Windows Messenger Pop-up spam

From: Matthew Romanek (shandower_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/29/04

  • Next message: shankarnarayan.d_at_netsol.co.in: "Fake AP in the Vendor field of Netstumbler" 
    Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 07:24:54 -0800
To: security-basics@securityfocus.com

    Hey all,

    I've a question, asked purely for the sake of curiosity.

    I was just reminded of the bad old days working for an ISP where every
    other call was about lewd messages popping up on a user's screen when
    they weren't even doing anything. Windows messaging popups were THE
    complaint at the time, and slowly we convinced people that personal
    firewalls were a good idea (via messenger popups, no less. We were a
    scummy little ISP, and no great bastion of morality).

    It just occured to me that I (personally) haven't seen a popup in
    several years. I assume it's because we've learned about security and
    firewalling and all that. So my question is: Is this sort of stuff
    still a problem? Does it still exist in the wild? I suppose I could
    plug an unprotected windows machine into a public IP address, but I
    think I'd be likely to be taken out by something worse before a
    messenger ad comes along. And I'm not THAT curious. :) 

    -- 
Matthew 'Shandower' Romanek
IDS Analyst
  • Next message: shankarnarayan.d_at_netsol.co.in: "Fake AP in the Vendor field of Netstumbler"

    Relevant Pages