What is up with these stupid things?
 

http://www.defeatmessenger.com

Does anyone know the real scoop on this? Seems to me that some asshole has employed virus-spreading-like technology that allows this asshole to pop-up advertisements for his shitty overpriced product. Authorities should be contacted and have this asshole tossed into jail.

I just got my laptop about two weeks ago, as some of you might know, and I've been really careful not to download anything executable onto it-- I don't have any file-sharing programs or anything on it, and yet somehow this shit managed to find it's way onto my computer. I have a LAN with three computers, and the advertisements will appear at random intervals, and will appear on two of my computers, but not the third one. My guess is that the third one has managed not to become infected. If you meet the asshole behind this, please tie him up and hold him down, and call me so I can go punch him in the nuts for several hours.

Anyway, I've been getting this crap for a few days now, and it's really pissing me off. Next time one of the buggers comes out, I'll provide a screen shot. I finally decided to visit the stupid site and the whole thing is insanely fake. He might as well say, "I am stupid, but you are stupider, so buy my phoney product!" This guy can't be serious. Arg, if I keep talking I will only become more and more incoherent, sorry. Well, if you know something I don't, please tell me :)

Thanks.

*bump* Please, could someone respond to this? Please? Anybody?

The messages are sent using the messenger program built into MS Windows.

This site has a little explanation and a small guide to get rid of the problem:
click here

For those that don't like links: one way seems to be to block port 135 in your firewall.

(other ways are stated in the article)

I hope this helps you!
If you still have problems, please post them here...

Silvy

Disclaimer: I don't have any such problems and have thus not tried any of these workarounds.

EDIT: There is no need for them to spread virus-like programs AFAIK, they can just send those messages directly from their systems to your PC. The messenger is probably meant as a way a system-administrator can send all machines on the company network a message (like "Network going down in 5 mins"). Too bad MS Windows allows such messages to come from across the world, without an easy way to block them...

Thanks, I appreciate it. Well, as promised, here is one of those annoying things:
http://www.imgmag.org/images/stiltzkin/annoying.gif

Either way, this jerk is abusing this... whatever it is, to sell his crap. That's really what pisses me off.

Unfortunately I first have to reset my router because 192.168.1.1, which is it's default address, no longer seems to work. It's late, and I'll have to do all the fixing tomorrow.

EDIT: I disabled this thing before, now that ya mention it... problem is I forgot to set the startup type as "disabled". Hope this'll stop the nonsense already. Anyways, much thanks :thumbsup:

One more thing bugs me though... how in the world did they find my IP address? Does the main server that sends out this nonsense keep a database of active IP addresses? This is why I think something may have spread onto my PC. Either they found my IP address by some off chance so they can keep spamming me, or my computer itself is infected with some crap that is sending windows messages to itself. Agghh... I really don't know. Too tired to think now. Need to get some sleep :)

I agree with you totally. This is just another way to send spam. And I'm getting very fed up with that too...

But I won't get into that now. It'll get me all worked up again...

All it does is scan through IPs and send to all of them. If it works, great, if not, no loss on their part. So, you don't need to "get" anything for them to "find" your IP address. It's basically the same as if telemarketers called random numbers and hoped they worked. So don't get too worried about having a trojan or anything because of this.

What's sad about the site you showed is that unluckily, uninformed people will pay to get that product to stop the messages when all they have to do is change a simple setting. :(

By the way, there have been a few threads on this already in Tilted Computers ;) Try using the search engine a little more :)

http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread....ight=messenger
http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread....ight=messenger

For Windows 2000 and XP:
Go to start and click Run
Type services.msc
Double-click on Messenger.
In the Messenger Properties window, select Stop, then choose Disable as the Startup Type.
Click OK.

(Sounds like a good time for a site plug...)

Need to check in our own forum.
Tilted Computers...

I like messenger service...it's really handy on our LAN. But those ads really, really piss me off. There was a rash of them a year or two back, and now they're making a comeback

By the way, if any of you want to send those messages, just run (in the run dialogue or the command prompt):
net send [IP address | network alias] message

I used to get those all the time!! I mean ALL THE TIME! 10 in a row. Bang bang bang... God it was annoying. I can't remember how I deleted it, but after I did those messages went away completly.

I always pay the TFP the courtesy of searching for stuff before posting. I just don' t seem to have good luck finding what I'm looking for. Well, they went away, and that's pretty much all that matters to me :thumbsup:

heh, it happens - I've certainly done it a couple times myself. Anyways, glad to hear the problem is solved.