Is Hot Topic's use of "Strange Emily" copyright and/or trademark theft or not?

[Gfactor]

@Rhodes

Okay, I just copied-and pasted the URL in the OP without reading all of the follow-up, and was treated to a nice little TROJAN HORSE!

That’s nice that the ensuing discussion points out that there’s a virus, but shouldn’t the OP be edited to add “THIS URL WILL INFECT YOUR COMPUTER WITH A TROJAN HORSE!”? For those of us who foolishly attempt to read the article before reading the SD commentary?

Or can this whole thread be removed before more damage is done?

I added a note to the OP.

[Rhodes]

@Gfactor

I added a note to the OP.

Thanks. Definitely a good idea, if IMO still somewhat inadequate.

A little followup: when I went to the URL above, AVG intercepted a trojan horse. I let AVG kill it, and then began an AVG scan of my computer.

A balloon message in the lower right corner of my desktop supposedly from Microsoft Security Center or something similar claimed I had an infection. And a very legit-looking virus scanner began scanning my computer and found dozens of threats.

But the virus scanner was not AVG, it was “Antivirus System PRO” aka “SWP2009 demo” aka “sysguard.exe”. It is not a real virus scanner. The Microsoft balloon message has typo errors not typical of a real Microsoft message.

A plug-in was automatically added to Internet Explorer that automatically redirects my browser to an invalid site, making it very difficult to research what the hell is going on.

All of these items automatically load each time I restart my computer. I have to forcibly stop them using Task Manager since there is no way to exit.

And AVG, Spybot, Malwarebytes, Adaware, and SUPERAntiSpyware have all failed to remove this crap. I’m going to have to take my computer to the pros.

I intended to spend a few minutes “creatively loafing” on the dope, and instead have spent the whole workday trying to remove a virus that is resistant to AVG. This is costing my company hundreds of dollars in lost productivity.

Thanks for the warning in the OP, but I repeat that hardly seems like enough. The OP refers to a URL that immediately installs a persistant virus without any prompt or warning.

Sure seems like the URL should be deleted from the thread, or the whole thread should be deleted.

[samclem]

@Rhodes

Thanks. Definitely a good idea, if IMO still somewhat inadequate.

A little followup: when I went to the URL above, AVG intercepted a trojan horse. I let AVG kill it, and then began an AVG scan of my computer.

When I went to the link this morning, I had no response from my AVG. I wonder what difference your AVG and my AVG means?

I’m not convinced there is a malicious component to the original link.

We’ll check out some things and follow up in a bit. Thanks for your comments.

[PlainJain]

FWIW, I’ve visited that site many times in the past and have never had a problem.

Here is another site that shows both images.

Laughing Squid

[WolfpackJeep]

I’ve had some luck in posting a HijackThis log to The Spykiller. The problem was caused by a rootkit; for now, Google searching is back to normal. I’ve posted my latest logs again; I don’t think the cleanup process is finished yet.