[Geminiwave]

okay so my friend is having a problem with his little brother.

He keeps downloading iMesh. Or Kazaa. Or limewire. or whatever and getting TONS of spyware and he WONT STOP! We keep deleting them and telling him not to but he ignores us and there aint much we can do.

Is there a way to block this? Seriously cause I cant figure out how to do it. Any advice would be REALLY helpful cause i gotta fix this bloody thing every time I visit(im over there now)

[Zardon]

I take it you have tried the free microsoft antispyware beta? www.microsoft.com ?

[daedal]

Hmm, I guess you could block the original websites (eg, www.kazaa.com) but that wouldn't prevent him from downloading it from third party sites. If you look in the options in IE, I think you can set some parental filtering to specific words so he'd get prompted for a password when Kazaa or Limewire is displayed on-screen.

Either that or make him a Windows XP account with no rights.

[tastyweat]

Originally Posted by daedal

Either that or make him a Windows XP account with no rights.

Thats what i would advise too

[Geminiwave]

Originally Posted by Zardon

I take it you have tried the free microsoft antispyware beta? www.microsoft.com ?

what would that do for me?

No I can take care of the spyware thats not even the whole problem. His family just doesnt want him using P2P stuff AT ALL (especially not stuff like imesh that just ruins your comp)

[riles9262]

Definitely create him a limited user windows identity

[tastyweat]

Originally Posted by Geminiwave

what would that do for me?

No I can take care of the spyware thats not even the whole problem. His family just doesnt want him using P2P stuff AT ALL (especially not stuff like imesh that just ruins your comp)

Yeah... what you want to do is get them to password the main windows user account and create a second account that does not have administrative capabilities... that means he won't be able to install anything on that second user account.

[Tipstaff]

I agree with the above. Best way is to limit his access with his own account.

However, there are 2 programs I can think of that might help. The first would be Emsa Port Blocker. You can input any port you wish to block into the program.. both incoming, and outgoing.

The second one would be TerminatorX. I've seen this program being run on a fiew of my coroporate client machines, and it seems to work. This program has a simple check box system. All you do is pick the program you wish to block from the list, and it does so. Pick the users you wish to block, set a password, and your set. It's best to use this on a system that has multiple users, but you can do this with one that only has 1 user too. Only problem is that it costs $50 US. Highly bloated price.

[SFOSOK]

I say just beat him every time he does it, he'll learn eventually, like a dog

[SFOSOK]

What you could do is buy him a 200 $ computer and let him mess around on it (or convince him to). And he'll eventually solve your problem because he'll get tired of having to restore the computer and stop using it. But I mean this is only if you happen to have an extra 200 lying around and if you think it is actually worth the money to stop the annoyingness. You could always just tell him how dumb he is.

[Geminiwave]

i aint buying him anything and his parents sure arent gunna get another PC.

I think i'll try that terminX program. it looks promising.

[EcPercy]

I had this same problem recently with my sister-in-law coming over and using my Mrs's computer. I looked and it had backdoor trojans and numerous spyware/adware programs on it.

Solution? Remove the administrator group from the account and add only the users group. Then the person will not even be able to install an active-x control.

Microsoft should have gotten this right by now. I mean how hard is it to create a regular user account and an admin (root) account like linux does during the install?

[Lakevren]

Tell him that's theres something better than those Kazaa and limewire <cough>

[Geminiwave]

well I tried! HE WONT BUY IT! I even tried to teach him how to use BitTorrent.

I mean i figure if we cant get him to stop downloading crap we can at least get him to stop f-ing up the computer RIGHT?!

wrong.

hes a brat.

[Tipstaff]

Originally Posted by Geminiwave

well I tried! HE WONT BUY IT! I even tried to teach him how to use BitTorrent.

I mean i figure if we cant get him to stop downloading crap we can at least get him to stop f-ing up the computer RIGHT?!

wrong.

hes a brat.

Words do dick all. The only way he's gonna learn is through consequence. Words did squat, so the consequence should be that he loses computer privelages or access to certain things on the computer. Create a default user that automatically starts up, but doesn't allow for installing programs. When your friend wants to install programs, or make changes to the system you just switch to an account that has admin rights. If someone wants to install a program, or do something that the basic account doesn't allow for then they have to come to him first. Simple, but very effective.

[Duranix]

OR, make another user account, and make sure it has no admin rights, so he cant install stuff, and put a password lock on the account which DOES have admin rights. You have password, he doesn't. you can install things, he cant.

[md5]

Making a second limited account for him is the best solution to be honest

Also, a good thing would be to have SpywareBlaster installed. It's free and doesn't take any system resources. This program sets a "kill flag" for known spyware GUIDs in the registry, so that they won't be installed at all by Windows. This will greatly lessen the amount of crap that this kid installs on the PC.

Also, create a file named "hosts" in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc and put the following in it:

127.0.0.1 desktop.kazaa.com
127.0.0.1 shop.kazaa.com
127.0.0.1 kazaa.adserver.co.il
127.0.0.1 kazaa.com
127.0.0.1 update.kazaa.com
127.0.0.1 www.kazaa.com
127.0.0.1 www.kazaa.net.cn

This will effectively block all content and ads from the kazaa.com website (but it will still allow kazaa itself to operate, you might want to block it with the terminatorx program or with your firewall or dsl router)

[Geminiwave]

yea spyware blaster and I are VERY GOOD buddies. We get along REALLLYYYY well.

I basically make all of my friends put it on right after installing windows.

Welllll I'll talk it over with his mother later. They want me to do SOMETHING so I'll figure it out.

[mike2h]

or just kick his ass. twice.
seriously though, if it was my little brother( i know he is not yours), i would be doing something more immediate while following your plan.
as mentioned above he needs to learn consequences, while it is up to the parents for overall punishment, grounding etc, it is up to big brother to 'educate' him that messing with other people & making things difficult for them can have its own 'reward'.
& i do not mean hurt him, just some judicious use of force, or other actions (big brothers are supposed to be smarter) that 'show him the light'.

[SexPistoL]

If he has to use a P2P, get him DC++.......It's the lesser of all the evils. At least it doesn't have spy/adaware programes. Personaly I would do as most have said and only give him limited rights to the computer.