jonny5
07-01-2005, 05:34 PM
As an ex-victim of the extremely stubborn and evil "Elite Toolbar" spyware/adware application, I have been keeping a close eye on developments pertaining to it. I noticed two extremely useful and informative threads posted on this very forum relating to ET - I was going to post and mention ETRemover (http://www.simplytech.it/ETRemover/) but you guys beat me to the punch.
That said, this post does indeed have a point.
I was infected with a rather untypical strain of ET - for some reason, the images for most of the ads that I was getting (sometimes I would get 2 or 3 per minute!) were stored on www.empnads.com. Because I didn't know what I had (none of the routine anti-spyware applications that I tried could detect it, and I use Firefox so I did not see any suspicious new toolbars in IE), I called the ISP for empads.com, ThruPort Technologies.
My first call was fruitless, but on my second attempt I connived a representative into telling me that in fact it was owned by a one "Enternet Media" - and that they actually had a web site! It can be found in all of its useless glory at www.enternetmedia.com.
This web page featured a corporate phone number, which I called. The phone was answered by a guy who told me that I had the Elite Toolbar. This proved to be about the only piece of useful information that he would give me. He directed me to "their" (he insists that he/Enternet Media is not actually affiliated with the mystery men who wrote ET) web page: www.yupsearch.com. This page appears to be a clone of a large number of other pages including www.searchmiracle.com. He directed me to the bottom of the Yupsearch page, where I could download an uninstaller. I thanked him for his time and hung up. Unfortunately, after I rebooted, new popups immediately appeared. Now I was pissed. I called him back and he became defensive, saying that he had never heard of such a thing occurring and that - get this - I must be so loaded up with spyware that the uninstall application was failing to complete.
Enternet Media had been unhelpful, but now I had the name of what I was infected by. A quick Google search hooked me up with www.simplytech.it and I was on my way.
However, I wasn't quite done with these folks. Do these people have any idea how much of other people's time they waste?
Here is what we have so far on the evil-heads that wrote this:
Address #1 (site):
Enternet Media
7334 Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Suite 106
Canoga Park, CA 91303
The domain www.enternetmedia.com as well as all of the clone search pages (searchmiracle.com, yupsearch.com, msupdater.org, etc.) were registered by the email address bhakimi@conspy.com (conspy.com is another clone search page). When I emailed him back, his name came up as bobby. Bobby Hakimi? Could this be the same bobby of bobby [1].exe?
Phone number for Enternet Media: (818) 704-1411.
I just thought that a bunch of people who had/used to have ET might be interested in this info.
Cheers, :)
-Jonny5
That said, this post does indeed have a point.
I was infected with a rather untypical strain of ET - for some reason, the images for most of the ads that I was getting (sometimes I would get 2 or 3 per minute!) were stored on www.empnads.com. Because I didn't know what I had (none of the routine anti-spyware applications that I tried could detect it, and I use Firefox so I did not see any suspicious new toolbars in IE), I called the ISP for empads.com, ThruPort Technologies.
My first call was fruitless, but on my second attempt I connived a representative into telling me that in fact it was owned by a one "Enternet Media" - and that they actually had a web site! It can be found in all of its useless glory at www.enternetmedia.com.
This web page featured a corporate phone number, which I called. The phone was answered by a guy who told me that I had the Elite Toolbar. This proved to be about the only piece of useful information that he would give me. He directed me to "their" (he insists that he/Enternet Media is not actually affiliated with the mystery men who wrote ET) web page: www.yupsearch.com. This page appears to be a clone of a large number of other pages including www.searchmiracle.com. He directed me to the bottom of the Yupsearch page, where I could download an uninstaller. I thanked him for his time and hung up. Unfortunately, after I rebooted, new popups immediately appeared. Now I was pissed. I called him back and he became defensive, saying that he had never heard of such a thing occurring and that - get this - I must be so loaded up with spyware that the uninstall application was failing to complete.
Enternet Media had been unhelpful, but now I had the name of what I was infected by. A quick Google search hooked me up with www.simplytech.it and I was on my way.
However, I wasn't quite done with these folks. Do these people have any idea how much of other people's time they waste?
Here is what we have so far on the evil-heads that wrote this:
Address #1 (site):
Enternet Media
7334 Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Suite 106
Canoga Park, CA 91303
The domain www.enternetmedia.com as well as all of the clone search pages (searchmiracle.com, yupsearch.com, msupdater.org, etc.) were registered by the email address bhakimi@conspy.com (conspy.com is another clone search page). When I emailed him back, his name came up as bobby. Bobby Hakimi? Could this be the same bobby of bobby [1].exe?
Phone number for Enternet Media: (818) 704-1411.
I just thought that a bunch of people who had/used to have ET might be interested in this info.
Cheers, :)
-Jonny5