Google Suspended My Account! GRRRRRRRRRRR

[ricky]

For the better part of three years I have communicated with my readers through that account and have not done anything different when they just locked me out. Their error message said it could be because of a "perceived" violation of the TOS. There is a link you can click that gives you a dialog that allows you to state your case. But nothing after two days and from what I heard once done you are just screwed. I went back through 11 pages of forum and found one guy that said he was reinstated. So there is hope all is not lost but I won't hold my breath.

It sure would be nice to get my contacts backed up and replicated in the new account.

My group was also attached to that address so I had to redo the group. It is my notification group of people who wish to be notified of new chapters or new writings from me. So 160 names have to be added one by one. grrrrrrrr

So anybody that used to email me at mytrickybits@gmail.com will now have to do it at mytrickybits2@gmail.com

(And admins, no worries on the email addresses, these are posted on my work so they are public)

Luckily I had the list backed up. Unluckily I did not have my contact list backed up and I know there are a couple people who wonder why I'm not returning emails.

I am working to get my own domain set up so that I don't have to depend on them. Probably mid January.

So a word to the wise, back up contacts.

The embarrassing part is that I should have known better.

Ouch!

Thanks for letting me vent.

Cheers,

bestpi (Codey's World)

aka Ricky (IOMFATS.ORG, SCREEVE.ORG, NIFTY.ORG)

[Trab]

On a similar but different vein, I have occasionally received an email which is purported to be a notification that my email to someone else has not been able to go through. Upon reading the full message, it becomes obvious that some spammer has attached my email address to crap that they have sent out, and it is really not anything I've even seen before. When I contact my server they say I can ignore it, as they know I'm not a spammer. HOWEVER, I have several people I know who cannot email me at my normal email address because THEIR server says I'm a spammer. So, I have to use gmail for those people.

My point is that the system is much more fragile than you may think, and that your google account may have been compromised by someone totally unknown to you. I'd just as soon see the death penalty for spammers. I suspect they cause way more pain and suffering for greater numbers than any other criminal act. Only the internet allows millions to be affected at one time.

[DesDownunder]

Apart from various people wanting to give me large sums of money (over $20 million so far this month), I have received several fake emails about various bank accounts at banks I don't use, telling me my account will be closed if I don't verify my account details by clicking on a link. These i delete without second thought.

I have also had notifications of email accounts being shut down, but as I only use a 'secure' account with my ISP, I just ignore them.

My ISP tells me that the standard email account is just as safe as any of the others and that no account is truly anonymous.

AwesomeDude goes to great measure to hide email addresses of members with warnings about how using email to reply to anyone may reveal your address. I have to say I have had no problems with this being abused.

I have other email addresses for my personal emails outside of my Orangutan activities. Like many others, I use a limited banking account for net purchases which has no relationship to the accounts where I keep my main funds, which I assure you, do not amount to anything worthwhile, anyway.

I don't think I would invoke the death penalty like Trab on spammers, but I would like to have them severely, psycho-anal-ysed.

[colinian]

Ricky,

Sorry to hear about your problem with GMail.

Go to www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=00d35a81feabaf81&hl=en. There are a couple of links for sites where perhaps you can find the names of people at Google to contact -- like their Legal department.

Here's another link with suggestions for those who've had their GMail account suspended: www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=2a8a3b9671c45714&hl=en.

Most of the recommendations I've read says to post your problem on the GMail Help Forum (www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail?hl=en). Go to the link at the bottom, Browse all discussions. At the top left enter account disabled and click the Search Google Help button.

Colin

[The Pecman]

Ricky brings up a good point. A lot of these email services like Google and Yahoo make it very, very difficult to complain whenever there are service outages, complaints, or suspended accounts. I actually have a paid account through Yahoo, and there's no easy mechanism with which to lodge complaints there, either.

It's true that the only way to avoid these problems is to have your own domain name and funnel all your email through it. I believe The Dude here has a way to provide email addresses for authors; I'm not sure if this still works, but maybe that's still a viable option.

[TalonRider]

Just the other day, I had an email from an author that I've worked with, sent to a few others also, that appeared to be spam. I sent back a reply to him stating that I thought someone was using his addy to send spam.

I have mailboxes available with The House. I have 4 boxes in use and two of them have been taken over by spammers. I've had as many as 50 emails hit the spam folder in one shot. I've contacted Invision about it and they say there is nothing they can do about it. As a result, Comcast won't accept any emails from the house so I had to change the contact address to my yahoo account.

[TracyMN]

I recently also had something happen to me like what is being described here.

I received an email supposedly from a trusted friend that said "you're going to love this!" and some other generic well-wish. Well, I clicked on a link that took me to another link and there I said "ok too much work" and deleted it.

A couple days later my niece sent me a note asking if I had sent her something she received saying it was from my address, which was suspiciously like the one I had received, but with a different subject line, and I hadn't sent it.

Come to find out it was possible that my whole contact list had been compromised. It was suggested I change my passwords which I did, and I didn't hear from any other folks so I just prayed everyone in the world was smarter than I was, although I'm still asking myself who, how, and why would anyone who knew how to do this would, and just as i couldn't see it coming, I know I can't begin to fathom the uses for it.

I'm all for the death penalty.

Tracy

[DesDownunder]

Because Windows 7 does away with Outlook Express, I was concerned (in light of the above) as to what is happening with scanning of my email, both sent and received.

I use Avast 4 (5 is about to be released) free anti-virus and according to their forum there is automatic scanning of the Thunderbird email client.

Yet further reading would seem to indicate some problems with gmail, yahoo and other mail sites.

I don't have a good grasp of any of this stuff, but what did seem to be an acceptable level of protection does seem to have been jeopardised by Microsoft's abandonment of Outlook Express. The replacement, Windows Live Mail, has been met with some dissatisfaction owing to apparent enforced Hotmail accounts which may or may not be required. I am confused. (yes I know that is common knowledge.)

It seems to me that it shouldn't be too difficult to detect and stop any email and attachments that might spread a virus or spamming of contacts, but obviously it is not that easy. Whilst I never click on anything from an unknown source, there is always the chance of an illegitimate email from a trusted contact who is unaware that their system has been breached.

Spammers are getting cleverer in their presentation of tempting links. I can only suggest constant vigilance on the source of emails.

Please feel free to comment.

[Trab]

What I can't understand, and it has been expressed by TracyMN, is WHY they are doing this. I can see, but disapprove of linking people to websites that may suck a small percentage of fools into paying for a service that is suspicious at best, but just creating more emails that do nothing but create further emails seems totally stupid and useless. It seems to me to be the worst kind of vandalism as there is no benefit but their satisfaction of having destroyed something worthwhile.

I had a discussion once, with someone who professed to agree with people who make virii for the internet. I called them the scum of the earth, and he maintained that they are 'doing a public service' to 'expose the incompetence of the programmers at' several different software development companies. When I maintained that this would be like deliberately causing car accidents to prove that an intersection was improperly designed, and that the fault is not with the engineers but with those deliberately causing the accidents, I couldn't get it across to him. Sadly, that is my nephew who is a sympathizer, and I was and remain sorely disappointed at this. If they put as much effort into improving the internet it would be much better for everyone.

[DesDownunder]

Well there is always the conspiracy theory that anti-virus companies make the virii so they can make money by selling their anti-virus programs. But no one would do that, would they...would they?

[Trab]

I would believe it if they actually made products that worked, but from all reports most every professional anti-virus program grinds ones computer to a halt, leaving the freebee anti-virus programs ruling the roost. In other words, where's that motivation?

[Guest Fritz]

I agree with Trab and his death penalty. I even have an easy way to handle it. Simply put a bounty on the spammers, dead or alive, with the caveat that if you kill one who isn't a spammer you will be charged with murder. A decent bounty would soon convince them that spamming is not worth the risk because there are plenty of smart people who would love to make some extra money and could figure out who is doing it. Heck, if the bounty was high enough I might even study up on how to track them down. As it is there appears to be no one really trying to catch them and even those few who are caught don't seem to suffer much of a penalty. In the end, as long as we tolerate illegal and dishonest behavior we will continue to have it whether it be spammers or other types of crooks and malcontents.

I realize that some people will say that is an extreme position and should not be adopted, but those same people can never show any means other than severe penalties that have been effective at stopping illegal behavior. Only when the risk becomes more feared than the possible rewards does bad behavior stop. I will bet you money that if the punishment for driving with a suspended driver's license was immediate execution there would be very few people willing to drive when their license was suspended.

And as long as I am on my soap box and preaching, if you complain about crimes of any kind and yet are unwilling to turn in every person whom you observe breaking laws, you are nothing more than a hypocrite. If you truly want to stamp out crime you have to be willing to do your part. And no, you do not get to pick and choose which laws to enforce. I am perfectly willing to concede that there are many bad laws in various jurisdictions, but the solution is not to ignore them but rather to change or eliminate them.

[Trab]

When I first moved to "this town" with my new job position, I found a welcoming note with my name and a swastika marker penned over top of it on the work bulletin board. I immediately called the police, and they actually took it seriously, sending a finger print team in to dust the note and staff, but they couldn't find anything. It sure put the staff on notice that I wasn't putting up with crap.

Okay, they didn't 'dust' the staff, but they fingerprinted them.

[TracyMN]

Good conversation, this.

Avast are Saints in my world, Des. And the little patience I had for forwarded messages has been reduced to the closest thing to without actually being none by the experience I related here. I can now say with all conviction that what was rarely worth the time is absolutely not worth the risk. Allowing the knowledge that this particular thing exists to cast a wide net over other possibilities has me looking at my inbox much more closely, and I will accept the loss of a single message from anyone rather than compromise the considerable number of you who are in my contact list. :-)

Trab, your referring to it as vandalism hit me like a brick, as that is exactly what it is, and looking at it from that perspective the many levels of my reaction-fear, confusion, vulnerability and anger not only make sense but are in my mind highly appropriate. Thanks for that. Vandalism is by nature a random and senseless victimization and there is no effective protection available for anyone. The consequences are for the most part individual and the associated loss rarely more than a temporary setback, but the previously limited access of a perpetrator of this crime to his/her victims is by virture of the internet, limitless. And if they were hard to catch walking around keying late model automobiles, well, you get it. One of the problems I see with the current rate of technological advancement is that we haven't solved the very real problems inherent in the predecessors and the problems often expand along with the advancement.

I agree that we live in the world we create, on the planet or inside our own skin, and that what we allow is as much a choice as what we demand. I don't however think the solution to many of societies problems will come at the hands of law enforcement, and in this situation I'd say any faith in that solution is folly. Especially when there are apparently no small number of them who consider themselves above waiting for the light to change from red to green when they have absolutely no where to be but where they are. The minute we start making excuses for bad behavior, all bets are off. The nephew who turned a virus into a favor is no worse than the cops in that car. IMHO of course.

But, if through our words and our actions we affirm what we believe, and when a situation arises where our inaction or silence amounts to complicity we choose act or make our objection known, we will create our own solutions and our own hope for a world we can truely live in. Don't underestimate the power of one person to influence another-I have been changed by the most unlikely of sources, and I remember every one of them.

I find it amazing that a member of what is probably the most hated group of individuals on Earth (the virus monger)would tell anyone they were doing it--sounds a something I saw on the news about these couple of teens who destroyed a house under construction to the tune of around a million dollars, and they videotaped themselves doing it. A parent discovered the video after hearing of the crime on the news and turned them in. Sometimes snitching is a rescue in diguise.

For now, that heaven for AVAST, and the AD forum.

Tracy

[ricky]

An update. Perhaps I owe Google an apology. I have come to find from reading through other posts that I should look for a worm. I did and found one that Macafee missed. I use their enterprise which is the same one the government uses. I did a CTL + ALT +Del and opened task manager. There in the processes list I found the little devil.

jqs.exe No clues how I got it. It burrows it's way into your java program and changes the legit jqs.exe It has a few effects on the system. It downloads a program into your system32\driver directory in windows. The program is regkill.sys. I have managed to kill both in safemode. But the remaining affect I am living with yet is that www.awesomedude.com shuts all instances of Firefox and IE regardless of what's on the other pages. I can't ssee where to fix it so I come here hat in hand apologizing to google, and trying to find someone who can tell me where to go and how to fix the issue. It is because this site is my top used link that it became the target.

I have uninstalled and cleaned the registry and re=installed FF and it remains. So the next step is to do the same with IE.

Cheers,

John

aka Ricky

[DesDownunder]

Hmm,

Regkill.sys appears to be part of the ANYDVD program. In this case it appears the reg part of the name is short for region , not registry or registration. see this entry at Slysoft, the company that makes AnyDVD.

Regkill.sys is not detected as a threat by Avast antivirus. Googling regkill.sys shows conflicting advice on the file. This is quite common or many files that are in fact, harmless. Threat Expert says it is not a threat.

So I am not certain just how safe it is. I use AnyDVD, and regkill.sys is on my system, but I am not having any of the problems Ricky has.

jqs.exe is part of java and stands for java quick start. Likewise this file is not considered a threat.

I believe any file can be taken over by a virus, but I don't see any particular evidence for either of these files being commonly used by a trojan or other virus.

Both files are on my computer but neither are running in the Task manager processes list.

I find one of the quick indicators of illegitimate activity on a computer is to look at the Task Manager Performance graph with no programs running. If you see more than 5% activity you my have an invasion from somewhere, but please allow for normal system activity -indexing and auto defrag etc., -Nothing is certain. (Most of the time my performance graph hovers around 0-3%.)

I do find Googling the name of suspect files and visiting the sites that come up to be perplexing, but it does help to make an informed decision as to what might be happening. Beware those sites which always find a threat in every file and who offer to fix it for a price. There is a lot of bogus advice out there.

Spybot also does not see a problem with either of these files.

I run the free versions of the following,

Spybot

Avast anti-virus

Winpatrol

None of these seem to use a lot of resources.

If you decide to use these programs please take the time to read their setup instructions.

If you know of other helpful programs please list them and we will scrutinise them. Sorry if that seems mistrusting, but I think we all need to be alert to the threats.

Even so, I have suffered minor infections which were detected only because they interfered with my Logitech mouse driver. If your mouse cursor becomes erratic in its movement, then you might find it worthwhile to do a complete virus scan.

Also please note; I am no expert in these matters.

[Trab]

Sadly, the mess continues to get worse. We need some firm legislation and international cooperation.

Twitter and Facebook Insecurity article

[TalonRider]

Something that I didn't mention in my earlier post is the amusement I get from some of the spam I get the house box. I'm amazed at the amount of mail that I get that comes from me.

[Hoskins]

An update. Perhaps I owe Google an apology. I have come to find from reading through other posts that I should look for a worm. I did and found one that Macafee missed. I use their enterprise which is the same one the government uses. I did a CTL + ALT +Del and opened task manager. There in the processes list I found the little devil.

jqs.exe No clues how I got it. It burrows it's way into your java program and changes the legit jqs.exe It has a few effects on the system. It downloads a program into your system32\driver directory in windows. The program is regkill.sys. I have managed to kill both in safemode. But the remaining affect I am living with yet is that www.awesomedude.com shuts all instances of Firefox and IE regardless of what's on the other pages. I can't ssee where to fix it so I come here hat in hand apologizing to google, and trying to find someone who can tell me where to go and how to fix the issue. It is because this site is my top used link that it became the target.

I have uninstalled and cleaned the registry and re=installed FF and it remains. So the next step is to do the same with IE.

Cheers,

John

aka Ricky

Hi Ricky:

Awesomedude is closing down on you because of the scrolling banner, which is Java based. I had the same issue, running Windows 7 (but Java is the same across XP or Vista or 7). My solution was to go into add/remove programs and uninstall the entries related to "java", "java runtime", or "java update x" (my terminology may be a bit off, but basically, uninstall Java). You should then be able to open AD, but you won't see the banner.

You can then go to java.com, install the latest version, and you should be good to go. My guess is that the worm nuked a critical part of Java and that's why it keeps dying on you.

P.S. I resent google too, but mainly because I truly believe they have too much knowledge about too many people in one place. Smells too "governmenty" to me.

H