Internet may disappear in July ?
Offline http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/may/27/why-your-internet-could-disappear-july/
Why your Internet could disappear in July
The technical press has been trying to alert the public to an unfortunate outcome of the breaking up of a ring of computer bad guys.
Let’s go back to last fall. In November, the FBI arrested six Estonian hackers and accused them of making millions from an online advertising scam that involved fake, or rogue, DNS servers. A “domain name service” computer contains software that connects the website name that you enter into your browser as a URL with the number that pinpoints the exact location of the server you are trying to connect to. You could call it the post office for the Web.
What the bad guys did was use malware to point the browser of an infected computer to their own servers instead of the desired destination. Those “fake” destinations generated clicks on ads. Legitimate advertisers paid the bad guys as much as $14 million for all those wayward clicks.
So, after the bust, the logical thing for the FBI to do was to shut down the rogue servers.
But, wait. If they did that, the FBI reasoned, more than half a million infected machines would “point” to a DNS server that was not there. In effect, those machines would be “disconnected” from the Internet.
And the FBI knew that those half-million infected machines in the U.S. included federal agencies, such as NASA.
The FBI opted to leave the servers running, ad-neutralized, to avoid disrupting Internet functionality. To give users time to deal with the disruption, the FBI secured a court order on March 12 that authorized the Internet Systems Consortium -- a nonprofit that supports the Internet’s infrastructure -- to roll out and maintain temporary, “clean” DNS servers.
But the FBI doesn’t want to be in the DNS server business, so on July 9, the “clean” servers will be shut down. At that point, anyone still infected with the DNS malware will seem to have lost Internet service.
Computers running Linux, iOS on iPhones and iPads or Android are not affected. That pretty much leaves PCs and Macs.
The DNS Changer Working Group, which has been maintaining the servers since their seizure, has created a website, dcwg.org, that allows you to check to see if your computer is infected. By clicking a link, you will either see a message with green (you are not infected) or red (you are).
The site also has a list of free tools to remove the malware.
Some security experts say the only way to really clean your computer is to format the hard drive and reinstall everything. While that certainly will work, it is a complicated and time-consuming process.
Barry Greene, the former director of Internet Systems Consortium, says the removal tools at dcwg.org should do the job.
So check your machine for infection and clean it up if you find any. Otherwise you might wake up July 10 and wonder where your Internet went.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401227,00.asp
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*Hugs PS3*
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
NO WAY the internet disappears!
They have so many back up servers and safety valves so no worries. There's a better chance that some crazy terrorist could cause a mass blackout somewhere and even the chances of that are .000000001%
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Just use Linux.
I'm using Archlinux right now.
Even if DNSs were compromised not all would be lost: probably you have still a cache which will permit to jump the necessity of asking the ip from the name to DNSs, and even then you can enter IPs manually (if you know them). Obviously this limits the possibilities of accessing internet, but you could still surf some websites.
(There is a link on here that will take you to a place where you can check your computer. There is also a way to do it manually, but I have not figured that out yet).
http://www.kwch.com/la-fi-tn-malware-internet-fbi-20120705,0,1826867.story
As many as 64,000 Americans could be knocked offline Monday as a result of malware unless they change their DNS server addresses, according to a report.
The problem is exclusive to Windows users, but you can check if your computer is infected by clicking on this link. If you are, call your Internet provider, let its representatives know you were affected by the DNS Changer Malware and have them give you a new DNS address, which should solve the problem.
However, that link was down at least for some time Thursday morning, likely due to high amounts of traffic, so if that's the case, there are also various links on this help page to assist you in checking for the infection manually.
Google and Facebook have also been Good Samaritans and have been issuing alerts if their sites suspect infected users are logging on.
If you don't catch the infection in time, you can still fix the problem the same way. Simply contact your Internet service provider.
The problem is a result of a large online advertising scam that took over more than 4 million computers around the world.
When the FBI went in to shut down the scheme, the agency realized that turning off the malicious servers would cause infected computers to lose access to the Internet. So the FBI set up two other servers, which have been connecting infected users to the Internet, but they will be shut down on July 9 at 12:01 a.m. EDT.
As a result, 277,000 computer users worldwide as well as about 50 Fortune 500 companies could be affected by the shutdown, according to a report by the Associated Press.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno