quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
My apologies if you mistook what I said. I meant that we were more than your 'average' user.
Nothing to apologize for, as I probably misunderstood you in that case. It is very true that you are more than the 'average' user, but a lot of people in that thread seem not to be, at least is _seems_ so when you read how they come to the conclussion that it is Plus!.
quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
However, insulting the intelligence of another community when you don't know them is quite rude.
I never meant to insult anybody. It's also not because you don't know something that you're not intelligent, or vice-versa. If they or you find that insulting then I apologize.
But I simply made the observation that many of those posts talk about it with the previous 'reputation' of Plus! in mind, those are very clear and almost literally say it. Others clearly have that same undertone, except for a small few. Making that observation is not insulting those posters imho, it is simply stating that they apparently do not know exactly what they are talking about.
But the problem with that is, as you surely know, that other people (who know even less about the subject) do take those posts as 'truth', repost those posts and/or jump on that bandwagon, and you get again a lot of here-say and other false assumptions. And as with a lot of stuff on the internet (especially in fora): "if many people claim something it surely must be true".
Thus:
quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
I would disagree that the assumptions made were fueled by Plus!'s previous reputation or anything of the sort.
Then we need to agree to disagree because I could start quoting each and every post which talked about Plus! like that, or which has that undertone, and that post would become very long...
In fact, I exactly did that by making a post on the redflagdeals forum and quoting the most obvious ones in that thread trying to set things strait. But for some reason, the mods did not approved my post*. And they also haven't replied to my mail asking for an explanation... Eventhough it did not break any rules in the slightest way. The only thing you could say about it was that it was long, very long compared to the average post there... I find that not approving such a post (because it is long? because it set some things strait? Because it defends Plus!? who knows) is very dubious in itself. Just as I find it very strange that it _seems_ that mostly people on that forum have experienced that popup....
(= indeed a small undertone that something could be fishy there, but that is based on no facts at all other than my personal opinion, which doesn't matter at this point).
* for the people here: the first post of a new member needs approval in that forum, to see if you're not a bot/spammer. Might not be such a bad idea to do it here too actually 
quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
The fact that it pops up on the bottom right corner of the screen the (exact) same way an msn notification does certainly gives us some reason to suspect that it was something related to msn.
Which is already a very false assumption in itself because there are a hell of a lot other programs which do exactly the same thing. This is by far nothing unique to Messenger or Messenger Plus!.
quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
Especially given when the only programs that were open at the time for one of the users was MSN and Word, it didn't seem likely that it was from a browser.
Now _that_ is a good assumption. All the rest is seriously irrelevant and assuming the wrong thing.
(Eventhough, there could also be other programs running in the background which also pops stuff up. It wouldn't be the first time I see somebody saying he/she only has program x and y running, while in the background there are like 10 hidden processes. Usually coming from stuff loaded when Windows starts. In fact, if you learn one thing from giving support all the time, you learn that 99% of people saying something like "I only have program x and Y open", usually do have hidden processes running from other programs (and even malware and/or adware in some cases)).
quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
Yes, scans can show up nothing, but the fact that it went through the number of different people that it did and not be found by any of the different programs by various users certainly means more than just false positives or something that was missed by a single scan.
Actually not though, not in this case. And that is my point I was trying to make (in a bit of a strong way, I must admit).
Such stuff is extremely easy to make, and you wont do anything out of the ordinary. Extremely many adware things are never ever picked up by scans, simply because scans do not check on such stuff or simply can not distinguish it from a normal program (because it simply uses the same stuff that any other normal program uses). Such scans quite often check on certain routines in programs, if you don't use such a routine, you're in the clear. It is only seldom that scans actually check upon the whole program/process and have a checksum of the program to compare it with.
In fact, I could write douzens of malware programs (anyone could actually) which would never be picked up. At least not immediatly unless someone reports the program to all the anti-malware companies. And even then it is often not possible to make a good detection system for it unless you want to have false positives all the time (although that seems to be the trend these days - the more false positives the better the security program is... not). And after that, all I need to do is alter the program a bit more.
The same for Messenger malware. Many people are surprised their scanner does not pick such stuff up. But how can it? There is nothing out of the ordinary about such malware, except that it shows maybe some ad, changes your homepage, or tricks you in surfing to a certain page. All things which any 'normal' program might do.
It is therefore absolutely no surprising at all that such stuff is not detected at all imho.
quote:
Originally posted by ji_hyun_jun
It was in my opinion, that a screenshot wouldn't help much based on what popped up. As seen above, it's as I described it: a box that pretty much says hate rogers? go to ihaterogers.ca that appears on the bottom right much like an msn notification. Perhaps maybe you can get something out of that picture, but I just didn't see any use of it. I could very well be wrong, but that was just the way I saw things.
The content of the picture is indeed of not much use, in this case. But it isn't so much the content, what the picture says, which is important.
The important part is in what kind of graphical 'container' the picture is shown. For example: if it was looking exactly like a Plus! toast (and I mean exactly; thus not like some user claimed "it is exactly like a Plus! toast" while there is nothing similar about it), it would already give a very strong clue. Also the position on your taskbar can give clues. The used border colors, the thickness, the title, the size, etc, etc.
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PS: don't get me wrong.... I don't say it can not be something which is abusing Plus! or whatever though!!! But it certainly is not coming from Plus! itself, or its old depricted sponsor. I only wanted to set some things strait as many assumptions made in that thread are completely irrelevant and/or false (eventhough they eventually might lead to the same culprint, but that is only coincidence in that case).
I wouldn't have shouted one bit if people simply stated what you stated, which is "
one thing in common is Messenger and Plus!", but nothing more or less! However, I will always shout when there are wrong assumptions being made and will always try to set things strait and/or tell people what is wrong with those assumptions so they don't make the same mistake again next time.
To investigate stuff like this in a proper way one should base their findings on facts, or at least on very calculated guesses while having a big expertise on the matter. Thus not on here-say and other false stuff, or stuff which you think is true while on the same time you actually do not have the technical knowhow to make sure it is true. Unfortunalty, the later happens way too often and is done by everybody sometimes, including me.
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Anyways, enough space wasted in this thread me thinks 
Who will read it all anyways
PS: ji_hyun_jun, it's great to have someone from there here now... keep us informed!
/ 
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