out there.

To use this, open up a command prompt and go to the CounterSpy program files directory.  In version 1.5, this would be program filessunbeltcounterspyconsumer.

The command line would be Counterspy.exe, followed by one of the parameters:

These are command line switches you can use in CounterSpy version 1.5:

Counterspy.exe [-parameters] [-parameters]

-update: starts a check for updates, and if available, downloads them.  

-scan: scans the system with optional parameter.  

Optional scan parameters:   [-withMainUI]
                                          [-withUI]
                                          [-withResultUI]

So, for example, you could type Counterspy.exe -scan -withui -withresultui

Try it, pretty nifty. 

123sdfa

Alex Eckelberry

New CounterSpy released

Our version 1.5 is now released.  News of it was trickled out to some forums last week but now it’s official.

This new version is primarily under-the-hood stuff.  We did a  lot of work to the spyware removal portion of the engine, as well as some minor work on the UI.

CounterSpy customers will be upgraded automatically over the next few weeks through the program (the reason that it doesn’t happen all at once is the massive bandwidth needs to upgrade so many people—our new OC3 is helping though).

If you have CounterSpy and are dying to get the new version right away, you can download it immediately by going here.

 

Alex

 

A blog dedicated to saving the butler

From the curious and curiouser department:

“Well, if you have missed the stories in the news, you can easily do a search yourself… just ask Jeeves himself, “Why is Jeeves dumping the butler?” and you’ll get several links describing the scenario. Without going into too much detail, it would seem that the new owners of the company (Interactive Corp), are not too fond of the butler, and they would like to see him go. More specifically, if rumors from both within the company and the internet are to believed, it would seem Barry Diller himself wants the butler’s head on a plate. And I do believe the rumors, somewhat, because at least back when I was still with the company, any time there was any talk about removing the world-famous icon, there was never anything but very vehemant [sic] denial from the Ask Jeeves executives about shooting themselves in the foot by destroying their most recognizable brand. Sadly, it would seem that the aforementioned foot-shooting is going to take place anyway.”

 

Link here.

Alex Eckelberry

RockXP

Nifty.

RockXP allows you to retrieve and change your XP product key that you used when you installed Windows XP. This can come very handy if you need to reinstall but have misplaced or lost the CD cover with the serial sticker. In addition, the program also lets you save the product activation to a file, enables you to recover usernames and passwords contained in the Windows Secure Storage, recover your Microsoft Windows Products keys and have password generator.  Use it:

–  To retrieve and change your XP Key
–  To retrieve all Microsoft Products keys
–  To save your XP activation file
–  To retrieve your lost XP system passwords
–  To retrieve your lost RAS (Remote Access Settings) passwords
–  And to generate new passwords

Link here.

Alex Eckelberry

The sky is falling, played to Fur Elise

A security firm warns of new spam that plays midi files when you preview or open the email.

Email Systems warned that this appears to be an attention-seeking tactic. But it said whilst this latest addition to the spammers’ arsenal of  appears to be relatively innocuous, it opens the door for other highly undesirable possibilities such as pornographic or offensive voice-recordings embedded within emails which the user would unwittingly ‘play’ in front of friends, family or colleagues just by receiving the email.

Oh please. These are MIDI files, not WAV files—which can’t “unwittingly ‘play’” The worst that will happen is you’ll be sickened by some godawful music.

Link here via SpywareInfo.

TechDirt grumbles about it as well.

Alex Eckelberry

 

New US Government sites on security

From Sandi Hardmeier,

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in association with government and private sector cyber-security specialists, has launched OnGuardOnline.gov to educate consumers about phishing, spam, spyware etc.
http://onguardonline.gov/index.html

File a complaint about phishing, hacking, spyware etc.
http://onguardonline.gov/filecomplaint.html

 

 Alex Eckelberry

An adware developer submission

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ve seen the cease and desist letters we get and the replies we give. 

Sometimes, though, adware developers are quite polite and we actually have a productive dialog.

And sometimes, we get submissions like this one, which came in today:

<Warning:  Potentially offensive language>

————————————————————

A developer has submitted information about their product which may be flagged as spyware.

Company: EB
Company website: www.effectivebrand.com
Contact name: i don’t say assholes
Contact email: somebodysomeware@yahoo.com
Product name affected: fack off
Product versions affected: i sad fack off
Product is detected as: IEMenuExtension
Software can be downloaded here:
www.effectivebrand.com
————————————————————
Brief description of software:
LISTEN ASSHOLES! EB IS NOT SPYWARE!!!!!!!!!!! FACK SUNBELT!
————————————————————
Reason for submission:
I SAD IT’S NOT SPYWARE!
————————————————————

Submitted: 20051001071545
Code: DEV_SPYWARE
————————————————————

Oh dear. 

 

Alex Eckelberry