Viruses, Hoaxes and Zombies... Oh! My!

There has been an ever growing quantity of Spam on the Internet these days and we all notice it. From erectile dysfunction ads to hair loss ads to gibberish emails that make no sense what-so-ever it is just out of control. The big question... Why?

Why is Spam so out of control?
The problems with Spam can be be isolated down to 3 major problems:
1. The desire for specific individuals (or groups of individuals) with a desire to bring the Internet to a halt.
2. Home and Business users with insufficient virus protection (I'll explain in a minute)
3. Zombies

What is the point of the gibberish emails?
Many of the junk emails (Spam) that users get these days is basically gibberish or a collection of words that mean nothing at all. This is because these emails are not there to inform you of anything. They are there to simply get through your Spam filters and fill up your email box.

Who 'dun it?
Although computers are sophisticated, let's face it, only a human can set the ball in motion when it comes to setting up a program. So, let's address the first topic: Who is doing the Spamming?

There are those out there who for several reasons have a desire to bring the Internet (and businesses connected to the Internet) to a halt. These are people who have a complete aversion to technology (a bit of irony here as they use technology to cause the attacks); People who feel that our technological / informational society is out of control; and those who simply like the power kick of causing disruption to others. These are the primary culprits when it comes to Spam transmissions.

How they do their 'dirty work' is where things get really interesting and that takes us to our next two topics.

Home and Business users with insufficient virus protection
The average home user has some form of virus protection normally given to them freely by their ISP or a trial that they downloaded from a company such as McAfee or Symantec or Trend Micro. The major problem is almost all (decent quality) antivirus programs out there require a subscription (at least for home users) to maintain their antivirus definitions.

Many home users simply either forget to update their subscriptions or just can't afford to keep them up to date and thus get out of date on their virus definitions making them more susceptible to an attack. Given their vulnerable state, all the user has to do is inadvertently access a malicious website and voila! They have downloaded a virus and been compromised. Now, these viruses are much more complicated than your typical "I'll destroy your data" virus.

These viruses are designed to load a special piece of software (or softwares) on your computer called server engines. These server engines are actual email transmission servers that operate in the background of the computer where you can not see. The only thing that may give an indication that you have been taken over is a very slow computer or many pop-ups.

This brings us to the next topic: Zombies

What is a Zombie?
A Zombie is a computer attached to the Internet that has been compromised by a security cracker/hacker, a computer virus, or a trojan horse. Generally, a compromised machine is only one of many in a "botnet", and will be used to perform malicious tasks of one sort or another under remote direction (such as using your computer as an email server to send Spam email.)

What does this mean exactly?
It means that the virus that the user downloaded inadvertently, installed a piece of software that contacted a main computer somewhere on the Internet. That main computer then told the computer that it will be responsible for a specific malicious task, for example; The master computer tells the computer to transmit out 1,000 emails to a given set of addresses. The user's computer than acknowledges the command and begins transmitting. Keep in mind, these addresses are NOT from the address book of the user's computer, they are a set of addresses predefined by the Spam Master Host (or sometimes a defined parameter such as 500 different names for domain xyz.com).

Now, it's one thing having a single computer sending out 1,000 emails that are Spam, but these masters typically communicate with thousands of home computers. So for example you take 1,000 "zombied" computers all talking to a master computer and that master computer tells it's "botnet" to each transmit 1,000 emails and suddenly the Internet is flooded with 1 million false emails going into people's email accounts.

Keep in mind these example numbers are all very small numbers compared to the reality of what's going on. According to PC Magazine (August 2007) there is on average 800 thousand Spam emails in transmission every second of the day. That amounts to 69.1 billion Spam emails flying around the Internet per day!

What can the average user do about it?
Two things:
1. Use a high quality antivirus program such as Symantec, McAfee or Trend Micro
2. Keep your antivirus definitions UP TO DATE!

It may cost you a little money, but you know the old saying "An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Spend a little money now and save yourself hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in headaches later. It also never hurts to have a computer professional check out your computer just to ensure that everything is running fine and make sure you have no unknown threats floating about. Have them run SpyBot (A good free spyware removal software) and a good Antivirus to check for problems.

Using the DVD Library in Windows Vista’s Media Center

There are a few tips and tricks when using the DVD Library in Microsoft’s Vista Media Center. It doesn’t simply recognize a folder with all of the contents copied to it. At least it does not display the information and the picture well.

What you will need to do:

1. First things first, Media Center in Vista comes BY DEFAULT with the DVD Library disabled. So you will need to run “RegEdit” from your run menu (Windows Key + R).
2. Navigate to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DVDSettings
3. Double click on the “ShowGallery” key and change “Play” to “Gallery” and reboot. That will enable the DVD Library.
4. When you have a DVD you own and want to copy it to your Media Center, create a folder to store all of your DVDs in.
5. For each DVD create a folder with the name of the movie that you will be copying. Next you will need to get a DVD copying software such as DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter.
6. Put in the DVD you own and open up the application. You will then choose to backup or copy the DVD to the folder you specified. I’m not going to go into details as to how each application works because there are many different applications to accomplish this and for the purpose of this article we are talking about Windows Vista Media Center.
7. Ensure that after copying you have both a VIDEO_TS and an AUDIO_TS folder. Some applications do not create an AUDIO_TS folder, if it’s missing, just create an empty one.
8. Media Center uses an XML file to identify the DVD (also known as DVDid) and either pull the information off the Internet or pull it off your DVDCache area. I have found the best way to identify a DVD’s XML to be a website called http://www.dvdxml.com/ . There you can search for your DVD and download the appropriate DVDid XML file. You need to save that file to the root of the DVD’s folder. (not in the AUDIO_TS or VIDEO_TS folders)
9. Next you will need the picture of the DVD. Probably the best way to do this is by going on Google and searching the Image Search Engine for the DVD cover you are looking for. Save it to the Root folder again but ALWAYS call it “Folder.jpg”

After all of this is done, you should be able to navigate to your new DVD Library by going into Windows Media Center and choosing “DVD Library” off the main TV + Movies menu.

Building a Microsoft Windows Media Center - Vista PVR (DVR)

Why build your own Media Center PVR/PVR?
I currently pay $4.50 a month to Comcast for my HD DVR box, $9.95, Digital Plus $11.20, coming to a total of $25.65 that I am paying into a pit that goes no where. I have never been a fan of renting ANYTHING because when all is said and done you own nothing relating to your rental.

So... I wanted something that would not only act as a DVR but also give me added benefits as well. I decided to build myself a Windows Vista DVR box. Now I have built hundreds of computers in my days as a network administrator and general "tinkerer". So this I thought should not pose a major issue. I would be using Windows Vista Ultimate as it comes with Media Center as well as some added bonuses.

Although you can choose anywhere to buy your equipment, I chose NewEgg.com. Mostly because I've bought a LOT of things through them and their prices are reasonable and they don't hassle you when you need to return something for no reason at all.

Now when planning this out I knew I wanted it to match some criteria. I have a server that has 1.6TB of drive space. So I wanted to copy over my collection of approximately 250 DVD's, be able to listen to my MP3's that I had ripped from all the CDs I own and also be able to view the thousands of digital photos we have of the family. So I knew that passing that kind of data I would want a VERY robust connection and it would help to have a good amount of RAM as a buffer.

So here is what I bought:
I already had a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate
SilverStone's LC19B 1U case: $209.99
SpecResearch's 01027 Black Wireless Keyboard with built in Trackball: $59.99
GigaByte's GA-MA69GM-S2H Motherboard: $79.99
Sony's Optiarc DVD Burner (slim): $61.99
Hiper HFC-20820 80mm CPU cooler: $39.98
A-Data 2GB (2 X 1GB) SDRAM: $64.99

AMD Athlon 2.1 GHz Dual Core CPU: $65.99
AverMedia AverTV ASTC/NTSC Dual tuner TV Card: $103.99
I already had a Seagate 500GB SATA Drive

So my total cost was: $686.91 (plus shipping)

The Advantages?
So I know it will take me 26 months to recoup the costs, BUT there are a TON of advantages here:
I have a young child, so DVDs get destroyed ALL the time. Having them on a hard drive in a secure location and being able to pull all of them up instantly at the touch of button on the remote is awesome. Being able to pull up all of the photos and play them to music through the Photo Library is wonderful when family is visiting and they want to see some pictures. Being able to cue up any music at any time is wonderful. We can of course DVR television shows, but here is a really nice feature. We can BURN the show to DVD to give to someone else or take to a friend's house. MAJOR bonus!

Best of all? I OWN it. So I never have to return it, risking losing shows that I enjoy re-watching. I never have to worry about losing cable service and having nothing to watch.

Now there is one important thing to remember with all of this though. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS back up your data. Again, something that could never be done with a cable provider.