Just Me, My CPU, Process Lassoo & Rod Serling

[JoWazzoo]

   Or ... Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Hackers

Started to come here and ask a coupla questions this morning. Due to the following, those ?s are trivial. Heh.    So a different ? - not pertaining to Process Lasso per se, but what it shows.  I could write several chapters, but I am sure you folks would be bored (time to get that blog started) ....so Intro & Ch 1 is just a tickler.

Introduction - Woke up as usual these dayz ~ 3:00 AM and started again to attempt to salvage the PC (Ch. 1)... but something was not right.  Exited everything at midnight, but did not shut down (see Ch. 1).  So I fired up Process Lasso and what do I find? Why 2 instances of explorer.exe and ... see Ch. 2

Ch. 1 - So you Really Want to be a Hacker?

Though I have used computers since 1968, I never considered myself to be 3l33t.  Oh sure, back over 20 years ago I used to amaze my friends and make $ consulting by resurrecting Deleted files or really big $ for formated disks.  They thought I was a majician.

Anyway, (shorter version) awhile back I really f^H^H^H^H^H ***** up.  I have been on the Net since at least 12 years b4 AlGore discovered it. Have been an Abuse person, moderator, spam fighter (back in the day - founder of the Lumber Cartel) and now a malware fighter.  So I check out a lot of tools and wander into some of the seedier neighborhoods on the Net.

Had ran into DeepFreeze a coupla times but never pursued it. So DLed it and a coupla days later I clicked on it to only Install it. BIG MISTAKE. .  (Footnote 1) You see, when you click it to install it, like some (thank gawd not most) proggies it not only installed DeepFreeze but it also EXECUTED the program.  That was on Saturday, December 20, 2008, 11:53:14 AM.  Oh my - try a google search.

Footnote 1 - Didn't I read the web site, help files, manuals etc? Nahhhhh .. we doan need no stinkink manuals!!  (obviously a hazzor attitude.)  Manuals are for klubies or l00zers!

Ch. 2 -  14 instances of Iexplorer.exe running.   .

Now I have long since given up on trying to figure out computers - after all 1) deep, deep down everything is 0s and 1s.  2) Since it's all simply electrons it is based on electricty which is based on the square root of negative 1 which ... doesn't exist.

So here is what I had.

14 instances of IE Explorer running

#            Date                      Time
1   3/4/09      19:16:00      
2   3/4/09      22:33:46
3   3/5/09      00:08:13
4   3/5/09      00:09:56
5   3/5/09      00:10:13
6   3/5/09      00:10:51
7   3/5/09      00:11:07
8   3/5/09      00:12:13
9   3/5/09      00:13:26
10   3/5/09      00:13:26
11   3/5/09      00:13:27
12   3/5/09      03:55:19
13   3/5/09      04:12:00
14   3/5/09      04:49.01

Yeah date is off by 2 months.  Part of my attempting to salvage the freaking DeepFreeze mess.

Now I was not so alarmed or concerned with 2 copies of of Explorer running - hey strange things happen with computers. But I was a bit shell shocked  to see all those copies of IE running.  When I hung it up last night, I shut down things (closed windows, apps etc.) all but shutting off the computer.  You see, if I do that I lose everything I have done on this machine since December 20. 

(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=deep+freeze+software)

heh ... 1,100,000 hits. I remember in the old dayz with Lycos or Altavista going "hey 15 hits - kewl!!"

Oh BTW, did I mention thsi is NOT my machine? No? It is my wife & daughters machine.  (Boy - wives can sure nag for the darndest reasons.)

So can anyone shed light on this?  How in hell after I closed all IE windows at midnight did I still have 2 instances running?  And what sorts of gremlins came in the middle of the night and started another 9 instances? HHmmmm? Note that the other 3 were caused by me.  After I clicked IE nothing happened.

And finally, no, neither my wife nor my daughter touched the machine after 6:00 pm or so.  Me thinks that I either need to have a long talk with my cat Peanut or that this machine is 110 % FUBAR.

Cheers

[JoWazzoo]

Heh...usually my daughter is honest, Not this time.

I had told her to not shutdown because I was "researching" something. Hey it was the truth. {I managed to not tell my wife or daughter that they couldn't save anything on the local drive due to the DeepFreeze problem.}

Anyway, after my umpteenth time asking she admitted that she had had "some problems" with the computer after she got off work.

So I said, "you mean like not getting Internet Explorer to work properly?" "Yeah Dad - don't know what was wrong". I left it at that.

I still don't undertand why none of the bookoh (sp?) instances of IE running were not showing in the tray. But, hey - that's what PL for, right? 

So anyway, now I am back to hacking DeepFreeze to see how this sucker runs.  I figure I am about 1/2 way to being the sooper sekrit l33t handshake.

Cheers - JoW