Texannie | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 11:11 am     Thanks so much!!! |
Texannie | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 11:26 am     Interesting site. I have Zone Alarm and Adaware (free services) do you think that it's better to buy Anonymizer's product? |
Draheid | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 11:47 am     Texannie: The products you have are for your protection from outsiders gaining access to your computer. If you feel the need to remain anonymous while surfing the net, then some sort of anonymous service would be about your only option. As you are setup now, everywhere you go, everything you do is logged somewhere - whether it is at the sites you visit, the connections that take you to that site, or the logs your provider may keep on your activities, all of these have the potential of disclosing what anyone might do online. I would recommend that you look more closely at the information at the two sites I provided for more details and the options available to you and what they will do. Hope this helps! |
Texannie | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 11:52 am     The first site told me quite a bit about myself..was a little spooky, that's why I was wondering if you thought their product was worth buying or am I just being paranoid? |
Draheid | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 12:07 pm     Texannie: I doubt that you are any more paranoid then I am - so if it's any indication, I do not use anonymizer myself. I just make sure I'm aware of what I'm doing and what the potential risk involved is. Does that help? |
Texannie | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 12:10 pm     Thank you, it does!!! Part of my reason too, (and really childish) I was a member of message board, but got my feeling hurt, stalked off never to return to post, but I do like to lurk and wanted to know if they knew I was still lurking! LOL |
Draheid | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 12:33 pm     Texannie: I can only tell you that it is possible. However, it would require a very high-level access to the server's log files in order to see what is being logged, if they have logging enabled at all. Not every server has that setup so there really is no way for you to know for sure. Also, unless you are on a dedicated connection, there is not a way for them to tell if it is really you or just someone from the same service provider you use. Confused yet?? lol |
Texannie | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 12:37 pm     So can I be a brat and still spy on them without getting caught or not?? LOL I have a cable modem, is that dedicated? Thanks for putting up with all these questions!! |
Draheid | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 12:49 pm     Texannie: Short version: Spy all you want, it's unlikely they would know or even care. Long version: It depends on a number of things. Typically cablemodems are dynamic similar to a dialup connection. So, each time you connect (turn on the computer and access the service) it is possible that your IP address could change. Whether or not it does would be determined by the way your ISP is set up. I know that my provider is configured so that each time I establish my connection, that address is 'reserved' for me for a 24 hour period. In order to have a different address assigned, I would have to disconnect completely for more then 24 hours so the last address I was assigned would be released and possibly assigned to another user. Again, however, in order for them to know it was you specifically, they would have to have some way of getting information from your service provider. It's not likely that anything short of a federal court order would allow them to release that kind of information. FWIW: I don't mind answering questions, my only concern is scaring you or confusing the issue with too many details that you may or may not understand. |
Texannie | Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 01:22 pm     You don't think they care??????? Nope, didn't scare me too badly, and I am sort of computer literate so I was sort of following along. Thanks for all the info. |
Grooch | Monday, March 17, 2003 - 11:16 am     What is virtual bouncer? It installed itself on my computer even though it asked if I wanted to install it, and I told it no. |
Draheid | Monday, March 17, 2003 - 12:46 pm     Grooch: All I can find is others who have been fighting with 'Virtual Bouncer' trying to get it off their computers - many references to it be suspected 'SpyWare'. Google has a lot of references to it by searching on the name. I don't find any easy solutions to removing it though. One message board I read over said something about having to go to a DOS prompt to finally remove it completely. Good luck. |
Grooch | Monday, March 17, 2003 - 12:57 pm     Wonderful. Thanks, Drah. |
Egbok | Monday, March 17, 2003 - 09:21 pm     Dra, will my Norton SystemWorks 2003 keep "Virtual Bouncer" off my computer? Just wondering, thanks! |
Car54 | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 04:05 am     Remember when I was having a big problem with my dial up connection loading pages reallllllly slow and I spent hours and hours with MSN and Dell and they couldn't figure it out? I fixed it myself! It had gotten so bad I really could barely load a page in like 5 minutes when dialled up. I just went to the microsoft update site and re-downloaded the most recent Service Pack for IE..and re-installed it...and it fixed the problem. Now this doesn't make much sense because I did uninstall and re-install IE with the MSN people (but not the service pack). The only reason I tried this was that we had gone around to all our PC's in our office and downloaded all the current updates and SP's about the time this problem started. I still don't know what was wrong...but this fixed it. |
Draheid | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 06:10 am     Egbok: I just checked the Norton website to see if they had any information about "Virtual Bouncer" and there is no listing or hits using their search for the term. I have to presume if they aren't aware of it or don't suspect it to be a threat, then they probably aren't able to protect against it as they would a virus threat. I'm sorry that's probably not much help. I will try to do some more research on this. If I find anything worthwhile, I'll post it here. |
Jed245 | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 10:56 am     Egbok About your virtual bouncer problem. It is spyware and no fun to have. :o) I've had that software before and can't really remember what I did to get rid of it. ummm Try doing a search of the harddrive to find what folder it is in, then delet it, also try going to a search engine like www.google.com and do a search for spyware remover there are several so try differnt ones. Some are free others have trail times. A good one to get is spy bot search and destroy. Download it and run it you also May have gater somewhere, it will take care of that as well. :o) Or you could goto http://www.spywarelabs.com/support.html scroll down to where it says "How do I remove Virtual Bouncer" follow the steps and it removes it for you. :o) Hope that helps you out. Jed. :o) |
Mygetaway | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 11:27 am     It sounds like virtual bouncer is something to avoid at all costs.. So where were you guys at, or what were you doing when it installed itself to your computer? |
Grooch | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 11:45 am     I got VB uninstalled using the add/remove feature on my computer. I was at the website Survivor Hunks when all off a sudden a button appeared and asked if I wanted to install it. I said no, but it went and did it anyway. |
Jed245 | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 12:02 pm     Yeah I got no idea how I got mine. I Guess my nephews may have gotten it somewhere. :o) |
Egbok | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 12:44 pm     Dra, Thanks for looking into this and I will check in to see if you found anything else on the subject. Once again, I sincerely appreciate your help! Thank you. Jed, I could *pinch* your cheeks right now!!(payback!) Thanks so much for your input. I really and truly appreciate all the help I have received in this thread. Luckily I do not have the Virtual Bouncer and it sounds like I'm not protected but I'll be watching for Dra's possible further research on the subject. Thanks again! |
Draheid | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 01:03 pm     Egbok: I can not find any indication that Norton Systemworks 2003 will prevent you from encountering Virtual Bounce. Apparently they do not consider it a virus as such and therefore do not have anything that will block you from getting it. Grooch: In the research that I've been looking at, there seems to be only one recurring reference to a way for you to completely remove Virtual Bounce. Please check SpyBot Search & Destroy for information about a program that is intended to remove this and other spyware type software. After you finish reading about it, there is a link on the left side of the screen to download the program. Hope this helps. |
Grooch | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 01:14 pm     <<Or you could goto http://www.spywarelabs.com/support.html scroll down to where it says "How do I remove Virtual Bouncer" follow the steps and it removes it for you. :o) >> Jed, isn't spyware the one who made virtual bouncer? Thanks, Drah! I will look into that sight. |
Jed245 | Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 02:02 pm     Spy bot search and destroy is the one that I posted earlier it works really well. Yes Grooch Spyware labs are the ones that made that program. They also have a way of getting rid of the program. I'm sure they did that so you wouldn't uninstall I mean how many people would think to go there for an uninstall? :o) It's kind of thier way of "staying clean" while being dirty. :o) |
Conejo | Tuesday, March 25, 2003 - 09:36 am     I've had problems getting to this site for the last 2 days. I have this site saved in my favorites (www.bomis.com/tvclubhouse) and have not changed anything. I finally made it here by doing a search on TV Clubhouse and found a site where Ryn had posted a message from last year (when there was a problem with this site) saying to use tvclubhouse.com to get here. Am I the only one having this problem? Suggestions anyone? |