Well where do i start. While browsing the fine fine sites that are out there for poser and poser related stuff. I came across a peticular site thatistoremain nameless. What appeared to be a respectable site . After browsing the free stuff , downloading a few files and loading them in . I was unpleased at what was happening in front of my eyes. After closeing everything and restarting . I was pissed to find that my puter was communicating to the internet with nothing open. Going back into the directory and killing the file i had loaded solved the program. Checking for the problem i learned that it was a file . Opening a port wichi will not name . This is upsetting to see this kind of malicios stuff happening right infront of your very eyes.This isn't the first time i have encountered this . I will not revisit this site and i hope you don't have any problems like this either . NOT COOL in my opinion. but thats just me . Comments about this subject are welcome.Have you had this problem too? Sincerely Mang.

This is why everyone should have a fire wall. Not that crap that comes with XP, cause that only stops incomming traffic, but a real, hardware firewall

I think you should post the name of the site so that others won't go to it. I know everyone should have a good firewall, but if we at least know the name of the site, we can boycott it.

Joan

Attached Link: http://www.zonelabs.com/

It certainly would be helpful to know which site, since it's possible the site's owner isn't even aware of this. But at the very least, it'd be nice to tell the rest of us.

No kidding, mangina... If you've encountered this searching for poser stuff..share the address...not to mention the file name...

JV, that's poser looking for other instances on the network. It's just checking to make sure you're only running one copy of poser on your local network (if you have one). Just tell the firewall not to let it have access and it won't bother you again.

Thanks Kate :o) JV

I have used the firewall ZoneAlarm from www.zonelabs.com for a long time and I can strongly recommend it. Install it, and you can say goodbye to the problems that mangina had. You have total control of the traffic to and from the Internet, no nasty surprises. I have tested ZoneAlarm with several services on the Net that lets you test the security of your system. These services tries to simulate an attack on your system and a port scanning. The intention is to find out if anyone can gain access to your PC in order to plant viruses, trojans, retrieve information, passwords etc. With ZoneAlarm running, the result is always the same: - My system is undetectable when connected to the Net - No ports can be probed on my system whatsoever This means that no one can access my PC from the outside, because they can't even see that it's present on the Internet. I have also tested various applications that tries to contact the Internet from my PC. The result here is equally good. No applications can send info from my PC unless I specifically allow them to. Even if an application tries to masquerade as a legitimate application, i.e. Explorer, while trying to contact the Internet, ZoneAlarm will stop it. This is because ZoneAlarm generates a cryptographic signature for every trusted program. If some other application tries to access the Internet, it is stopped. To my knowledge, no other firewall provides this level of security. And the best thing is: ZoneAlarm is free! There are numerous firewalls on the market that costs more and performes less, so the choice is obvious.

The original virus referred to is most likely to be......
JS.exception.exploit.exe.... , it is usually concealed in pop-ups, it is not a virus but will reset your homepage to a porn server, add porn links to your favorites and even install a porn dialer to somewhere in Asia. Don't panic, it is deleted manually from Find on your Start menu, search for JS and delete the folder. Then delete those new bookmarks before going back on the net and resetting your browser homepage.
I have Norton firewall and it stops dangerous scripts with immediate warnings and action screens. I cant be sure but rumor is that Zone Alarm contains spyware along the same lines as other internet freeware. I have encountered one particular posters website link in this forum that has a very annoying pop-up screen whinging about his server and bandwidth, it cannot be closed unless you close your browser, without flaming, nuff said.
Tommy.

Forgotten in my last message was Norton provides a warning screen and will not allow any program or browser to access the web without creating a rule for the future or granting your permission on occasion. Mine is set to highest level and my permission has to be granted for all ActiveX etc. Tommy.

I am boycotting ZoneAlarm. I paid for the regular version a while back, have a printed out receipt for it as well as the email saying I bought it. Lost the file in a crash along with some other things. Everything else has been replaced by the companies I bought them from, but Zonelabs continues to ignore me. Because I bought it when they were using another company to take their orders, (which has since gone belly-up), they refuse to acknowledge that I own it. The new company they use has no records because apparently the old one did not forward any records to them. I was told by Zonelabs that it is to bad that this happened and they would be glad to sell me a copy. They refuse to acknowledge my receipts. The product was only $20 but it really ticks me off to get treated like this. I will never support them or recommend them to anyone. I remember when they were small and bent over backwards for their customers, but now they apparently don't feel good customer service is a priority. Marque

I scan my computer regularly for spyware as well. I seriously doubt that ZoneAlarm contains spyware. I have detected and deleted some in my machine, but not associated with ZoneAlarm.

I use Zone Alarm for our LAN with internet connection. I recommend it.

That's pretty scarey business - but you really should notify the site owner - I'm sure they wouldn't want it on their site. You haven't said if you did or what their reaction was. Often times if it is a free download the owner may not know, after all, like here many sites allow people to link to their own files. Not to mention that if it is a large site it would be pretty impossible to search everyone of them.

Thanks for all the support and insight . I have a router and a software firewall. . The port is port 1214 A KAZZA port i looked it up. I don't have or have never used kazza or morphrus because of this .Imbedded sypware in the programs they will deny is there till the end of time. If you use it i will pray for you lol. I am protected belive me money is no object when it comes to this . I like my privacy and respect others privacy. You may not know what type of registry keys are in your computer right now that are not supposed to be there . In this i mean spyware reg keys files etc. I would recomend you go to www.downloads.com and download and install Ad Aware by Lavasoft. This program will scan the entire computer for spyware . Once it is finished select all the things it has found and i mean all of them . If it finds any there (depends on users browsing ) and continue to clean them out. As for the file problem i dunno was wierd and i hope it doen't happen to anyone else . Im just glad i caught it before my computer was trashed VIA a remote entry lol.Once again thanks for everything you people are GREAT :-) Sincerely Mang

does anyone know how insecure satellite internet is?

I gather our friend here is too embarassed to tell us what site caused this in the first place?

Ad Adware is great. and amazingly fast. It deep scans your registery and all files in seconds. Pinto

WRT viruses: Seriously... I for one would like to know who, where, and what files to watch out for. If you won't say anything in the forums (understandable), then e-mail the webmaster at least... he/she may not know of any infections, and it would be wrong not to bring it to their attention. Be sure to mention which file caused the problems as well. If it's on my site, I would especially like to know about those two things, since I host a lot of volunteer stuff from the R'osity community in general. Though I do test everything that shows up, sometimes I'm unable to do much more than unzip and scan them w/ Norton A/V 2k. Please, for the sake of the community, and hosts like myself, if you find any problems like this, please let the webmaster know immediately; if action isn't taken on that front, then let the community know as soon as possible. /P

I use net barrier for the MAC
its great!! if someone attempts a portscan or ping flood
net barrier put that ip address on a stop list and then sends me an email to my domain email informing me that the incident has occured.

i can then look up the offender with MAC OSXs
network tracing utility.

every one on the web should get some kind of firewall protection

I use BlackIce for firewall and esafe for virus protection. They are the best so far. I also use AdAware and it is so good that although it's free I bought it to support the company. Esafe is free for now but they will be charging in March, and they will get my money. It has caught everything so far, even email that is bad. I have had my system checked out because I heard BlackIce was letting hits through, and they could not see any ports on my system to get through. Marque

if you're using black ice make sure you get the patch.

I was on an Internet security site a while back that used a downloaded program to test your securtity. I tried it and my PC is secure both ways. I use Zone Alarm and according to this site (I can't remenber the name or url and I'm at work so it's not in my favourites) Zone Alarm is the only fire wall that will stop a program pretending to be another program from getting out to the net. The senario is that you have allowed access to the net to one program, say ICQ.exe and a malicious program renames it self to ICQ.exe. From what I read this program can now access the internet through all firewalls execept Zone Alarm which creates a key based on the contents of exe not just the name. So in ZoneAlarm you would get a new alert saying that ICQ.exe was trying to access the internet. You know that you have already allowed access to this program so when you investigate you find its another program not ICQ.

Thanks for bringing up Ad Aware, I hadn't heard of it before and I just tested it here at work and it found 27 total files and regestry keys for Spyware. I was dumbfounded since I rarely run anything on it. Can't wait to run this on my two machines at home. Just imagine. Anyway thanks again. -Moon

Thorgrim, the site was probably Steve Gibson's grc.com. Since he has been instrumental in exposing spyware and he recommends ZoneAlarm, I doubt that the program has any spyware connections. It does have an auto-update feature (like many programs) which can be disabled.

As for the original post, Mangina, why all the mystery? I don't understand your reluctance to name the site so that others can avoid it. Otherwise, your mentioning this isn't very useful. I assume this was an exe file of some kind that you installed. Very few Poser downloads (except those from DAZ) are exe files. I always run a virus scan on any downloaded executables.

Cinnamon - Satelites send signals over air waves. There are scanners that can pick up these signals and possibly decode them. Not sure as to whether or not these type server use encryption and at what level? Guess its like cell phones, with the right equipment you can listen to any cell phone conversation in the equipments range. Its not legal without a court order. Just a thought........ TMG

thank you TMG. i did find some info on the net but not much.