The ads attack computers using recent versions
of Windows XP
or 2000.
ST. LOUIS – Karen McKechnie bought a new computer to work on her master’s degree and search online for teaching jobs. She’s no techie but figured that for less than $1,000 at her local Best Buy store she couldn’t go wrong.
She didn’t figure on the pop-ups that would not stop.
It started with 20 or so pop-up advertisements that blocked the middle of her computer screen. She fought back, shutting them off one by one.
Unlike regular pop-up advertising, these always came back.
“You can’t turn them off, and they basically disable your computer,” says McKechnie of suburban Washington.
That’s not all; the pop-ups demanded $30 to stop coming.
She refused to pay.
Finally, she called the government.
On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had sued and apparently shut down a California company that was exploiting a weakness in recent versions of Microsoft’s Windows software.
For once, people with older versions of Windows get a break: these pop-ups attack only computers with the newer Windows XP or 2000.
The FTC says the pop-ups may have disabled hundreds of thousands of computers with their incessant demands for money. One victim was an FTC commissioner’s home computer.
Howard Beales, director of the commission’s bureau of consumer protection described the scheme this way:
“I’ll beat you, and I’ll keep beating you until you pay.”
“We call that extortion,” he added.
A U.S. District Court judge in Baltimore issued a temporary restraining order against the company, D Squared Solutions of San Diego. On Thursday, the company no longer had a phone listing in San Diego.
In an earlier interview with the on-line news service Wired News, D Squared’s president insisted that customers “find our product to be extremely useful.”
Most everyone with a computer is familiar with pop-up ads; most are annoying but they go away.
These are different, Beales said, because the pop-up message has no other purpose than to charge you a fee to make the messages stop. “They are creating a problem, and then charging for the solution,” he said.
McKechnie said she even switched servers, hoping to lose the pop-ups.
Next, she changed her screen name. They just kept coming back. More and more of them. In layers.
Beales advised computer owners to get firewall protection for their machines and to shut off the Windows Messenger Service (not to be confused with Microsoft’s instant messaging chat service.)
Windows comes with the Messenger Service automatically in the “on” position. Consumers can override that with seven clicks of their computer mouse-if they know how. McKechnie and many other victims didn’t.
The FTC says it plans no action against Microsoft, which it says has agreed to start shipping Windows with Messenger Service in the “off” position.
“I hope that they can do something,” McKechnie said. “But I don’t know that they can.”
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DISABLING WINDOWS MESSENGER SERVICE MAY STOP POPUP SPAM
Pop-up spammers are exploiting a feature of the Microsoft Windows operating systems known as Messenger Service. Despite the name, Windows Messenger Service doesn’t have anything to do with instant messaging. It is designed to provide users on a local- or wide-area computer network with messages from the network administrator.
For example, a company’s network administrator might send a message to all its users that the company’s network will be shutting down in five minutes. If your home computer is connected only to the Internet, you may not have any practical uses for Windows Messenger Service. If your computer is on a business or home network, however, shutting off Messenger Service might not be the best approach. Your network should be protected by a firewall.
Disabling the messenger service will prevent the possibility of pop-up spam. To disable the messenger service: Click Start, and then click Control Panel (or point to Settings, and then click Control Panel). Double-click Administrative Tools. Double-click Services. Double-click Messenger. In the Startup type list, click Disabled. Click Stop, and then click OK.
INSTALLING AND RUNNING A FIREWALL
Another way to cut off pop-up spam is to run a firewall – software or hardware designed to block hackers from accessing your computer and getting into your programs and files.
A firewall is different from anti-virus protection: Anti-virus software scans incoming communications and files for troublesome files; a firewall helps make you invisible on the Internet and blocks all communications from unauthorized sources. It’s especially important to run a firewall if you have high-speed Internet access through a cable modem or a DSL (digital subscriber line) connection.
For more information, see www.ftc.gov.
Source: Federal Trade Commission
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(c) 2003, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-11-06-03 1723EST
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