FBI killing DNS servers used by common virus, check your machine

Lastly

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Time is running out. On July 9th -- which is only in a few hours from now, you will lose all connection to the cyber world and the FBI is responsible; that is if you are infected. You may be thinking to yourself that the corrupted government is ready to engage a cyber war, and all of America will become an abyss of hopeless destruction. No, while it may be cool, but no. It's nothing more, but a "particularly malicious malware called DNSChanger infiltrated both personal and corporate PCs across the Internet, redirecting computers to a set of DNS servers which were programmed to direct Web searches to malicious Web sites." An estimated amount of people that is believe to be infected is a whooping 64,000 people. The FBI plan to obliterate that value by shutting down the internet for these selected victims. To check if you are one of these people, click the hyperlink above.
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Nathan Drake

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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
 

Lastly

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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
For infection, yes it is. I would think less people would get infected or Anti-virus would prevent it. It became so serious that the FBI became involved.
 

Nathan Drake

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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
For infection, yes it is. I would think less people would get infected or Anti-virus would prevent it. It became so serious that the FBI became involved.

Let's assume that there's somewhere around 175 million internet active computers in the US:

64,000/175,000,000 = .0003657% computers infected

That is a rather negligible percentage. Knock that number of internet enabled computers down by even 50 million and you still only get .000512%. That's also a rather negligible percentage.

By the way, little viruses that aren't too harmful are none too uncommon, and can seem to slip by the more poor AV's pretty easily. Acting like viruses are a dreadfully uncommon part of using an internet enabled computer is just silly.
 

Hells Malice

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Looks like i'm safe, but I assume that's because i'm Canadian.
I also have to wonder if this is even serious.
I can't imagine the FBI is really so retarded as to try something like this.
 

Lastly

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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
For infection, yes it is. I would think less people would get infected or Anti-virus would prevent it. It became so serious that the FBI became involved.

Let's assume that there's somewhere around 175 million internet active computers in the US:

64,000/175,000,000 = .0003657% computers infected

That is a rather negligible percentage. By the way, little viruses that aren't too harmful are none too uncommon, and can seem to slip by the more poor AV's pretty easily. Acting like viruses are a dreadfully uncommon part of using an internet enabled computer is just silly.
Not trying to hate, but not many people are able to create a virus that on a larger scale that last more than a year. I mean some don't even know where to start if they wanted to. Percentage doesn't really mean anything. It's like saying, 64,000 people are now infected with X disease. Well, who cares! It's only 0.0003657% of the world!
 
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Nathan Drake

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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
For infection, yes it is. I would think less people would get infected or Anti-virus would prevent it. It became so serious that the FBI became involved.

Let's assume that there's somewhere around 175 million internet active computers in the US:

64,000/175,000,000 = .0003657% computers infected

That is a rather negligible percentage. By the way, little viruses that aren't too harmful are none too uncommon, and can seem to slip by the more poor AV's pretty easily. Acting like viruses are a dreadfully uncommon part of using an internet enabled computer is just silly.
Not trying to hate, but not many people are able to create a virus that on a larger scale that last more than a year. I mean some don't even know where to start if they wanted to. Percentage doesn't really mean anything. It's like saying, 64,000 people are now infected with X disease. Well, who cares! It's only 0.0003657% of the world!
Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
 

Lastly

Tempin' at the speed of sound
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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
For infection, yes it is. I would think less people would get infected or Anti-virus would prevent it. It became so serious that the FBI became involved.

Let's assume that there's somewhere around 175 million internet active computers in the US:

64,000/175,000,000 = .0003657% computers infected

That is a rather negligible percentage. By the way, little viruses that aren't too harmful are none too uncommon, and can seem to slip by the more poor AV's pretty easily. Acting like viruses are a dreadfully uncommon part of using an internet enabled computer is just silly.
Not trying to hate, but not many people are able to create a virus that on a larger scale that last more than a year. I mean some don't even know where to start if they wanted to. Percentage doesn't really mean anything. It's like saying, 64,000 people are now infected with X disease. Well, who cares! It's only 0.0003657% of the world!
Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
*Sigh*, never mind then. You wouldn't understand. 64,000 infected computer is a very large number. Why else would the FBI get involve, attack the creator, and shut down the internet? Some people just doesn't understand. I know the comparison may seem poor, but you would at least understand the concept.
 

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Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
Because we all know that computers aren't important, right?

I mean it's not like computers run things like bank systems, medical systems, management systems for companies, management systems for traffic and such, and it's not like people at home use their computers for anything important... just personal e-mail, banking, finances, stuff like that.

So yeah, computers being infected isn't important at all.
 
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Lastly

Tempin' at the speed of sound
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Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
Because we all know that computers aren't important, right?

I mean it's not like computers run things like bank systems, medical systems, management systems for companies, management systems for traffic and such, and it's not like people at home use their computers for anything important... just personal e-mail, banking, finances, stuff like that.

So yeah, computers being infected isn't important at all.
EXACTLY! Someone who understands! Imagine if he withdraw a minimum of $50 from every infected computer. He could sell their information, steal companies' projects, expose e-mail, etc!
 

Nathan Drake

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Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
Because we all know that computers aren't important, right?

I mean it's not like computers run things like bank systems, medical systems, management systems for companies, management systems for traffic and such, and it's not like people at home use their computers for anything important... just personal e-mail, banking, finances, stuff like that.

So yeah, computers being infected isn't important at all.
Although I adore the condescending post, missing the entire point of what I was saying is adorable.

I wasn't discounting the importance of computers, as you seemed to have assumed as you went on your tirade. I know computers are important. Don't be a jackass about it. What I'm saying is that 64,000 includes all corporate computers (which would need to have personal use by people for this virus, for each computer), home computers (which likely comprise the majority), and everything that might sit in between. Hell, it might be 100 corporate computers and what's happening? Their searches are being redirected. Big woop. If they have even a half decent AV, a scan would likely catch the first virus, and anything that might try to get through because of screwy searches would be caught too. All because the FBI might see the need to get involved doesn't mean it's dreadfully serious.

By the by, 64,000 being infected with a disease worldwide would get the disease put fairly low on the priority list overall except for very specific cases. There are a lot of diseases that afflict many people yearly that don't even get researched actively because there wouldn't be enough overall benefit to curing it over curing more malicious and/or widespread diseases out there. That's a whole different discussion though, which is why I discarded it entirely. It's not a good comparison by any means. I mean, shit, over 1 billion people are afflicted by neglected diseases and aren't going to be seeing decent treatment any time soon. So yeah, 64,000 people when it comes to quite a number of diseases? Negligible by most government and healthcare standards.
 

DJPlace

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ok when i click that link it says google chrome can't find it... so does that mean i'm screwed?
 

Lastly

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Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
Because we all know that computers aren't important, right?

I mean it's not like computers run things like bank systems, medical systems, management systems for companies, management systems for traffic and such, and it's not like people at home use their computers for anything important... just personal e-mail, banking, finances, stuff like that.

So yeah, computers being infected isn't important at all.
Although I adore the condescending post, missing the entire point of what I was saying is adorable.

I wasn't discounting the importance of computers, as you seemed to have assumed as you went on your tirade. I know computers are important. Don't be a jackass about it. What I'm saying is that 64,000 includes all corporate computers (which would need to have personal use by people for this virus, for each computer), home computers (which likely comprise the majority), and everything that might sit in between. Hell, it might be 100 corporate computers and what's happening? Their searches are being redirected. Big woop. If they have even a half decent AV, a scan would likely catch the first virus, and anything that might try to get through because of screwy searches would be caught too. All because the FBI might see the need to get involved doesn't mean it's dreadfully serious.

By the by, 64,000 being infected with a disease worldwide would get the disease put fairly low on the priority list overall except for very specific cases. There are a lot of diseases that afflict many people yearly that don't even get researched actively because there wouldn't be enough overall benefit to curing it over curing more malicious and/or widespread diseases out there. That's a whole different discussion though, which is why I discarded it entirely. It's not a good comparison by any means. I mean, shit, over 1 billion people are afflicted by neglected diseases and aren't going to be seeing decent treatment any time soon. So yeah, 64,000 people when it comes to quite a number of diseases? Negligible by most government and healthcare standards.
I love the internet because of its diversity! With that, enough is said.
 

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You said the comparison was one of the poorest you've seen, which is why I pointed out that computers are important to people just like personal health is important. No it's not a 1:1 comparison, but their point was that a small number of the total being affected doesn't instantly make it a non-issue.

Anything that gets in and modifies DNS is something that gets in and can write to system settings (either the HOSTS file or the internet connection settings), if their AV stopped it from getting in at all it's not an issue, but if it's in and able to change those settings, it's likely the AV won't be able to stop anything else as it's been disabled. The most important thing for an infection to do nowadays is silently disable the AV (toggle the registry keys that control prompts about AV status, etc.) and then remove the ability for a normal user to kill the virus (disable the task manager, etc.) so it's entirely possible that once somebody has the initial symptom (DNS changes in this case), their AV protection is gone and they're susceptible to other things.
 

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I've seen this a couple of times, and all I can say is:

64,000 is a "whopping" number when it comes to computers in the US? Lulzy.
For infection, yes it is. I would think less people would get infected or Anti-virus would prevent it. It became so serious that the FBI became involved.

Let's assume that there's somewhere around 175 million internet active computers in the US:

64,000/175,000,000 = .0003657% computers infected

That is a rather negligible percentage. By the way, little viruses that aren't too harmful are none too uncommon, and can seem to slip by the more poor AV's pretty easily. Acting like viruses are a dreadfully uncommon part of using an internet enabled computer is just silly.
Not trying to hate, but not many people are able to create a virus that on a larger scale that last more than a year. I mean some don't even know where to start if they wanted to. Percentage doesn't really mean anything. It's like saying, 64,000 people are now infected with X disease. Well, who cares! It's only 0.0003657% of the world!
Not even comparable. This comparison is actually one of the most poor that I've seen. Kudos for trying, at least.
*Sigh*, never mind then. You wouldn't understand. 64,000 infected computer is a very large number. Why else would the FBI get involve, attack the creator, and shut down the internet? Some people just doesn't understand. I know the comparison may seem poor, but you would at least understand the concept.

You misunderstand. The FBI got involved, prosecuted the creator, and seized the servers that the virus redirects your DNS requests to. After siezing the servers instead of shutting them down the FBI kept them running but as normal (non-malicious) DNS servers. All they are doing now is finally shutting them down which will prevent most internet usage until you remove DNSchanger and change your DNS settings back to normal (either your ISP's servers or 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4). In other words, those infected computers would have gone down much earlier had the FBI not made a special effort to keep those servers running.
 
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