Re: pop-ups

From: Bruce Chambers (bchambers_at_nospam.cableone.net)
Date: 08/08/03 

Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 09:58:40 -0600

Greetings --

    Please stop posting potentially harmful advice. What are you, a
hacker-wannabe? Why else would you be deliberately posting bad
advice? Are you trying to give people a false sense of security by
having them turn off what are, in effect, valid security warnings,
while still leaving their PCs open to potential exploitation?

    Disabling the messenger service is a "head in the sand" approach
to computer security.

    The real problem is _not_ the messenger service pop-ups; they're
actually providing a useful service by acting as a security alert. The
true problem is the unsecured computer, and you're only
advice, however well-intended, was to turn off the warnings. How is
this helpful?

    Equivalent Scenario: You over-exert your shoulder at work or
play, causing bursitis. After weeks of annoying and sometimes
excruciating pain whenever you try to reach over your head, you go to
a doctor and say, while demonstrating the motion, "Doc, it hurts when
I do this." The doctor, being as helpful as you are, replies, "Well,
don't do that."

    The only true way to secure the PC, short of disconnecting it from
the Internet, is to install and *properly* configure a firewall; just
installing one and letting it's default settings handle things is no
good. Unfortunately, this does require one to learn a little bit more
about using a computer than used to be necessary.

    You've apparently had very little experience supporting corporate
LANs and enterprise or network level anti-virus solutions. While it's
true that the average home consumer has little or no use for the
messenger service, disabling said service does nothing but hide the
security problem. The system "resources" freed by disabling the
messenger service are insignificant.

Bruce Chambers 

--
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"Carl" <septemberschild@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:055e01c35d4e$d1ae5000$a401280a@phx.gbl...
>
>
> Well I've had this problem get really bad. I used to get
> a few pop ups every five minutes. In order to turn this
> off, you do not have to download or go to those websites.
> This is a new way of spamming using a program call
> messenger service that microsoft puts in with ur
> computer. In order to stop these follow these directions
> and ull never get one again.
> 1. Go to control panel
> 2. go to administrative tools. (under performance and
> maintanence)
> 3. click on services.
> 4. On the left scroll down until you see an application
> call messenger.
> 5. right click on messenger and go to properties.
> 6. inside the properties window, click on the stop button
> ono the right. Then on the start up type drop down menu,
> change it to manual.
> 7. click apply and then click ok.