Andy/Bandi
Sat Feb 16 15:29:49 CST 2008
Greetings Jonathan,
Thank you for taking the time to deal with my problem. This is what happened
in more detail.
I am at loggerheads with the aforementioned foreign government due to my
raising my voice against their nefarious activities to suppress their people
and loot the country's economy. This has put me on their radar screen. I've
withstood their onslaught with malware-laden e-mail attachments more or less
successfully. On two separate occasions, however, the moment I accepted a
Messenger video call from the country, my computer went haywire. The HD
started whirring continuously like mad, the fans all started up. The only
way for me to stop this madness was to literally pull the plug, nothing
else worked. From this point on the computer acted strangely and extremely
slowly. Restoring from a backup cured the problem. Another time Messenger
inexplicably started up without any prompting from me as if a ghost operator
had been in control of my computer. Since I stopped using Messenger to
communicate with said country couple weeks ago, my problems have not
recurred.
The above led up to this call for help. You no doubt know this, but others
may not: the sophisticated means and great resources of a government
operation like this can produce malware hitherto unknown to the antivirus
industry, so signature-based recognition won't work.
Thanks again for any further help you or anyone else might be able to
provide.
Andy
"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <msnewsreplies@jonathankay.com> wrote in message
news:62A7D43D-C8C3-4E67-8B09-8ABF9B4C7139@microsoft.com...
> Greetings Andy,
>
> There are no known exploits in Windows Live Messenger. As such, anything
> received through Messenger has to be manually opened and executed by the
> user.
>
> Additionally, Sharing Folders (being the only function that doesn't
> specifically ask you to accept a file transfer) will not allow executable
> files to be sent, regardless of your security settings.
>
> As such, foreign governments will have to utilize another way.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
> MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> MessengerGeek Blog:
http://www.messengergeek.com
> Messenger Resources:
http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> (c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature
> or citation
> --
>
>
> "Andy/Bandi" <kanadaiy@telus.net> wrote in message
> news:b38sj.7864$FO1.3142@edtnps82...
>> To All Cognoscenti:
>>
>> I strongly suspect that my computer has been repeatedly infected via
>> Windows Live Messenger with malware operated by the secret services of a
>> semi-dictatorial post-communist government in Eastern Europe. Is there
>> any way to prevent the reoccurrence of the same?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>