Computer Help Please-Annoying Messenger Service Ad Pop Ups!

MattB · Post by **MattB** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:07 pm

yea firewalls wont stop this. u need to turn it off like andy said.

Wrong.

Stopping the service will close that one port off that the messenger service uses. The fact that there is one port available to the outside world means that there may be and probably will be many more open.

It's like having a car park full of cars with every door unlocked. A burglar may keep going into one particular car. If you stop the service it's like locking the door to that car. There's nothing to say that he won't try the other cars. You need to stop him getting to the car park in the first place.

stephen T · Post by **stephen T** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:13 pm

i have run 2 firewalls and it has still popped up on mine till i turned it off.

zone alarm pro and norton.

Greenday · Post by **Greenday** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:17 pm

I think people are missing the point on this, the popups may be annoying but i can tell you if you've got them this is the least of your worries, don't get me wrong its not the end of the world but you DO need a firewall and don't let anyone tell you any different, Matt pointed out the car park full of cars with unlocked doors and i not from "experimenting" myself that you cannot be without a firewall, there are loads that are free and easy to use, so DO worry and if you haven't got one download a free one

stephen T · Post by **stephen T** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:20 pm

just read up on it seems a firewall will. i had to turn it off totally before. wonder why it never worked for me.

MattB · Post by **MattB** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:23 pm

The firewalls must be crap or not setup properly.

At the end of the day a firewall is there to stop traffic from coming into your computer from the outside world unless you tell it otherwise. If you're still getting the popups then obviously you're still getting the packets coming into your machine from the internet, therefore the firewalls are not doing their job.

What's more worrying is that the messenger services uses the same ports as NetBIOS, which of course is highly vulnerable to attacks as you can get full access to the filesystem of a remote computer. Therefore you are likely to still have the NetBIOS ports open on your machine which is kinda bad!

I have never sen one of these popups on any of the networks that I run which are all protected by decent firewalls, not so-called personal firewalls.

lisa_mac · Post by **lisa_mac** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:26 pm

I am in no way saying that you look like a brazillian woman btw!!

stephen T · Post by **stephen T** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:33 pm

well zonealarm pisses me off (thats gone now) i probs just gave it access by mistake. i am not getting the msgs now.

Greenday · Post by **Greenday** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:35 pm

Sygate Personal Firewall is the best free one i've ever found

CB · Post by CB » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:38 pm

Well i've followed Andy W's advice and now I'll wait and see if i get any more...

Greenday · Post by **Greenday** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:40 pm

CB, get a firewall if you don't have one

CB · Post by CB » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:45 pm

you might as well be talking in heiroglyphics for all that means to me Greenday

Greenday · Post by **Greenday** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:47 pm

I can help you set one up if you want

Cappy · Post by **Cappy** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:07 pm

Whats a firewall!!!

stephen T · Post by **stephen T** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:11 pm

throw some petrol on a fag in your house and find out LOL

samwise · Post by **samwise** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 12:29 am

Intro to firewall's :-

While your using the internet you have a single IP address and you talk to other applications (like a webserver or the MSN messenger server) on different "ports".

Think of it like CB (now I've done it!) radio. You have the same "handle" (IP address) for people to address you as but when you talk to someone you take it to another channel (port number).

For example, the standard port for web traffic is port 80 so your web browser (like IE6) talks to a webserver (like the one this site is hosted on) on port 80.

A firewall monitors all this traffic and allows you to set rules as to what is allowed out and what is allowed in. By doing this you can control the flow of information that goes from and to you machine.

So the standard firewall rule is to allow nothing from outside to get in but allow any request from machine to get out (and allow any response back from that request).

The problem comes if your pop up's are caused by an application that has somehow installed itself on your machine. Then it's you that's making the request for the pop up and you have to get for strict with your firewall rules (like disallow all outgoing requests except for port 80).

I use firewalls a lot on Linux boxes but only on one Win2000 box. Can't remember what it was called but it use to promt you every time something tried to get in or out and based on your allow/disallow responses would build the firewall rules accordingly i.e. you don't need to know any of the above.

For the paranoid among us if your getting pop up's that look like little web pages then you can pretty sure that you're web activity is being monitored by the same software. If you have win2000 or NT or anything with a Task Manager then look in the process list for any of the following

http://www.winpatrol.com/stats.html

Cheers

Jason