XP – Page 5 – Paul's Tech Talk

Free Syncronization and Backup programs

PaulMarch 18, 2009

So I talked about finding some free backup utilities on the Mike Tech Show Listener Roundtable Show # 234.

I said I would publish some good free ones programs to backup your system files and I think I have done it. Here’s are some great ones that I recommend for anyone who doesn’t want to pay for a backup program:

Allway Sync — Works with Windows Vista/XP. It supports : Hard Drives, Removable Hard Drives, Network Drives, Amazon S3, FTP Server, Offsitebox.com, and WEBDAV Folder. This program is also quite portable and can be used on more than one computer with the portable version.[ad#text-broadband2]

ViceVersa — Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP, Vista. Vice Verse FREE will compare files in two folders (source and target) and synchronize file differences. There isn’t much else you can do with this but It does look to be good for small backups and older system.

Acebackups — is a powerful tool to create completely secure backups of your data. Store your data on any local storage device, on CD, DVD or on your remote FTP server!

The one I have been using that is the most useful for me is Allway Sync. I have it set up to use my [intlink id=”3059″ type=”post”]A600 Cricket Modem w/the 4 Gig Mini SD card[/intlink] to back up my [intlink id=”2646″ type=”post”]Roboform[/intlink] Passwords. I could buy the Roboform portable version and use this to keep backup’s on my hard drive. Allway Sync also has a portable version for multiple computers. I think this is the most versatile, for the needs of backup. Something that I have done is backing up my important data to a portable Harddrive, Flash drive and backing up to a ftp server to make sure I don’t loose any data. I have it set up to have redundancy. You should always have more than one backup.

In the coming Miketechshow Listener Round Table Discussion, we will be talking about backing up and the need to back. I encourage everyone to join on that discussion. I would like to know what you do with how you back up and if you back up. I’ll post the time and Date when I find out!!

Thinking back to PIFTS.EXE.

PaulMarch 11, 2009

Thinking to this very incident looks to something out of the movie “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events“. I won’t go into much detail but here is what I want answers to about the PIFTS.EXE. You see after I have read a great article talking in detail about this, I have also come to the conclusion something isn’t right.

[ad#cricket-right-ez]The blog owner known as Anshar in the forums on the Symantec points out some key events. He wanted to point out that the users who were posting were not violating the TOS and was posting questions that look to asking about this file. See screen capture of what I took. This one picture doesn’t prove his theory in whole, but does bring up some suspicions. This actually might be them trying to find a ‘scapegoat’ so to speak. He also talks about what others are asking? What is PIFTS.EXE? People seem to still have not be answered that question.

Although, in Norton’s defense there seems to be a lot of information that they have to sort through. I’ll admit this information people are asking should be really simple to find in the Symantec Databases somewhere. I will not say they are hiding anything major but I do think something is going on that we are not aware of. Here’s some other thoughts to considers? If Norton needed to find out who was using Windows 7, couldn’t they of asked or even made a simple site redirect to find that information, after all anytime you visit a site you have that information sent to the stats. I could in theory find out how many visitors are visiting from Macs and how many are on older systems. That would be very easy to do with Google Analytics.

Now with that said let’s talk about Why it took almost a whole day for them to release a public statement about what happened. I might be wrong but if I was a stockholder, I’d of demanded them to send that out ASAP instead of waiting 20 to 24 hours. Although I’m not trying to make any more conspiracy theories, I do think the Streisand effect came into effect and people are feeling like Norton did something they shouldn’t have. In which case, Norton probably made “A fail whale” attempt of making it better when they started to delete the post.

I’ve been watching the Norton forums trying to make sense of all this, and I do know that Norton have lost people’s faith in them and people are removing their product off there systems if Norton doesn’t start answering questions that need to be answered.

Norton has released the information of PIFTS.EXE and what it does. Although I am sure people are going to argue about what it does or doesn’t. I wanted to post this for people to check out and consider for yourself.

Conspiracy theories run rampent due to PIFTS.EXE

PaulMarch 10, 20092 Replies

(Looks like some of this was a 4chan gag, check my other post about it)

All of the sudden people around the World are seeing PIFTS.EXE popping up. Norton Antivirus is asking users if they want to accept it. Here what I do know:

Here’s some information I pulled from my Zone Alarm Logs. Does this make sense to anyone?
[ad#cricket-right-ez]2009/03/09 18:26:44 — New Program — PIFTS.exe — Destination IP: 67.134.208.160:80 — outgoing — blocked — Destination: ping.lifecycle.norton.com

2009/03/09 18:47:52 — Program Access — PIFTS.exe — Destination IP: — outgoing — blocked — Destination:

2009/03/09 18:48:28 — Changed Program — Windows Explorer — 207.46.248.249.80 — outgoing — blocked — Destination: sa.windows.com
[Via The Symatec Forums]

This indicates that the program tried to change tactics to go out on the net. I look a look for this and it is SwapDrive. So this must be an update to Swapdrive but I am unsure as to why it pops up that way. The other ip is in Africa or at least take the .80 out of the equation and it points to an Africa IP. (It looks to my mistake in that little part, “to error is human” Check out this post about it) Although just recently Norton Decides to Delete that thread and people are really worried about why? Is this a cover up of some sort because there is a exploit in the Wild that we don’t know about? These are good questions that need to be answered. Here is what one posted about this just after they deleted the forum thread:

As you can see people are taking this deletion on the community forum thread very seriously, they know something is not right in Denmark. I also want to point out this one:

I don’t know what Norton is up to but this is making me uneasy. If they are worried about something that they can’t explain or don’t want to explain then they have made a mistake. Some users are really worried now because Norton isn’t saying anything at all. I love this post:

As you can see people see this and are worried, I didn’t want these to be taken offline like the first post so I make physical copies to put on my blog. I want to prove to people that these actually existed. I would advise people to run Hijackthis to see if you can figure out where this is coming from. I don’t know why they would hide the truth, it will bite them in the end. Anyone want to comment on this, I am quiet curious??

*UPDATE 12:01 am 03/10/09*

Seems Norton Deleted all post about PIFTS.EXe so I don’t know what happened but This will have to come out in the open sooner or later. I just hope it isn’t going to be to late.

Update 12:15am 03/10/09*

Seems people have decided to go to the Zonealarm forums to discuss this:

You can visit there forums here. I am getting more curious about this little situation and now tempted to stay up all night watching this!!

[ad#digg-right]I also found this forum thread from BuckeyePlanet. I am seeing more and more people blogging about this. So this must be something REALLY big. Keep sending me comments if you find anything else. Don’t forget to add me on Twitter.

This looks interesting:
[ad#cricket-1]

Even more interestingly now, after posting a single post asking about PIFTS.exe, which was deleted, and a subsequent post to another forum asking about the deleted posts, which got deleted, I’ve now been blocked from creating new posts or replies on the Norton forums. They really don’t want to talk about whatever this was.

And doubly interesting — or perhaps not, who knows — not sure if this is standard practice at Symantic or what, but opening the PIFTS.exe in a hex editor shows a large section of the end of the file consists only of “PADDINGXX” repeated over and over. I’ve got some background in programming and can’t think of a good reason why you would need padding like that on a legitimate executable. However, if an executable in an update has been compromised it may require padding such as that to match the original executable’s file size or something. But that’s just pointless conspiracy theorizing that likely has no basis. It would be nice though to hear from Norton about what the **bleep** this thing is.
[Via Zonealarm Forum]

I don’t know but I suspecting an update went wrong at least from all the indications I’m seeing.

I will say you have several options available to you:

You could get a Free Anti-virus Software

You could run without An Anti-virus (Not a great option, wouldn’t suggest it)

You could do nothing and wait. (My recommendation until I find out the the full story!!)

Please let’s not start a pandemic over this, I am however worried because Norton has yet to release any public information about this? I will update as needed but please people let’s not go to OVERBOARD on this!!

Google Get’s rid of the Trend “PIFTS.EXE, no long there. It was there last night. Hmm even more questions and answers? (Click image to view it!!)

On a side note, I do not have a
ccess to this file. I’ve had a friend who told me about this and I started to investigate it and as soon as I did that Norton started to kill the messages. That when I knew it was something big. That is why I blogged about it. I do not have the program. I just know that it is being searched really hard because I’ve had more people coming to my site than usual. So please don’t ask about samples, you can comment on this or ask questions. I provide this for the community to let them know!!

(Looks like some of this was a 4chan gag, check my other post about it)

Fake Emails about Windows Support spam!

PaulMarch 9, 2009

According to Trend Micro, Some malicious software is being sent to unsuspecting users about Windows SP1 andSP2 having a error that could damage software or even hardware. See Trends blog with the photos of the fake spam.

[ad#ad2-right]Although from time to time Microsoft does send out security information to Technet subscribers people have also used this in the past to get people to install Viruses and Malware, like this one that installs TSPY_BANKER.MCL. TSPY_BANKER.MCL monitors the affected user’s online transactions and steals banking related information

Microsoft sends e-mail messages to subscribers of our security communications when we release information about a security software update or security incident. Unfortunately, malicious individuals can and have sent fake security communications that appear to be from Microsoft.

[Via Microsoft]

So if you get an email from Microsoft you’ll probably want to delete it. Any Microsoft communications will be sent from the Update center. You should never install software that is from an untrusted website. If you are concerned you should check the web and find out what people are saying about the situation and see if it is a scam or true!! Remember only you can prevent a virus or Malware!

How do you like your Cricket USB Modem?

PaulMarch 7, 20093 Replies

Lately I talked about the A600 USB 3G modem and Now I want to hear from the Readers? You see I can’t do my best reviewing these with comments from the readers, that being you.

Click the picture to send me email, just remember to replace “AT” with “@”.

So I want to hear what you think about either the USB UM100 Modem or the A600 USB 3g Modem? Here a re a few things to answer when you write your email.

Something will go to the people who email me? I want to publish some of these comments on my blog for all to read. I want to hear if what I am publishing helps you? I will even give your credit as to who wrote it. If you have a site or something you want to promote by all means add that to your testimonial. Here’s the basic questions that should be talked about:

Which one did you buy? (Cricket USB A600 or Cricket USB UM100)

Did you Upgrade from the Cricket USB UM100 to the Cricket USB A600?

Are you using it for travel or Primary internet?

Is it for business or Pleasure?

Are you happy with your choice?

Do you recommend the Modem to friends and family?

Any Situation you can think of where this has been helpful?

I am going to be asking for comments from Cricket about this also and I will be publishing this later on this month but before I do that you will have your chance to tell the company what you think of their Broadband solution. Please keep these comments family friendly, if you cuss and I publish it, be advised I will edit the cussing to be family friendly.